/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>5082385
Here's some more.

>>4853766
I can't say I ever proof my pitas. Mostly just rolled out and then straight into a blistering hot oven. I'm sure proofing would be fine, though. A proof of 20-30 minutes should be sufficient for such a thin bread.

>>4853830
I do use vital wheat gluten from time to time. Mostly when using flours that don't have much gluten content, like rye, oatmeal, quinoa, etc. It helps support a little more oven rise, but it won't give you the open crumb structure you're looking for. There's almost no way to get that sort of crumb structure with a bread that is heavy on the whole grain flour, since the bran gets in the way of gluten formation. Adding more gluten isn't going to solve that fundamental problem.

>>4744946
Thanks, bud. I actually used to do quite a bit of R&D consulting for medium and large format bakeries, and I understand what you're saying about not wanting to take your work home with you. I always found that when slashing in the bakeshop, I was able to get much nicer, more consistent slashes because I could settle into a groove after 20-30 loaves. At home, I only bake 1-8 loaves at a time, and I never really get into that same groove, which probably explains some portion of the variability in my slashing patterns. I'm also always fighting the inherent difficulties of baking at home: no real proof box, home oven, etc. I'm glad to be able to make my love of baking bread back into a hobby, though. It's much more enjoyable that way.

Clearly I got lazy with shaping/slashing and WAY underestimated the amount of rise I would get out of these baguettes.

Anybody bake anything good recently?