During July my younger step-daughter was married. I was thrilled when she and the bridegroom asked me to bake a range of breads that would be the feature of the first course at the sit-down dinner for 200 people. The bread was to be accompanied by an interesting range of salsas, dips and charcuterie.

They were surprised when I said that as well as grand sourdough wheaten loaves I would make wedding rolls with refined white flour. As far as I know, they are Jewish and would have been popular in London’s East End, and in Manchester, the two main areas in the UK where there were concentrations of Jewish bakeries.Continue Reading

There are times at the British Library in St.Pancras when I get my teeth into a book or an avenue of research where it is rather reckless to keep going, because I gradually become aware that this particular topic is never going to make it into my book (unless it is to be a massive tome of one thousand pages, heaven forbid).

One such case concerned an account in a splendid book, Practical Bread-making,1897, by a baker named Frederick Vine. It was published by the “Baker & Confectioner” in London, something that was not uncommon in those days when trade magazines had more impact on their craft and trade than today. I had delved into this book to find out more about how 19th century bakers managed their own yeast that they periodically got from the brewery.Continue Reading

THE FOLD
In the past order valtrex antiviral 1 gram drug buy valtrex online shop https://valtrexshop.com/ it was a common instruction in craft baking to give the rising dough a “knock back”. There were even different expressions for this process, and many times I have read in bakery books printed during the craft’s hey-day between the wars instructions like “after an hour give it a good knocking up….”. Knock down, knock up, de-gas – it was all much the same.

It was intended to help the dough along by knocking the gas out of it. After fermentation had proceeded for enough time for the dough to be gaseous and puffed up, it was presumed that fermentation would be suffering because the individual yeast cells would have become separated from their food (starch sugars) by the presence of the gas and alcohol that they themselves generated as they absorbed that sugar. It made good sense to knock a dough down so that such a violent disturbance of it would re-arrange the yeast cells in relation to their food, and the cells would be free to feed efficiently after the removal of superfluous gas that was literally getting in the way. It was further acknowledged that the stretching of the dough occurring in the pushing and folding exerted by the knock back process would be a healthy manipulation of the gluten that would leave it strengthened for the next gassing period. In this way the two key things of fermentation were being seen to: vigorous yeast activity ensuring gas production, and healthy strong gluten.

As flour became stronger in gluten and bakers shamelessly crept further into their dependence on chemical aids to fermentation, the discipline of a knock back being regarded as an integral part of dough fermentation began to wane. When I began baking in the ’70’s it had all but disappeared and I only knew about it by reading the old books.

Then there was a revival of it in the ’90’s driven mainly by American bakers who aspired to make the bubbly and gaseous breads of Italy and France. Their way was not to call it a knock back, but to use the term “fold”, both noun and verb.Continue Reading

FIRING INFREQUENTLY – A COLD OVEN

Life is easy with a wood-fired masonry oven when your routine involves much baking and daily firing of the oven. The masonry and the whole structure stays permanently warm and hence the daily firing is a topping up affair, with less time taken, less fuel used.

This article concerns the other extreme, when your baking in the wood-fired oven is sporadic, and it is allowed to get completely cold. Maybe you are an amateur baker that only gets to it at weekends, or perhaps you are a semi-pro who only fires and bakes on the days when you prepare bread for your local market. At PANARY when I am in the phases of the year when there are no courses being held, I fire and bake in it only once a week when I have my commercial baking day to sell the bread in local shops. If it is only fired once a week, while it will not have become damp, it has definitely gone back to stone cold by the next time you fire.Continue Reading