Today I suffered from baking failure. I guess it happens to the best of us, or at least that's what I hear. But when it comes to kneaded dough bread, it happens to me a lot. I have started to dive into the bread world very recently, and have not yet figured out how it all works. My breads usually turn out tasty and (there is no hiding it) very dense. Sometimes the dough wouldn't rise very much, so I progressively added more yeast at every try.
This time the dough rose beautifully, and then it shriveled down like a scared animal. I don't understand why.
These are the ingredients I used:
1 and 3/4 cup rye flour
1 and 1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached white flour
about 2 and 1/2 tablespoons fresh yeast dissolved in one cup of warm water
2 large pinches of salt
about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
a handful each of mixed oats, raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds
I kneaded the dough into a ball, placed it in a greased bowl, covered with a damp cloth and placed it into a warm oven to rise for about 45 minutes. It rose beautifully. I felt proud. Then I kneaded it again, split it into two equal parts, placed them on a floured cookie sheet and let them rise again in the warm oven, for another 40 minutes. After rising some more, the two loaves looked lovely. They cracked on the top, just like the artisan breads that sell for 5 euros at the bakery down the street. I was proud again. But my pride was quickly replaced by disappointment when the two loaves collapsed, becoming deflated proof of yet another bread failure.
I baked those two ugly things at about 185 celcius. They made the house smell nice. The smell impressed my flatmate. When they were done I thought they looked a bit too light, so, to "add some color" I turned on the upper broiler and proceeded to finish some emails. In a blink of an eye they were burned on top. I felt like an idiot.
That was that. The bread (not even sure I can call it that) actually has nice flavor though, especially toasted with some butter and tamarind jam. But honestly this process of hit and miss (miss and miss to be more precise) is frustrating to me. I want to understand why I haven't been able to get the bread thing to work. I usually get anything to work after at most the third try. I read about "active dry yeast" online, which seems easier than fresh yeast, but haven't been able to find it here in Spain. Is this my problem? Perhaps the oven is not hot enough, or too hot? I really don't know... Suggestions are more than welcome...
This time the dough rose beautifully, and then it shriveled down like a scared animal. I don't understand why.
These are the ingredients I used:
1 and 3/4 cup rye flour
1 and 1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached white flour
about 2 and 1/2 tablespoons fresh yeast dissolved in one cup of warm water
2 large pinches of salt
about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
a handful each of mixed oats, raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds
I kneaded the dough into a ball, placed it in a greased bowl, covered with a damp cloth and placed it into a warm oven to rise for about 45 minutes. It rose beautifully. I felt proud. Then I kneaded it again, split it into two equal parts, placed them on a floured cookie sheet and let them rise again in the warm oven, for another 40 minutes. After rising some more, the two loaves looked lovely. They cracked on the top, just like the artisan breads that sell for 5 euros at the bakery down the street. I was proud again. But my pride was quickly replaced by disappointment when the two loaves collapsed, becoming deflated proof of yet another bread failure.
I baked those two ugly things at about 185 celcius. They made the house smell nice. The smell impressed my flatmate. When they were done I thought they looked a bit too light, so, to "add some color" I turned on the upper broiler and proceeded to finish some emails. In a blink of an eye they were burned on top. I felt like an idiot.
That was that. The bread (not even sure I can call it that) actually has nice flavor though, especially toasted with some butter and tamarind jam. But honestly this process of hit and miss (miss and miss to be more precise) is frustrating to me. I want to understand why I haven't been able to get the bread thing to work. I usually get anything to work after at most the third try. I read about "active dry yeast" online, which seems easier than fresh yeast, but haven't been able to find it here in Spain. Is this my problem? Perhaps the oven is not hot enough, or too hot? I really don't know... Suggestions are more than welcome...
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