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08-24-2006, 03:32 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 12
| |  need help with french bread
I'm baking AT HOME. NO STEAM OVEN. That said, is it possible to get quality results. I use bread flour, dried yeast, table salt and water, nothing else. I just can not seem to get that thin brittle crust that I'm looking for. I've tried: cast iron pan on the floor of the oven with ice cubes thrown in as bread goes in, very long oven pre-heat, etc. but no real nice brittle crust. Please help. |
08-24-2006, 05:38 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Pensacola, FL
Posts: 237
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I honestly can't think of anything that could possibly help with this.
I know at school we didn't have steam injectors in our oven so we had to stand with the door cracked and a spray bottle going at it... Granted it was a rather large gas oven so it could afford to lose some heat.
Give that a try, but try not to blame me if it doesn't work....please? 
Good luck. |
08-24-2006, 09:15 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada,
Posts: 354
| | Help with French bread.
Remember they have different flour in France, plus you may do better
using a sourdough starter...... qahtan |
08-24-2006, 09:57 AM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Line Cook | | Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lake Louise, Alberta
Posts: 503
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I use the squirt bottle method with the electric oven. Since a lot of heat is lost when the door is open, turn it up to 500 at the very beginning.
So, Preheat to 500, insert bread. Wait 30 seconds, open and squirt the walls of the oven about 7 or 8 times, close quickly, repeat this two or three more times then bake as normal. |
08-24-2006, 11:05 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada,
Posts: 354
| | Help with French bread
I am married to an electrician, and there is no way that he would let me spray / squirt water onto the hot walls of my oven.
:-( qahtan |
08-24-2006, 12:28 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: Owner/Operator | | Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 3,104
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Kyle,
Has turned making atisan breads at home into a scientific process. He will pop on and guide. Probably a change in formula(flour) and proofing and steaming. |
08-24-2006, 12:54 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: I Just Like Food | | Join Date: May 2006 Location: USA
Posts: 843
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What about little pans of water in with it to produce steam for the time needed? |
08-24-2006, 01:22 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 376
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I ordered a pan from King Arthur Flour "The Baker's catalog" that does help produce a crusty bread at home. Haven't looked at the catalog for awhile but they seem to carry products along time. |
08-24-2006, 05:35 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Rome, Italy
Posts: 825
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Please please buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking volume two by julia child, she teaches everything in a way that you can't fail
her method is to heat the oven really hot, with a pan of water at the bottom and a brick in it on the shelf, or on teh base of the oven.
when you put the bread in, you put the brick (which should be hot by that time) into the hot water and close the oven, and it steams all up.
Another way that actually works but you can't get a baguette shape, is Laurel's kitchen method, where you bake the bread in a covered heavy casserole. Cornmeal the outside of the dough, or grease and cornmeal the casserole, and let it do the final rise in the casserole. With the oven very hot, before putting the bread in, when it's totally risen, throw three tablespoons of water over the top of the bread and close the cover. That will form steam inside the casserole and you will get that crispy crust, with large cornflake sized pieces of crust that curl up slightly. Amazing.
Of course, the best is to use a wood-burning oven, because it produces steam naturally, but you'd have to build that in your garden, if you have one.  |
08-24-2006, 07:03 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada,
Posts: 354
| | Help with French bread
Last edited by qahtan; 08-24-2006 at 07:09 PM.
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08-24-2006, 07:24 PM
|  | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: San Francisco
Posts: 1,170
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Steaming serves two purposes:
One is to keep the crust from setting up too quickly which allows for "oven spring", that is, it lets the bread rise to it's full capacity.
The other purpose is to create that wonderfull crust.
Commercial deck ovens have three heat sources - top, bottom and back - and often times a steam injector as well. Manipulating all of these produces really good bread. Obviously residential ovens cannot get close to that.
Blueicus has the best suggestion - heat the oven really high to compensate for rapid heat loss when the door is opened and spritz it with a squirt bottle (but don't tell Gahtan's husband  ) two or three times at 30 second intervals. Then turn the heat down to the proper baking temperature and go from there.
I don't think it is possible to produce a commercial quality crust at home but this will be close.
I've heard bakers say that throwing ice cubes in a hot pan in the oven lowers the temperature too much and they don't recommend it. But then, some others do so it comes down to what works for you as it so often does in the culinary world.
Jock |
08-25-2006, 10:44 AM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada,
Posts: 354
| | French bread crust.
Well as long he doesn't have to buy me another oven he is OK,;-)))) my oven does have heat from bottom, top and back, but I don't have steam.
I still like the crust that the cloche does.:-)))
qahtan |
08-25-2006, 06:43 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: San Francisco
Posts: 1,170
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Quote: |
Originally Posted by qahtan my oven does have heat from bottom, top and back, but I don't have steam.
qahtan | Really? I didn't know they made home ovens like that. What brand is it?
Jock |
08-25-2006, 06:49 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: Owner/Operator | | Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 3,104
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My KA wall ovens have them and they're hidden |
08-25-2006, 06:56 PM
| | Registered User Culinary Experience: At home cook | | Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Ontario, Canada,
Posts: 354
| | Need help with French bread
My oven is also Kitchenaid, and the third element is hidden.
qahtan, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario. | | |
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