The Winter Sports

 

Sorry for the not-so-great image quality, but the window I shot this photo from is really filthy. And it's been too Freezing to clean it. Still. You get the gist. We got a few inches of snow today (what the Mainers call a dusting), and the birds are hard at it. And yes. That is the rear end of a very groundhog-like squirrel, noshing away on the ground seed. It's ok. We can share. Bird seed is part of our winter entertainment budget!

On the indoor sports front, though, I decided to test a hypothesis I had on bread baking. I couldn't quite do a controlled experiment, but it was close. Also, I did the math on how much it costs to make bread, minus my labor. Using King Arthur AP bread flour, and grocery store yeast, it costs me about $1.50 (including the electricity for the stove) to make a loaf of rustic bread.

So. This experiment started with an elongated ceramic bread cloche that I got years ago (and gave to my daughters as well). I felt like I wasn't getting the same quality of crusty bread from it that I got from my cast iron dutch oven. Was it true? If so, why? There are 2 possible reasons.

1. The ceramic cloche has different heat holding capacity than the cast iron.

2. The shape (round vs. oblong) changes the way the bread cooks.

Oops. And there is a third possibility. With the cloche, I usually use a piece of parchment to transfer the dough to the hot cloche. Was Not using a flour dusted towel causing a difference?

I realize that this little experiment may not fascinate you all, so feel free to ignore the rest of this if it makes you want to curl up and go to sleep!

Onward. In the following images I'll show you what I did. I'll finish this post with my conclusions. I know. The suspense is killing us all. 

 

Above is the freshly mixed dough. . .made as identically as I could.

To the left is the dough rising, again keeping conditions as identical as possible. 

 

 

After the rises (see recipe at the bottom), I formed the loaves and let them rise again. Note that one is oblong, the other a boule.

After cooking to the left. Be still my heart.

 

And the real test, cutting into the loaves. I should be much fatter than I am. . . 

But here are the results

1. The crust on the boule was a little thicker and tougher than on the loaf. Not a bad thing, but enough to notice.

2. The interiors of the two loaves were indistinguishable from one another. They had the same mouth feel, the same knife resistance, and the same number of larger and smaller holes

3. The taste was also the same for both the boule and the loaf.

So. My hypothesis that either the shape of the loaf (vs boule) or the heat holding capacity of the two covered vessels was dead wrong. I'm certain (with a p(F) value of .05) that the difference I perceived between bread from the cloche vs. the dutch oven is due to the use of parchment paper rather than using a heavily floured cloth for the final rise is the culprit. Science. Works. 

Drop the mike.