Plaits are so pretty, and they also lend themselves to a satisfying tearing off of chunks to dive into sauces and dips, as well as generally gathering up whatever is offered at table.

As soon as your hand skills have become capable enough to make the stick shape, tapered at each end, you can have a go at plaiting.
Be attentive that the separate stick strands have all been weighed at the same weight, and that they have been rolled to consistent girth width and overall shape regarding thicker middles and tapering ends.
Spend a little time making sure the sticks are all of the same length and then lay them down running out in front of you, not sideways on. As you finish preparing them, allow them to be briefly rolled in table dust (flour) so that they will not stick to the bench or each other.

It is an unfortunate feature of plaiting that the starting-off point is a little bulky and messy compared with the finishing point which is enhanced by the tension placed on the strands as you are finishing.
An exception to this problem is the 3-strand plait, for which bakers have invented a cunning way to effectively have two neat finished ends. Being only three strands, it is known by everybody and is a very sensible place to start.

3-strand plait
Lay the strands in front of you and rather than starting work at the top, instead you start plaiting from about the middle, completing the half nearest you. The rhythm of 3-strand plaiting is the simple mantra “outside to inside”, then again from the other side – outside to inside. At the finish as the strands feel tighter and more pinched, simply weld them together.
Now you pick it up in the middle where you began plaiting and somersault it over in your face so that the three strands that remained unplaited at the top are now facing you. Pay attention to lead off with the outside strand that should rightly be brought to the middle.
See the pic below. It shows the point at which the plait has been flipped over, and clearly the strand on the right-hand side is the one to be brought to the middle to begin the finishing sequence.

4 – strand plait
Follow the same guidelines given above and lay out the four even strands in front of you. Begin at the top, but before you begin the first move, allow the top pointy ends to be gently fastened together. This is the plaiting sequence:
2 over 3; 4 over 2; and 1 over 3
To interpret this properly you must remember that the numbering system from left to right resumes the 1 to 4 after each move. Hence, after doing the 2 over 3 move, the strand that was formerly 2 now becomes the new 3.
See the pic below, where you can see the gentle fastening of all four strands at the top, and the first move – the 2 over 3, revealing how important it is to appreciate that former number 2 is now number 3.

In my book the 4-strand is possibly the prettiest – I love it the way one strand bobs along the top. See pic below, where a 4-strander is proving en couche.

BAKERS’ TOPIC – baking on a tile

Today the bakers’ topic is pitched at home bakers, and concerns domestic ovens. In the previous account I have established that domestic ovens are flimsy little structures that lack the heat being radiated from a deep source. As a tinny metal chamber with the food to cook being suspended on shelves, any conducted heat will be coming from a metal baking tray, which is likely to be a harsh type of heat. You are left with the food being cooked by convection – the currents of hot air swirling around inside usually being pushed by a fan, with the result that often the bread crust is unappealing.

You can do one thing to try to improve the situation and emulate a proper baker’s oven – bake on a masonry tile. A pre-heated tile that has been inside the heating oven for long enough to become deeply hot, will transform your baking. The strong heat coming through the bottom crust will enable good oven spring, and the interior of the loaf will benefit from the heat conducted from the tile. The solidity of the hot tile will also improve the quality of the radiated heat that comes from all parts of the chamber onto the top of the loaf. Baking anything on a solidly hot tile will make for better cooking, and when it comes to pies, there will no longer be a “soggy bottom”. Regarding bread and flatbreads you can also do away with the need for metal trays, simply peeling the goods directly onto the hot tile for the best possible bake.

Tiles will vary in their capability of taking smartly introduced heat. Some types of stone will crack, and low-fired terracotta like house floor tiles will tend to crack and fracture. Tiles that are classed as “refractory” masonry will be the best, being designed to deal with massive doses of heat, and able to heat up and cool down quickly. The tiles I sell at PANARY are actually potters’ kiln shelves, and you cannot get refractories graded higher than these. In short, they are over-kill in their capacity seeing as we bakers are mucking around with low levels of heat compared with pottery. Another feature that is particularly good about them is that they are only 12 mm thick, hence they heat up relatively quickly in a domestic oven.

Having puzzled to work out what was happening with the sluggishness of the doughs and sponges made with barm (yeast from the brewer), the experience made me think a lot about temperature. With the barm fermentation, 25C was necessary to get it moving.

Students will recall that I often stress the need for an awareness that it is not just the amount of yeast that you employ for fermentation, but the temperature at which you choose to conduct it. Cool dough is sluggish, hot dough simply makes bad bread which is crumbly and quick to stale.

Here is a chart in Celsius for your help:

Below 10 – retarding

11-18 – sluggish fermentation; sourdough happy but slow

19-22 – cool fermentation, measured and slow, keeps long sponges in check

23-24 – very satisfactory for European breads & sourdough; sponges and yeast breads happy, but will not ferment too briskly

25-27 – traditional temp for slow fermenting English white bread & sponges, suitable for strong flour; suitable for working barm doughs & sponges

28-30 – harmful to wheaten breads, too hot for good structure; rye, however, can just tolerate these higher temps that are basically regarded as too high