An Experiment

After last night's lack of oven spring I've tried an experiment (two in fact) to see if I can get a better result.

First, I wanted to see if over-proving could be a problem. So I made the same dough as last time but used a sachet of Allinson Easy Bake yeast. I only had 340g of the Asda flour left so had to add 60g of Gilchester strong white flour. I also omitted the vitamin C as there is already some in the yeast. After the 10 minute knead I shaped the dough and put it straight in the tin. After 1.5 hours proving at 30C it had almost filled the tin so it was in the oven just like last night with the steam etc. Once again, no oven spring. The top of the loaf is a bit uneven and not as brown as last time but otherwise it looks much the same. As for taste and texture that will have to wait.

The other test was to try a different flour. I made the dough just like the first time but used Waitrose Organic Strong White Bread flour. It's now in a bowl in the fridge and I shall bake it tomorrow night. The dough certainly felt different - after 10 minutes it was less sticky and seemed more stretchy than with the Asda flour. We'll have to see if it works better or if that is just my imagination.