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Re: This and That

"Jazzbel" <jazzbell@coralwave.com>
Mon, 4 Aug 2003 15:06:16 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
v103.n034.7
Ed Okie said:

>Read any book, magazine, or recipe, and the advice about dough mixing is 
>near-universal: Do it 6 minutes, 8, 10, or more. Some suggest the "window 
>pane" test for checking "proper mix". Others use the descriptive phrase 
>"until smooth as a baby's bottom."

Jazzbel: I always imagine Ed Okie in spectacles, white lab coat, and a nerd 
pad while baking his bread. I agree partially with his posts, and it is 
true that his method will work for many rustic breads, pizza, foccacia, 
french bread, but for a classic pain de mie, which slices very thin with 
minimal crumbs, well, I will still knead for the longer period.

The window pane test is too troublesome forme, so I prefer tojudge by the 
baby' bottom.

Anita says:
>I order it in 25 pound bags and make my own bread flour.

Jazzbel: That is an interesting recipe you present here, but I suppose that 
it would be more useful for perons who mill their own flour, as many 
commercaial brands of bread flour are already treated with ascorbic acid 
and some contain the malt as well.  Commercial flours contain a variety of 
grains and, when using a good brand, you will end up with consistent 
results I use the Robinh Hood All-Purpose or Better for bread and it turns 
out beautifully.

Loma said:
>I was chatting to a chef at our local pizza place, and he said that the 
>benefit was that you didn't need to leave the dough to prove overnight 
>before use. I know it's not high gluten/bread flour as he was most 
>scathing about the stiff dough which results if you try to use that.


Jazzbel:
I do not think that the flour really has any special role in pizza dough.

It is really the water and oil in it. For pizza, all you have to do is mix 
flour, water, little bit of oil and salt, and yeast.  You can actually make 
as slack as you want , and use very little yeast then simply give it time 
to rise.

As for the refrigerator, why would you give up that.  Make the dough the 
night before, grate the cheese the night before.  When you get home from 
work , it takes 5 minutes to assemble (the dough needs not come to room 
temperature, and it will stretch easily, as Ed Okie recently demonstrated, 
and you can take a bubble bath while it bakes.

Susannah said:
>Ladies and Gents, I'm working on finding out about dough conditioners, but 
>I need to know what kind we're looking for. LeSaffre actually makes 10 
>kinds of dough conditioners.

Jazzbel:  Are you considering dough conditioner for baking in a bakery? 
Truly, I can do without all commercial dough conditioners.

For example, I have make par-baked dough, so would never need such 
conditioner.  Also, the description by the manufacturer means nothing to me.

I would demand to know what is in it, as chemicals such as potassium 
bromate are banned in many countries.

Later,
Jazzbel