Intimate Look at the Internal Thermometer

When the term "internal thermometer" crosses my mind, invariably I think of the home thermometer my mother used to shake before using, the one that was difficult to read, and taken out when a child was sick. My mother's preference for the uncomfortable place in the body where common lore had it she would get the most accurate reading was definitely one all children fought against and the impetus, no doubt, for the invention of easy in-the-mouth thermometers ubiquitous today.

I'm not talking about that internal thermometer. I'm talking about the food kind, the kind you stick inside a food - in this case a bread - to determine its readiness.

Ode to the internal thermometer
I count an internal thermometer as a must-have tool, way ahead of bannetons, ahead of fancy proofers, ahead even of a mixer that can knead and otherwise mix and manipulate dough. (Confession: I do not have a mixer that can deal with dough; the one I have is tiny and can barely deal with cake batters.) I am lost without the thermometer. I use it half for its temperature readings and half as a kind of cake tester, which merely shows if anything is clinging to the metal stick when I pull it out from the mostly-made bread. What is the temperature in the middle and is it still wet?

Yes, this item can be pricey, but there are sales. If you let the thermometer company that I purchased from contact you, they will be a faithful correspondent and write almost everyday, even about sales, but also about the many different type of thermometers you never knew existed. After this lovely education, I unsubscribed. 

Limited experience
My thermometer is a Thermamite 5 from ThermoWorks. It's not as expensive or as fast as the top-of-the-line thermapen, but within 30 seconds the temperature is displayed. In about two years of use, I am still on the first set of batteries.

I have zero, as in completely no, experience with any other brand or type of internal food thermometer. I am sure that anyone baking bread in bulk would want something faster, but for one or two loaves at a time, mine works quite well.

The best part about the internal thermometer is that my breads are baked well and I am no longer seduced by the outward appearance in deciding when to take the loaf out of the oven.

Bread - Number 39: Big Payout for Poor Behavior

Bread - Number 39: Mistakes were made; move on

The dough for this bread went so wrong that it would not be fair to divulge the source of the recipe. At some point along the way, perhaps with the 6 a.m. weighing of the ingredients for the dough, a bad mistake was made. With complete failure staring me in the face, I decided to go by feel the rest of the way. One should not be rewarded so well for bleary-eyed mishaps. I have never seen such amazing oven spring for a majority whole-grain dough. I gasped and if it were not for the sound of football games on televisions throughout the land, the entire United States would have heard it.

The other problem was that I did this recipe in ounces instead of grams. My brain is a creature of routine and this change might have prompted the mistake(s).

Backtracking for documentation
Of course, after the first try I did not have a reliable recipe because part of doing something by feel is giving up on the diligent weighing of adding something here and there. I'll do my best to describe the process and I will attempt to recreate this bread - for purposes of having an actual recipe. On the second try, I successfully recreated my mistake and diligently weighed and documented everything added thereafter.

First, woo hoo! What a confidence booster to feel my way to a fantastic bread and one that rose so well even though it is whole grain.

A big thanks to my internal thermometer, not only for its temperature readings, but for what stuck or did not stick to the probe. It really acts like an old-fashioned cake tester. With a nice crust (okay, I have a fear of burnt crust), I thought that this bread was ready a good 15 minutes before it was anywhere close to fully baked. 

 Ingredients and instructions (sort of)

Sponge
8 oz. water
.4 oz. starter (yes, less than half an ounce)
4 oz. spelt flour
1 oz. whole wheat flour
(Second time around I went with 5 oz. spelt flour with no change in taste.)

I mixed the sponge at night and left it for 10 hours in a kitchen I thought would be cool. Someone, maybe me, forgot to turn down the heat at bedtime and the sponge was looking a bit forlorn in the morning. The same thing happened on the second try when I left the sponge in a cool kitchen for 12 hours. No matter; decided to add a little more to the dough.

Dough
.7 oz. starter
(I added .25 oz. starter on the second try.)
12 oz. water
10 oz. spelt flour
4 oz. whole wheat flour
(On the second try I used 5 oz. whole wheat and 9 oz. spelt with no discernible difference.)
10.2 oz. bread flour
.35 oz. salt
1 tbsp olive oil or .5 oz.

First, I did a 20 minute autolyse of the dough's water and spelt and whole wheat flours. At this point, I was trying to follow the recipe, which did not call for any bread flour. Since the recipe did involve kneading, I used the autolyse phase to develop the gluten for the purpose of cutting down on the kneading.

I then mixed the autolyse with the sponge and the ingredients not yet mixed in - the salt, the extra starter and the oil. Instead of seeing a shaggy dough that resembled the photographs or that appeared to be roughly 60 percent hydration, I saw what looked like a marsh or a thick soup. Something was definitely wrong. This wet, batter-like blob could not be kneaded.

And I start throwing in extra bread flour
With the scale close at hand, I added an extra 5 ounces of bread flour. I started to knead, but as I went along I ignored the scale and I threw in more bread flour, a small handful here and there, probably another two to five ounces. I probably kneaded for 10 minutes, maybe 15. At this point, I did not believe there was going to be a decent bread, so I did whatever I felt like. On the second try, I did the same thing with the exception of having the scale close at hand and actually using it to weigh the additional flour, which amounted to a little over 10 ounces.

At two and a half hours, it seemed that the dough was fully risen, maybe a tad past its peak. On the second try, in a warm Sunday kitchen, I only let the dough sit for one and a quarter hours. I did a stretch and fold on a well-floured board, then covered the dough with plastic for 15 minutes. Due to the dough's utter shapelessness, I thought about buying a bread and put the dough in a loaf pan that had been sprayed with non-stick baking spray.

