For the bakers amongst us!

That is terrible... If there were real bakeries close to me I would miss fresh baked bread less alas, I'm in the suburbs and all the bakeries are either Panera or a super market. Just not even close.

 

Gotta figure out how to attach photos, but here's our everyday bread and rolls, buttermilk biscuits, and PIZZA!

 

For desert tonight... Decided to make some traditional strawberry shortcakes. Sliced strawberries in a light sugar syrup, whipped cream, and shaved some milk, and 80% cacao chocolate, icing sugar dusting.

 

Holy cow, those look great.

 

Guys these breads has grow in strange way in my oven. It's like growing most in the middle. What can be the reason?

 

Could the seam of the loaf be on top, rather than at the bottom of the pan?

 

You need to score your bread. There's a good tutorial here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10121/bread-scoring-tutorial-updated-122009

Your bread is going to expand when you bake it and find a weak point to grow, so you score it to control where it expands. Otherwise you can get wonky-shaped loaves if they rise enough.

 

BTW--those are some dirty pictures, Pierre. My butt got bigger just looking at them.

 

Well, I could lie, and say they didn't taste as good as the look, but that would be a lie.

I used a traditional recipe for the short cakes (early 1900's). It wasn't as tender as I would have liked. Not sure if I over worked it, or this is the way it is supposed to be. Not a total fan of the cake based short cakes. This is the first time with this recipe. The hunt continues!

Any tips or recipes appreciated!

 

Underproofed. Let them rise more before baking. Also scoring the tops will help. The tool is called a nape but it is just a bent double edged razor blade on a wooden coffee stir stick... Also your oven does not heat evenly. The hottest spot is the middle hence your middle loaf being bigger and darker. Some people go to great lengths to overcome that with ceramic tiles on most of the sides of the oven. A big cermic tile underneath your bread would be beneficial.

 

Nice loafs Bieniek. They must be damnnnn good

 

Beautiful! Sourdough?

 

I'm ready for work to slow down so I can get back on learning to bake. My partner has a couple of breads she is good at, I have a couple I can do, and we can both make biscuits, but we both want to get better. Much steeper learning curve than cooking

 

Thank you

Yes indeed. Plain white + pumpkin seeds

 

My first baguetes

 

Nice, looks like you had some oven spring. I find the timing tough to nail, to have the dough hit the hot stone, just as the rise peaks.

 

Can you tell me what you mean by oven spring?

 

Oven Spring is putting the item into the oven with the heat either too low or too high after opening the door. The oven gets too hot trying to catch back up and overheats the dough for a few minutes. Some recipes you can anticipate it or even call for it.

It looks more like you need to let rise a few more minutes or an air pocket didn't get knocked out when rolling them.

 

Oven spring, as I read it in Peter Reinharts book, is the gain in loft the loaf gets, as the gas pockets expand, and steam pressure expands the crumb structure of the bread. It's what gives a loaf that lightness (as opposed to dense) and the reason you cut slits in the loaf to control expansion.

Definition:
The sudden increases in the volume of a dough during the first 10–12 minutes of baking, due to increased rate of fermentation and expansion of gases.