The hydrogenated difference?

This next loaf is going to be very similar to the first couple loafs that I made. The only difference is going to be that I am only using 220 mg of water (at 37.5 deg C) and, surprisingly, margarine. I didn't choose to use margarine this time for any other reason other then all of my butter is frozen.

One thing that is new aside from the butter is that I tried to use as few dishes as possible when I made this. I only used a small piece of saran wrap a single spoon and a small plastic container.

The idea is that I am trying to cut down on the amount of dirty dishes that I generate.

Now right after I put this in the mixer I started to read up on the effect of water temperature on dough. I think I've been doing this all wrong!

I have been using fairly hot water. And it is entirely possible that the water is just too flaming hot for its own good!

Now, according to The Accidental Scientist the recommended water temperature for bread machines is 21-27'C. I'm nearly 10 degrees hotter than the upper limit! YIKES!

So, this recipe is nearly identical to the last one, with the exception that I actually put the fat in it.

Water: 220.0 grams @ 37.5 <- Up from 210 grams
Bread Flour: 330.0 grams
MARGARINE: 26.00 <- WOAH is me! I had to use the fake stuff!
Sugar: 15.0 grams
Salt: 7.61 grams
Yeast: 3.650 grams

Pictures are forthcoming.

A Culinary Turd

Well,

I'm afraid I really screwed the pooch on this one. Now, I'm not going to name any names on this. But someone may have forgot to add to butter to this. And what a difference it made. And someone may have touched the amazingly sticky dough and screwed up the rising... Not mentioning any names though.

Here is the recipe I used:

Water: 220.0 grams @ 37.5 <- Up from 210 grams 

Bread Flour: 330.0 grams

Butter: NONE <- Someone may have dropped the ball..

Sugar: 15.0 grams

Salt: 7.61 grams

Yeast: 3.650 grams

Now, the loaf was a reasonable consistency and would have been quite tasty had it not been molested by some dumb-ass trying to remove the paddle. It may have even risen properly!

I didn't take any pictures of this train wreck, so you'll just have to take my word on it.

Le sigh. You live and learn.

Big failure

Alright!

So, today I'm basically copying the previous recipe with only some small changes to it. I've decided to go with 210mg(ml) of water. Now, I could tell that the bread maker was starting to get angry at this change. I've noticed in the past that my machine would start to labor if I didn't have enough water in it.

I'm guessing that it was all about how soft it made the dough? Maybe?

Alright here is the recipe I used:

Water: 210.0 grams (I basically used hot water from the tap)  <- Down from 230 grams

Bread Flour: 330.0 grams

Butter: 25.75 grams <- Down from 26.35

Sugar: 15.0 grams

Salt: 7.61 grams

Yeast: 3.650 grams

In reality the yeast was slightly off and so was the salt. But, the loaf doesn't appear to be sensitive to minor changes of those two items, so I wasn't too worried about recording the 10-20mg difference.

I'll post pics and heights when it is out of the maker!

Staggering Result!!

Well, it is a little hard to see from the picture, but the loaf came out 2 cm lower than the previous loaf. It was a staggering 4.5cm from the top of the pan.

It was a denser, and slightly chewier loaf. The outside of it was fairly crisp and it had a pleasant flavor. The 24 and half dollar question is whether the density was affected by the lower water quantity or if it was caused by me using too hot of water.

I'm going to make a loaf that has the same water, just a known temperature. Maybe that'll fix the height issue?

Bread and pie!

Hello again!

Tonight I got Emily to try and replicate the results of the last loaf. We've made some small changes to it and recorded a bit more data!

Today's recipe:

Water: 230.0 grams at 37.5'C  <- Down from 250 grams

Bread Flour: 330.0 grams

Butter: 26.35 grams <-Up from 26

Sugar: 15.0 grams

Salt: 7.61 grams

Yeast: 3.650 grams

The main change was the amount of water. It wasn't as wet and soggy as it was last time. I would say I'm on the right track at the moment. I'm thinking for the next loaf I'm going to reduce the water ever so slightly more to maybe around 215.

One thing I've noticed is the cell size is quite small.

