In my experience, most of the time I work with a high hydration dough, the dough has a tendency to proof outward more than upward. The result for me is usually a fairly wide and flat bread. This week I tried a new formula for a basic bread from a French baking book. The dough was 68% hydrated, had a normal amount of fresh yeast, no sugar and more salt than I prefer. I think I started with 4 lb. of dough. Nothing unusual except that I would consider it a high hydration dough. I mixed it for about 10 minutes and then let it rest for about 1/2 an hour. Then I kneaded it by hand until it stopped sticking to the board. I then gave it a two hour fermentation. I made it up into batards and let them proof for around 1/2 an hour at 90 degrees. At that point the loaves had spread out quite a bit sideways and were relatively flat. I frowned and decided at that point to go ahead and bake them up not expecting to get very good bread. The color, feel and sound of the loaves was about right after 25 minutes or so at 400 degrees.
But to my surprise the loaves had climbed straight upward in the oven and the finished loaves weren't flat at all but well rounded and almost as tall as they were wide. Certainly they were underproofed since they grew that much and they did display a slight amount of the stretch marks that indicate underproofing but very little of it. The crumb showed a fairly normal tight texture in the bottom half of the loaf and a wide open artisanal large hole type texture in the top half (underproofed.) Help me understand what motivated these loaves to grow straigh up instead of growing in all directions. I've never seen it before in a wet, underproofed dough. Ideas?
Fred Foodie Forums