I made another loaf of HFW bread yesterday. I thought I'd work on my bread learning curve, and there was too much random dashing about to make it to the shops.
I really should do a First Impressions post on the River Cottage bread book but in the meantime, here's what I've learnt from my two goes at Hugh-style bread.
As I've said previously, it was the kneading technique that I was particularly interested in, despite it's initial stickiness, and although the bread came out quite well, I felt that the crumb could have been lighter. I put this down to too wet a dough (there's a helpful little table of what-went-wrong diagnostics in the book) and probably not enough kneading.
So yesterday's brainwave was to do the initial kneading with my hand mixer and dough hooks, then give it a final 5 minutes by hand. I think I spent maybe 10 minutes with the mixer - thinking all the time, please don't over heat and die on me, please...
The book (I keep saying the book and not HFW because he only wrote the intro - but this is not a Bad Thing) says that if the dough is well kneaded you should be able to stretch it thin enough so that you can see light through it. Well, I tried that and it didn't work, but I did do the thumb test I learnt years ago (press a floured thumb genrly into the dough and if it rises back up at you, it's ready) and that worked. Also I didn't want to over-knead the dough.
My second new tactic was to leave the dough to rise inside a bin liner, which I blew into to inflate a little. I don't know which bit of that did the trick but the dough rose like an angel, and was an enormous improvment on the first attempt.

I know I should have taken a before photo too but I forgot. But believe me, it certainly doubled in size and pretty quickly too.
It also got rather enthusiastic once it went in the tin.

The top of the dough was below the edge of the tin when it first went in, honestly.
I think I left it for an hour to prove and then another hour in the tin.
I did worry a bit that it was going to rise so enormously once I baked it that it stuck to the roof of the oven but that turned out to be a bit over-dramatic.

This time I increased the amount of dough I used for the loaf. Last time I used half the dough and made 6 rolls with the rest. Coupled with the fact that the bread didn't rise well, it made for a pretty flat loaf (although the rolls rose for Britain). This time I used three quarters of the dough for the loaf and made 4 rolls (if you're wondering where they are in the photo, I can tell you they'd already been eaten by the time I took it!).
I suspect that the baking technique also helps. You put the bread in the oven at it's highest possible setting then turn it down after 10 minutes. That (plus having a tray of water on the floor of the oven to make steam) gives the dough a final oomph to rise.
But the best thing was that the bread turned out more like proper baker's bread than I have ever managed before. Lots of fine holes, no solid rubbery-ness and a crust which didn't need a chainsaw to get through (both of which I used to get a lot with Grant loaves). I only hope I can replicate it in the future.
Briefly, the recipe went like this:
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StashAvalanche's River Cottage bread (adapted from the River Cottage Bread Handbook)
900g strong white bread flour
100g extra coarse wholemeal (I've only ever seen this in Ireland and I like it a lot, but you could use all white flour if you like)
14g dried quick acting yeast (you're supposed to use 10g but I had two 7g sachets so I threw them both in)
10g salt (but I think a bit more wouldn't have gone a miss)
a handful each of linseed, sunflour seeds and pumpkin seeds
600ml warm water
a big glug (about 2 -3 tbs) olive oil
Mix the dry ingredients together then mix in the water. Once you have a rough dough, add the oil and knead it with a machine and dough hooks for about 10 minutes. If you're using a hand mixer, be prepared for a bit of a fight and don't let the motor get so hot that it burns out (StashAvalanche accepts no responsibility for dead hand mixers!).
Once it looks reasonably handleable and is no longer sticky, turn it out on to a lightly floured board or clean table and knead it by hand for another 5 minutes or so.
Shape the dough into a round and as you do this, try to tuck the sides under, which in turn stretches the top. This is an RC technique for stretching the gluten in the dough (which is what you're aiming for with all that kneading too). Oil your hands and give the dough a quick rub all over (to stop it sticking to the bowl) then put it in a bowl inside a clean bin liner (or something similar) or failing that cover the bowl with clingfilm. I also put a bottle in my bin bag to raise the 'roof' and stop the dough potentially sticking to the bin bag as it rose.
Depending on the room temperature, leave the dough for anything between 1 - 4 hours to double in size. The slower the rise the better, so don't be tempted to sit it over the radiator. You can even leave it somewhere cool over night if that suits you better. Mine took about an hour.
Tip the dough back onto the work surface and gently prod it so that it goes back to about the size it started at. I made a 2lb loaf and 4 rolls, so I cut the dough so that there was three quarters for the loaf and a quarter for the rolls.
Gently shape the loaf dough until it is about 8" long and as wide as the loaf tin, the roll it up (like a swiss roll), tuck the sides under (all this to stretch the gluten) and put it in the tin. I've found that although I've had to oil and flour the tin when I made Grant loaves, I can just bung this dough in a clean tin and get practically no sticking whatsoever.
Divide the roll dough into 4, and shape into rounds - again tucking the sides under (like you did before proving). Then put everything back in the bin bag and leave it for another hour or so.
When you're ready to bake, put a roasting tray on the oven floor then turn the oven up to it's highest setting. My oven goes up to about 240C. Just before you are ready to put the bread in, boil half a kettle of water.
You can cut a slash diagonally or longitudinally along the top of the loaf if you like before you bake it. This cuts the top layers of gluten and as the top splits, more space is created for the dough inside to expand (more RC wisdom there for you!).
This bit is optional too but spraying the dough with water before you put it in the oven is supposed to help the final rise. Then pull the roasting tray out just enough so that you can fill it with the boiling water, put the dough in the oven and shut the door quickly to keep as much steam in as possible.
After 10 minutes check the bread to see how quickly it is browning (don't open the oven door before this as you want to keep as much steam in as possible). Mine was already quite toasty in places so I turned it down to about 175C (if it's only pale-ish keep the oven perhaps 10 - 15 degrees hotter - it will all depend on how your oven behaves). The rolls spent a total of 15 minutes in the oven; the loaf had 40 minutes then I turned it out of the tin and gave it another 10 or so upsidedown with the oven turned off. You're supposed to be able to tell if bread is cooked when it sounds hollow when tapped but this can be misleading and I felt a bit dubious when I checked it the first time.
Allow the bread to cool on a wire rack or propped up so that as much surface asrte is exposed as possible. I left the rolls on the baking tin and the crust on the bottom went all soft from the steam so I had to put them bak in the oven for a couple of minutes to crisp up again.
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I know that felt like it went on for ages, but believe me, that was the short version compared to the amount of detail you get in the RC book! I know it sounds like a terrible cop out, but I think I'm sold on the machine-knead-first approach. I just hope it works as well next time. When I am rich and famous (yes, you are allowed to laugh) I will get myself a Kenwood Chef but until then I will have to cross my fingers every time I use my hand mixer and hope the tenacity of the dough doesn't kill it too quickly.
Foof! Now then: lunch and some serious studying...
[added 24-11-10) You can find the original River Cottage recipe here and if you like HFW, also have a look at his other recipies on Channel 4 and the River Cottage website