BPA 100: Breads Day 4; Baguette, Challah, Cinnamon Rolls

BPA 100
Day 16, Tuesday
11.25.2008

Today we began by making the baguette dough, challah dough, and cinnamon roll dough as groups in the large mixers. We also mixed cinnamon, butter, and brown sugar for the cinnamon roll filling.

Cinnamon roll dough

I rolled the dough flat to around a 1/8” thick rectangle. Spread on the sugar/butter mixture and roll up the dough like a jelly roll.

Cut 1- 1.5” segments off, round them slightly, and place them in a sprayed pan. Keep the sealed edge of dough close to the side of the pan or near another roll, insuring it will keep closed when rising. Fill the pan but allow space for the dough to rise and double. If desired you can create a sticky pecan topping by mixing some honey, brown sugar, and pecans and lining the pan with it before placing the rolls on top. This will take longer to bake and not too much should be used as it is very sweet.

The rolls will bake for around 30-40 minutes; they should sound hollow and be golden brown when finished. If the rolls in the pan with the pecan topping are done on top, flip the pan over onto a sheet tray and remove the pan and put the tray back in the oven. This will give the bottom a chance to bake through.

The challah we braided today was of varying sizes, some people used 4 braids, others used 8, and I used 6. I didn’t follow a traditional braid but instead created one of my own.
We also scaled out our ingredients for puff pastry for our next class.

BPA 100: Breads Day 3; Poolish Baguette, Brioche, and Challah

BPA 100
Day 15, Friday
11.21.2008

Poolish Baguette, Brioche, and Challah

The strain of yeast that we use is SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE, sugar/ starch eating yeast. It is available as compressed, active dry, and instant. Compressed yeast makes a better product because of the oven spring. It has a shorter shelf life and is not widely available. Instant yeast has the water removed. Active dry has most of the food and water removed and needs to be rehydrated to use.

Stages of bread making
-Scaling- correctly scaled ingredients is important

-Mixing- kneading, dough hook, spiral hook, nice gluten development. Most of dry ingredients- flour, sugar, dry milk solids, yeast, preferments, starters, liquids- water, milk, ice, etc. Mix slow speed 3 minutes.

-Autolyse stage- use in artisan breads- hydrate starch in water increases the strength of dough, gives darker color, and reduces mixing time.

-Add salt and mix on speed 2 for 6 minutes or longer depending on dough

-Stretch gluten for window pane test- brioche dough took 10 minutes of mixing, challah 12 minutes

-The fat is the last thing to be added to the dough; liquid fat- oil, or softened butter

-The fat coats the strands of gluten and gives a nicer mouth feel

-Bulk fermentation- the yeast is eating, the gluten is relaxing, alcohol and CO2 are being produced, the dough doubles in size, the gluten strands stretch because the yeast is eating the sugars.

-There are 4 variables- Room Temp, Flour Temp, Preferment Temp, and Water Temp
DDT is 72˚-78˚. DDT 72 X 4= 288
Friction Factor- 2˚-3˚ X minute of mixing

-Punch down dough- the yeast multiplies when it is eating. Punching increases the strength and redistributes the yeast and CO2 in the dough. It brings the gluten back to its original state. Some heat is developed- the action redistributes the heat to make it even again

-Portion- cut into smaller pieces, gluten is still dense

-Preshaping- rounded doughs or rectangles, let gluten relax

-Benching- kept on table, allow to relax

-Make up/ panning- shape, put into pan- pan for focaccia, couche for baguettes, loaf pan for Pullmans

-Proof- final stage before oven, done at lower humidity- baguettes at room temp

-Baking- score/slash/punch holes (focaccia), egg wash, steam wash, starch wash, milk wash. Let bake in oven

-Cooling- want no humidity condensing on doughs- put on cooling racks

-Storing- at room temp in parchment, in canvas, a paper bag. The dough is still living and will have fungal growth if not properly stored. Freezing is ok. Starch retrogradation strongest at 40˚- if put in the cooler.

Poolish baguette starter in the mixer


Baked baguettes



Braiding Challah
-Challah in 62 g strands

-Roll each strand out and braid them together. The braid will have tapered edges; pinch the ends to seal them closed. Don’t make the braid to tight, the dough has to expand. It will double in size. The more strands there are the nicer it looks.

Challah dough

Use a yolk and cream egg wash after it has proofed; this will give a nice dark color when baked. If you do it before proofing it will not expand. Proof for 45 minutes, brush with the wash, and bake.

EPI- French bread made of baguette dough. Cut to ¾ depth with a scissors half way through the proofing. After baking becomes communal bread easy to rip off one piece and pass it down the table.

Brioche a Tête- rounded ball- rounding makes the dough tight and compact. Spray the mold with pan spray. Make a small “head” for the top. Flatten the dough into the mold, push a hole into the middle and put the little ball on top. The mold is filled 2/3 high with dough, when it rises it will fill the mold. We also used another mold that works the same as the Pullman, a german tree cake mold. You press the log of dough into the mold and latch it together for proofing and baking.

Brioche Nanterre- in regular loaf pan, arrange 5 balls of dough in the pan, size varying depending on the pan, as it proofs they fuse together and fill the gaps.

Pain au Rasin- brioche dough rolled flat with pastry cream or egg wash brushed on top, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rasins, rolled together like a jelly roll. Slice into 1 inch pieces and bake.