which_chick | (no subject)

I made the NYT bread thing again, this time with mostly-white flour.

I dropped the salt to about 3/4 teaspoon because I thought that it was too salty with the called-for amount of salt. I also just guesstimated the water at something over one and a half cups instead of trying to actually measure 5/8 of a cup. (Seriously, WTF is with the 5/8 cup? Dumb ass. I'm just going to guess from here on out.)

Due to assorted junkies-stealing-the-pipes difficulties (see previous entry) at 321, the first rise for this attempt was rather longer than it should have been. When I finally got to it, I felt that the dough was somewhat overproofed so I added a generous handful of flour and kind of kneaded it in a little (more food for the yeasts) to make up for the extended rise time. I also probably left it go longer than I should have for the second rise because I was off doing the thing with my cousin Heather and that ran long. Oh, well. Finally, the cat walked across the towel-covered boule near the end of its rise. Seriously, the dough had footprints on it when I tipped it into the cast-iron dutch oven. I proceeded because what the hell was I going to do, throw it out? I'd already preheated the oven and everything, so I figured what did I have to lose?

The bread came out fine. There are no footprints in the finished loaf. I think this is perhaps the most robust bread recipe I've ever seen. It doesn't much seem to *matter* what I do to it. It comes out nicely in spite of my lack of attending to the directions. The crumb on this damn thing is just... gorgeous. Here are some pictures.