Am I sick of bread making already? Probably not. I really love making bread, and nowadays, we hardly buy bread from the shops, only when I wasn't well and of course, I'd feel guilty afterwards.
Bread making can be boring, considering every second day, I make a white sandwich loaf.
So I alter a bit here and there, using this starter, that starter.
This time, it's the Hot Water Dough Method.
Well, I don't know what others call it really.
Hot Water dough:
100g plain flour
70ml boiling water
1/8 teaspoon salt
Mix salt with flour, and pour boiling water over it, knead into a soft dough, cover in sealed container, and leave in fridge over night.
Bread Dough:
250g bread flour
160ml full cream milk
20g butter
7g dry yeast
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Scald milk, wait for it to cool down and activate the dry yeast in there. Put dry ingredients in a big kneading bowl, salt and sugar at the bottom layer, make a well. Pour in the yeast mixture, and add the hot water dough starter. Make dough and knead in 6 minute intervals - knead and rest the dough for 6 minutes and then knead again for the best result, knead till dough is elastic and let it sit in a covered container to proof till double the size.
Shape bread, cover the top of tin with foil and press with oven proof weights.
Once it filled up the tin, bake in 190C oven for 30 minutes with the foil and weights on (the dough did get a bit strong and slid , but still a soft and fluffy loaf...
This loaf was made from the Biga Method, but I did dig up the book from Julia Child about how to bake the sandwich loaf without the lid.
She had the sandwich loaf recipe, which I use sometimes. The major problem for baking sandwich loaf at home is not the recipe, but the bread tin.
It's hard to find a proper bread tin in Melbourne. Especially for someone who works full time, a lot of professional stores don't open during the weekends. I was able to make my way to Marg and Marees in Heidelberg, which is the closest specialist shop to my home, 2 weeks ago, and bought 2 loaf tins, proper bread tins that are high enough to make proper sandwich loaf with square top.
I bought the 500g and 600g loaf tin, however there's only lid to fit the 700g tin. I don't intend to make big loaves because the children don't go through their bread that quickly and I prefer my rustic sourdoughs.
The 500g loaf tin is prefect for the Biga Loaf, and it's tall enough for me to use the Julia Child method although I didn't have a brick.
In her book, she said cover with foil, add a baking tray on top and then a brick. I added 3 heavy bread tins instead.
The result is good enough. Meanwhile, I'm still hunting down a lid for my tin.... I do find the biga loaf, texture wise, not the best for this type of shape.
