And I had painted it on rather thick too. This is pretty straight forward.Īfter painting both loaves, I had barely used any of the Crunch stuff. Here I’ve started painting the Dutch Crunch paste over about ¾ of the first loaf. And just to be sure I didn’t get too short, I made 2/3 of it. Since I was coating only two loaves, I thought it would be wasteful to make enough for four, which the amounts given are said to cover. I chose to make 2/3 of the recipe noted in the book’s Grace Notes for Dutch Crunch. In the green bowl is our “Dutch Crunch” paste which is a little thicker than sour cream. I decided later on that it would have been better to shape them into batards which are pointier at the ends but fatter in the center. I shaped the two halves of dough into simple loaf shapes. I did this by eye but you may want to weigh the dough before cutting then split it into two precisely equal pieces.Īlso, I’ve prepared the tray with parchment paper sprinkled with coarse corn meal. The raised dough is turned out onto the counter and (not shown) sliced in two. Once doubled we’re ready to shape the loaves. Once the dough has been kneaded, reached about 78✯ and passes the windowpane test, it is placed in an oiled bowl and allowed to bulk proof for 2 hours or until it has doubled. We then switch to the dough hook and knead for 6 minutes (would have been about 10 minutes if done by hand). What we have here: Bread flour, the Pâte chunks, water, sugar, malt syrup, salt, instant yeast, melted butter and one slightly beaten egg.Īs usual, we stir the dry ingredients together, add the liquids and mix until the dough comes together into a rough ball. Once cut and coated, they sit under an inverted plastic bowl for about an hour until warmed.Īnd now, we’re ready to start. I’m using the flour I’ll be mixing up for the dough to drench the pieces so they don’t stick. Once the Pâte was taken from the refrigerator, it was cut up into pieces so it would warm up more evenly and quickly.
Presto, the 2 day bread is now a 1 day bread… if you’re OK with baking right up to midnight. I made this first thing in the morning and since it’s supposed to refrigerate overnight, I let it sit in the fridge for 8 hours and pulled it out in the early evening.
This pre-ferment is pretty much like a normal yeast dough except it’s made in advance and allowed to “age” overnight in the refrigerator in order to slow the yeast and allow the wheat flavours to develop as the yeast ferments the dough. This is a two day bread, the first day being taken up mixing a Pâte Fermentée which we’ve done a few times already so I won’t repeat the process now. And this is just one variation, there are many. In this case it’s basically rice flour, a bit of bread flour, a little yeast, salt, sugar, veg oil and water. It’s a sort of slightly sweet topping that’s spread on top of a bread dough, which then bakes up a little crunchy and crispy and can give the loaf a nifty visual effect, as seen at left here.
Since I recall getting the occasional Dutch Crunch covered bread at some point in my childhood, possibly just as a very occasional lark, I decided to give that a try here. Merrily skipping over a couple more breads that I seriously doubt would get eaten in our house, we now land on The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge bread #39 (of 43): Vienna Bread with an option to add Dutch Crunch.