- 350g Matthews Cotswold YQ Population flour
- 350g Matthews Cotswold Strong White Flour
- 525g water – 75% hydration
- 14g salt
- 10g yeast
- Autolyse 30 min.
I decided to repeat my recipe of two loaves ago, which was the first time I used the dough hook on my Ankarsrum mixer. I wanted to see if I could get a bit more oven spring by kneading a bit longer. Since, the last time, after 12 minutes, the dough was fairly slack, I tried an additional three minutes in the mixer. The dough was much denser than last time, even climbing up the dough hook a bit. I felt like adding some more water, but decided not to. When I took the dough out of the mixer, it felt fine: loose enough and quite stretchy, so the gluten had developed well.
The kitchen was 23.5º, and I let bulk fermentation go for about 30 minutes. Oven at 200º, as usual, 25 minutes with the cloche on, 20 minutes off.
This was a very successful loaf. The crumb is lovely, and the texture is excellent. There was more oven spring in this loaf than the previous one: I’d say it’s about an inch taller, and there’s more spread where I scored the top of the loaf. Is this due to the extra kneading? Was the dough denser during kneading because of humidity in the flour? Enigmas. No two loaves turn out the same, even with the exact same recipe. (Unless you’re a professional baker, and can ensure that everything is exactly the same each time you bake bread.)
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