September 7th, 2021

In professional bakers’ ovens the bread is always laid on the floor of the oven. It is the best way to bake, having this type of powerful heat transferred directly into the bottom of the individual loaf or the metal tray of rolls or pastries (or whatever is being baked). Its name is conducted heat.

Usually the hearth of the baker’s oven is composed of masonry tiles, capable of storing a vast amount of heat. There used to be a whole industry of refractory tile makers, but with the decline of masonry ovens after the 1950’s now oven decks are likely to be tiled with pottery kiln shelves or a composite refractory material which imitates the properties of deep tiles.

The hot tiled floor gives a spectacular rise to the loaf, known as “oven spring”, and then it goes on to assure a steady and even bake. Above and surrounding the loaf will be radiated heat from all other oven surfaces.

The trouble with cooks’ ovens and common domestic ovens is that they are tinny little boxes with the goods to be baked perched on wire shelves, and the style of heat is convection, based on the circulation of hot air. There is a lack of solid hot surfaces. (The British slow combustion stove is better since they often have heavy tiling around the furnace, and they are built with solid cast-iron bodies.)

My advice to the home baker or chef is to place masonry tiles on the oven shelves, and give your tile(s) a good heating up period – perhaps 30 minutes would be required to get the tile(s) sufficiently hot. Whenever I mention this to students I am surprised how many announce they already have a “pizza stone”.

By baking on your hot tile you are emulating the pro baker, and in the circumstances you are overcoming the greatest weakness of your light-weight oven. On this extremely hot tile you can learn to place the loaf directly so that bottom heat and oven spring become features of your baking.

The tiles I sell at PANARY are 12mm pottery kiln shelves cut to the common dimensions of domestic ovens, as shown here.

Baker’s Topic – Slashing the Loaves

Slashing the loaves with a sharp blade just prior to loading them in the oven is one of the most craftsmanlike pursuits in baking.

While it can often be referred to as “decorating” within the bakery, it is actually much more than decoration. Its main purpose is to allow the loaf to expand evenly and handsomely when the loaf is subject to the rapid expansion that occurs when it is placed in the oven.

Subjected to such massive heat all around it and particularly driving from the oven floor into the base of the loaf, the existing gases within the loaf start to expand. Further, the yeast reacts to this new burst of warmth and has a final flurry of excitement, creating more gas before expiring at around 60 degrees C. Hence, the loaf swells surprisingly quickly. The name for this expansion is “oven spring”. When it is a neat line running along the top of a tinned loaf it can be referred to as “oven break”. Unless the skilled baker intervenes the rapid expansion can cause the loaf to distort, perhaps leaning over, or changing shape from straight to curved, perhaps even blowing a hernia out one side.

The cutting or slashing of the loaf’s surface is done to control the oven spring. The blossoming of such energy will be released through the slashes, opening them out neatly and making the bread look so beautiful in its final form. Indeed the decoration itself can be pretty, but great beauty occurs where the slashes provide that lively contrast between the original crust, the ridge of the cut, and the different texture of the inner portion of dough erupting out through the opening made by the cut. The handsome loaf is a contrast of colour and texture.

A few tips

The blade must be extremely sharp, and that is why old-fashioned razor blades for shaving are so popular. I attach the razor blade to those slender sticks made as coffee stirrers, (like an ice-cream stick), They are vulnerable to pitting and rust, losing their edge after just a day or two, thus need to be constantly changed.

Razor blades, while preferred by many craft bakers, are not the only tool. Any type of knife does the job, provided it is extremely sharp, and has a blade length suited to what loaf you are slashing. My French pen knives are made of carbon steel which sharpens easily and, like a butcher, they are sharpened repeatedly in the bakery.

You have to learn through trial and error how deep to cut. A general rule is a deeper cut is required when the loaves are going into the oven a bit early, which means oven spring will be more pronounced. When the loaves are over-proved (you are having a bad day) there are types where it is best not to cut at all since the impact of knife or razor might deflate the loaf. Wholemeal would be such a type.

Cutting sticks

Cutting sticks is a joy since their slashes can open out so generously. Don’t apply the knife transverse to the slender shape; instead make the cuts run almost straight down the stick’s back, with the next cut starting right beside the end of the previous one. Experience baguette cutters will urge you to hold the blade leaning to one side as you cut, avoiding the vertical.

Enjoy your cutting, enjoy being the craftsman baker who controls the activity in the oven.

These rich tea breads are found all over northern Europe at Christmas time, having had ancient Christian religious connotations.  

They are German in origin, and come in endless regional variety, permitting a wide range of shape and finishing touches.   The rod of marzipan running down the middle is entirely optional, as is the use of spice, and the choice of liquor in which you soak the fruit.

In order to keep them fresh and attractively edible over the long Christmas season they would be repeatedly washed with melted butter.  In that way the outside of the loaf would be sealed so that it would keep well between its appearances at the table. Whenever it was put away in the pantry or in a tin, it was washed with the melted butter, whenever brought out to be served, it was dusted with icing sugar.

Method

Begin with a ferment.  The ferment gives the yeast a flying start, so that it will cope better when it meets all the rich and greasy ingredients which, while making the stollens delicious, are heavy going for the yeast and separate it from easy access to its food.

