My Favourite Dough

I’ve been baking baguettes and pizza from the same basic dough for a number of years now. I use the same method, the Autolyze, Stretch and Fold method.

About they only I do different is to vary the hydration. Lately though I have been using 63% as the norm. And I will vary from same day bake to longer fermentation for 8 hours at room temperature or two or three days in the fridge for a long cold fermentation.

Rather than make one larger 1000g batch at a time, I have started to make two or three smaller 500g (flour) batches using 315 grams of water, with just 1 gram of yeast, 12 to 15 grams of salt.

Made two batches of dough, both 500g of flour, before leaving for work on Thursday and they both went directly into the fridge until Friday afternoon around 12:00. Left out on the counter to warm up and finish rising.

Two pizzas for dinner. Moe and I had homemade Italian sausage and mushroom on ours.

Baked in the Ooni pizza oven.

And Matt made his own vegetarian pizza

topped with vegetarian pepperoni and bacon, jalapeno peppers and olives.

He baked his on a stone in the conventional oven.

Last night before going to bed, I took the second batch out of the fridge and left it on the counter until 4:00 AM this morning. It was ready to shape into three baguettes.

Baked in the CSO using the bread steam setting to start, and then after 10 minutes transferred to the big oven to finish baking.

The CSO isn’t big enough to bake more than one or two smaller baguettes at a time.

Longer cold fermentations contribute to the shine on the crumb.

But much of the shine can also be attributed to the quality of the flour I use.

2 Comments Add yours

  1. shirl36 says:

    Always enjoy your posts!!
    Why are doing two 500g flour now instead of the bigger?
    You made your own Italian sausage, what seasoning do you use?
    Always looking for new ideas, your perfect to learn from….but
    I’d never get up in the middle of the night to cook. LOL
    Shirl36

    Sent from my iPad

  2. Shirl, I’ve started to make smaller batches because then I can always have a batch or two in the fridge. This way I can stretch the fermentation out over two to four days. And it is just as easy to stretch and fold two or three smaller batches at the same time as one big one.

    Since I’m always awake before 4:00, and usually before 3:00. I might as well bake. Especially on work days. I’m often up 7 hours before I need to be at work. You can find the basic outline for the Italian sausage here. I like to make patties. And this mix was really good on the pizza…https://thibeaultstable.com/2013/05/05/homemade-italian-sausage-with-penne/

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