Feeling very 19th century
On the second try, during the 15 minutes I lined a small wicker basket with a kitchen towel - thickly covered on the bottom with flour. At the end of the 15 minutes, I shaped the dough, still sticky, and placed it - bottom side up - in the basket, covered with the towel and then the old piece of plastic.

Each time I left the dough for an hour and a half. It rose alright, though nothing to write home about. An hour before baking I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. The first time, I made the bread in a loaf pan and on the second try, I made a boule.

Baking and not really wondering
The first time, I put a pan on a shelf underneath the baking stone and put at least two cups of ice in. As the la cloche top would not fit over the loaf pan, I figured that this doomed bread could at least use some steam. Maybe it would not be a total failure. The second time, I used the la cloche, which has the benefit of not having to stop myself from peering into the oven. One can not peer into a dome-shaped clay thing.

Deciding to follow the recipe at least once, at 20 minutes, I reduced the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Oh my g-d, there was such incredible oven spring when I peaked. The total baking time was 42 minutes, probably increased because I checked the bread's internal temperature about every four minutes after looking at 20 minutes. The second time around, I was more relaxed and left the bread in for 45 minutes.

The bread was so good, it deserved the second try. The question being how to recreate a process that had something more akin to an I Love Lucy episode than to following a recipe. On the second try, I trusted myself more and was curious, but unattached to the outcome. I was still on cloud nine from making a bread by feel on the first go around. The bread was just as good the second time.

The moral of the story: Invest in a thermometer and get a feel for working the dough with your hands. If you are lucky, a neighbor might hear you scream woohoo!!! when you see the beautiful oven spring.

Bread - Number 24: Indestructible and One-Third Whole Wheat

Bread - Number 24: You cannot ruin this mostly white bread

This one-third whole wheat bread dough could probably be dropped on the floor and stomped on and would still turn out decently. I love that, but wish this were so with more whole grain doughs. This bread is based on Bread #5, Part 2, but with starter and with previous volume-based measurements adjusted for weight measurements.The great news is that the starter works just as well as the commercial yeast. It is possible to use a small amount and a long rising time for wonderful results. I prefer long rising times for taste and for the convenience of being able to go out to work all day. 

I baked this bread twice because the first time it ended up a bit pasty, as if wet. I needed to trust my instincts and use my own weight-adjusted measurements instead of those on even trustworthy websites. Just because someone else says that one cup of bread flour is the equivalent of 128 grams of bread flour does not mean that your cup of bread flour, or anything else that you have been using to make delicious breads, is that same 128 grams. It might be 139 grams or 160 grams. 

The second time, I measured a cup of the whole wheat flour and then a cup of the bread flour and transcribed my measurements for each. The dough, magically, was more like cake batter and less pancake-like. The results were much improved, with just the smallest bit of wetness still left in the dough. There was a beautiful crumb and a lovely crust. This good, even lacking the good-luck cross/star slashed into the top of the dough before it went into the oven.

There's a movement? And has it already passed me by?
When making this sourdough starter and the dough, I kept hearing Michael Pollan on the radio, seeing references to him on twitter, and clicking links to watch his television news appearances. His presence gives gravitas to a movement of which I was unaware until recently. Slow food is quickly going mainstream. Now, people beyond Brooklyn and Portland are fermentation experts. Before I started this 108 breads project, I did not know about starters, the supposed health benefits of fermentation, or the existence of locally-milled flours. Actually, I had no idea of the universe of flours, books, and products in which one could become immersed, if not obsessed.

I had never seen a sauerkraut recipe or passionate descriptions of any. The idea of homemade sauerkraut would have caused my eyes to roll. Now I am the crazy person considering burying the jar of fermenting sauerkraut in the backyard per a friend's/another crazy person's recipe. But then he is the one who loaned his copy of 52 Loaves to me and started this whole obsession in the first place.

As usual, I am slow, and quite late to slow food. As it happens, however, I gave up most sugars and white flours years ago. Hardly ever let my children near an antibiotic and I consider a Diet Coke something for a special occasion. (Though every few years there are months of a daily diet soda.) Slow food was something I started before I was aware I was doing anything. Oh, and this week I give up all cakes, cookies and pastries for at least one year. I would rather have a nice slice of bread.

Ingredients
143 g. whole wheat flour (one cup)
332 g. bread flour (two cups)
1 1/2 cups water
11 g. starter
1/2 tbsp salt

Instructions
Very simple. No sponge, levain builds, poolishes, bigas or other preliminary dough stages. Just a good bread that is pretty much indestructible. Mix all ingredients. Let stand for 12 hours in a bowl that is loosely covered in plastic. Place dough in fridge for up to a couple of days or move on to preparation for baking. I kept my dough in the fridge for six hours, but I have left it in for more than a day.

Forgot to keep notes, so probably did usual shaping and left out for an hour to an hour and a half. I preheated the oven to 500 degrees with la cloche top and baking stone inside. Also, I did not write down how long I left it in the oven, so probably 40 to 45 minutes. A bit distracted with the new internal thermometer, which is mostly good. One should be careful to insert the thermometer into the center of the bread and not all the way almost to the bottom.

The taste was fantastic. An easy bread and a cheap thrill of feeling like a skilled baker. And the bread looks beautiful. Okay, the photograph of the bread cut open reveals its fault.

Just to have something to shoot for, the dough needed to rise some more.