Beforehand, best overnight: soak the fruit (raisins and sultanas) in half a cup of rum. Yeast is upset when alcoholic liquor is added directly to dough, hence it is best to deliver the flavour of rum in the fruit

The ferment

• 350 ml. (5/8 pt.) warm milk
• 40 gm. ( 11/2 oz ) fresh yeast
• 15 gm (1/2 oz) sugar
• 110 gm ( 4 oz) strong bread flour

Whisk all these together in a deep bowl and put it aside in a place which is at room temperature.  In less than an hour it will have gassed up sufficiently to be used. It is ready when gas bubbles are bursting on the surface.

The dough

Add the ferment to the rest of the ingredients, making sure that you gather the dough together BEFORE adding all the butter.

• 2 eggs
• 800 gm ( 1lb 12oz) strong flour
• 15 gm (1/2oz ) salt – less if using salted butter
• 75 gm  ( 21/2oz ) brown sugar
• 175 gm  ( 6 oz ) butter                       

The aim is to have a moist and light dough. Adjust with more flour if it seems too sloppy, but it should remain a soft and pliable dough.   When you think it is silky and the gluten is sufficiently developed,

Add the following

The fruits

• 350 gm ( 12oz ) sultanas/raisins/chopped cherries
• Zest of  1 or 2 lemons

Let the dough sit, well covered, for at least an hour, longer if it is cool. It will have reached full proof when it has doubled in size, and looks so puffed up that it is almost ready to collapse.

This quantity will make two large, or four small stollens.  Divide the dough into the number you want.   Mould them by rolling and patting until you have gently expelled all the gas and got them into a neat oval shape.

They need another short rest before you flatten them out to the width of a bread and butter plate for the small ones, or a dinner plate for the large ones. Rather than having them round, try to keep them in an oval shape.  With quick and gentle movements of the rolling pin make a hollow down the length of the oval and lay the marzipan rod along the groove.   With the marzipan rod as a backbone fold the back towards the front so that the spread oval is turned into a half-circle.  Leave the edges puffy, not pressed hard together, so that they resemble a pair of lips.

Egg wash thoroughly , and prove them before baking in a moderate oven, which for most domestic ovens would be about 170 – 180 degrees C, or 330 – 350 F.  Squeeze them gently and feel their sides spring back to know that they are done.  After baking they are repeatedly washed over with melted butter.  Before serving they can be dusted with icing sugar and tied in a satin ribbon.

The marzipan, or modelling paste

• 120 gm  ( 4oz )  ground almonds
• 60 gm  ( 2oz )  icing sugar
• 90 gm  ( 3oz )  castor sugar
• 1 small egg
• Optional – the zest of an orange

Mix all together by hand or with a wooden spoon until it is properly gathered together.   It should not stick to you when it is rolled into rods on the bench.  Add some more almonds if it seems too wet.

Fashion the marzipan into a thick rod on the bench, then cut it into four. Now roll each segment into a slender rod about as long as your handspan, to neatly fit the width of the folded stollen.

Stoneground flour is a niche product

Stoneground flour, in the vast field of flour milling, is a niche product. Although it is putting the clock back, there is an explanation for why it has not simply died out, and that explanation is found in its inherent nutrition. The stone-grinding process retains an admirable amount of vitamins and minerals, leading to high nutrition when compared with industrial flour which is so refined that it would be fair to call it emaciated, hence the Flour Act makes it mandatory for it to be fortified with synthetic vitamins, iron, and calcium.

It’s more nutritious

Stoneground is nutritious because it is barely refined. While its sieving mechanism may remove about 28% of its bulk as the bran is removed, a beige coloured flour results which still contains fine fragments of bran. Further, it contains significant amounts of the layers between the outer bran and the endosperm (the inner white part). These under-bran layers (particularly the aleurone layer) are highly nutritious, particularly for minerals. Regarding vitamins, not only does it contain the B group of vitamins gained from the endosperm, but more importantly it is suffused with the precious germ oil, that contains three vitamins alone.

Higher levels of enzymes

Along with all this nutrition, stoneground flour has higher levels of the enzymes that lead to brisk fermentation. These are the enzymes that convert starch into the types of sugar that yeast wants to devour. They come with the endosperm, but bigger deposits of them occur around the germ and the under-layers of bran – those layers mentioned earlier that lie between endosperm and outer bran, including the aleurone layer.

Added enzymes mean that the baker must be careful to lower the amount of yeast, and make sure the temperature of the dough is on the cool side. I aim for 22-24 deg C., and I would have yeast at 2% of flour as the upper limit.

The presence of added enzymes and minerals causes the dough to break down more rapidly, and this factor when combined with brisker fermentation activity, leads to the releasing of more water into the dough, which in time becomes softer, and sticky. Hence the baker must be careful to reduce dough water a little and make slightly tighter dough than would occur with industrial flour.

Lower loaf volume

When working with stoneground white, there will not be the same loaf volume as is yielded by industrial white flour. All those tiny fragments of bran will undermine the gluten, even cutting gluten strands, and generally inhibiting the stretchiness of the gluten.

Enhanced signs of ripeness

Finally, the signs of ripeness will be more obvious when the dough is made with stoneground flour. Rather than seeing an array of surface bubbles, at full ripeness the surface of the dough will be more generally deteriorated, looking pock-marked along with surface gas deposits. The baker must be watchful to work the dough before that deterioration is too marked, resulting in the over-proved dough, which will never make the best bread