 

So, what is this picture below?

Well, I decided I was also going to make some cherry tarts/mini pies.

Now, I realize that this isn't Etsy/Pintrest quality pie. First thing to note is that I accidentally over baked them by about 20 minutes. The pie crust was actually quite nice. It had many layers and was nice and flaky.

This was a prime example on how why you should measure your ingredients by mass. The original recipe called for 1/4 Cup "Ice Cold Water". Now, due to the fact that many old measuring cups just called a "cup" 250ml I've used that as my base line. In reality 1 Cup = 236.49 grams (or mL in our imperfect world).

Something that was fairly apparent to me was that if I had actually used 1/4 cups of water, I would have had used ~59 grams of water. But, it ended up being a lot more than that after all was done.

Here is the recipe I used:

Pie crust  recipe:

Water: 86.3 grams at 4.0'C  

Bread Flour: 206.0 grams <-- Bread flour for a pie crust?!?! Save us from the madness!

Butter: 115 grams

Sugar: 15.0 grams

Salt: 1.8 grams. 

All in all this would have been a nice and flaky and very buttery crust had I not boned the baking of them!

As well, the filling was bought at "Bulk Barn", and was quite tasty. Although, I would have preferred to have a higher cherry density. 

Loaf number 2, with cheese!

I just started another loaf. I used the same recipe and quantities, and am now starting the process. There is one exception in quantities though, I have increased the butter.

Here we go!

Today's recipe:

• Water: 250.0 grams
• Bread Flour: 330.0 grams
• Butter: 26.00 grams <-Up from 22.5
• Sugar: 15.0 grams
• Salt: 7.60 grams
• Yeast: 3.650 grams <-Up from 3.57

The yeast was as close as I could make it. Turns out 0.08 grams of yeast is not very much and I just gave up trying to nail it.
However, 3.5 grams of butter is actually a fairly significant amount. I'm curious to see what this will do to it. The one thing I'm going to do differently this time is get the loaf out of the pan faster. It was certainly a mistake keeping it in the pan after it was done. It caused the moisture in it to condense and create a "wet" loaf.
I'll keep you posted!

My first loaf!

For today's loaf, I wanted to start off with nice round numbers.

Here is my data for today's loaf:

1. Water: 250.0 grams
2. Bread Flour: 330.0 grams
3. Butter: 22.50 grams
4. Sugar: 15.0 grams
5. Salt: 7.60 grams
6. Yeast: 3.570 grams

I'm going to record the darkness, heaviness, and height of the loaf. As well I've got other less interesting metrics that I'm recording such as the machine loaf setting and machine darkness.
I am also thinking that I should measure things like loaf density by making a jig to cut a "perfect slice". But, I believe that I can calculate out relative fluffiness by generating a number based upon the total weight of ingredients, and the height of the loaf.

Comments? Suggestions?

Let's get this party started!

Hello everyone!

I've decided to start this blog in order to help document my endeavor of trying to be able to make a loaf of bread.

"Well, IIIIIIII've got a bread machine and I can make a perfectly good loaf" says you.

Really? Can you customize the loaf? Do you know what adding or subtracting water will do? How about if I took away your measure spoons and cups and gave you a different set? Would you get the same loaf? Could you repeat your loaf?

And that is why I've created this. I learned that measuring cups are wildly inaccurate. A "cup" of water is anywhere from 210ml-270ml depending on which measuring cup I used at my house. A "cup" of flour measured anywhere from 140-180mg! That is a pretty large margin of error.

So, what I've endeavored to do is to:

1. Use weights instead of volume
2. Document the daylights out of what I make.
3. Record the results
4. Repeat to verify.

What I'm using :

A scale capable of measuring in grams

A scale capable of measuring in 10 milligram or better.

Various containers to measuring and holding the ingredients.

A "Philips" bread maker.

A thermometer. (Mines missing)

Excel - To document

What to expect :

Umm bread?

How you can help :

I want you to give this a try and tell me how it went. Post pictures. More importantly, post data. I want to know everything about what you did, and how it turned out.

Let's get this party started!