[Sca-cooks] Sunday's Experiment

[Decker, Terry D.]

> Well, Got creative Sunday - probably due to Rob making the
> black hole in the
> barn disgorge the French Cooking CA of Ann-Marie's. The
> errata page fell
> out, and at a casual glimpse, I saw 'French Bread"' and
> thought that I would
> make up some bread to go with dinner. Ok, quick scan of the next page,
> something labeled 'To make another soft cake or tart without
> cheese, which
> cake the Fleming's do call bread dipped in eggs.' Well, I have flour,
> butter, eggs and modern baking yeast to sub for the beer
> yeast. I decided
> that the montrachet yeast just wouldn't do ;-).

Foist, common dry active yeast is a variant of ale yeast.  It's not a
substitution, it's the McCoy, unless, of course, they really are calling for
S. carlbergensis.

>
> Hmmm, :
> Put into a basin, or upon a table, 2 pints of fine flower,
> break and beat
> two eggs into it. - OK, liquid pints aren't usually used to
> measure dry
> ingredients, but since I often make bread and such using the same
> flintstones cup to measure all of the ingredients to keep them in a
> particular proportion, I dug out 2 dry liquid pint measures
> of flour and put
> it into my huge wooden bread trough. I dug out 2 eggs and
> cracked them into
> a well in the center of the flour and stirred them around a bit.

2 pints of fine flour is about 1 lb. sifted or 1.25 to 1.5 lbs. unsifted.
Basically enough for a single loaf.  Because the variances in the ratios
will be small, standard measuring cups work fine for this small a batch.

>
> Added there unto half a pound of butter which you shall have
> caused to be
> melted over the fire, with a quarter pint of milk, out also into this
> mixture a spoonful of good beer yeast which is somewhat
> thick, and rather
> more than less, as also salt at discretion. - OK, out comes
> the butter and
> into the microwave it goes. While it is melting, out comes the milk -
> whoops, out. Out comes the heavy cream instead. Well, they
> both come out of
> the same tap on the beastie, so into the milk goes a heaping
> tsp of baking
> yeast. I am using salted butter so decide to dispense with
> the added salt. I
> pout the milk/yeast blend into the dough and let the butter
> cool for about 5
> minutes and add it as well.

A cheat.  Scald the milk and then put the butter into to melt and cool the
liquor.  Given the quantities, you may want to put the butter in the milk as
it comes up to scalding to get complete melting.  Most modern recipes tell
you to let the milk cool before adding it to the mix.

For the yeast, I would have dissolved 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of dry active yeast
in a couple tablespoons of warm water and let it activate.

Sift a couple teaspoons of salt into the flour, add some of the milk, stir,
add the yeast, stir, then add the rest of the milk.

>
> You must mixe and work all these things together with your
> hands, till you
> reduce them into a well knitted paste, and in the kneading of
> this your
> paste you must now and then powder it with a little flower. -
> OK, time to
> knead. I flour my hands and set to. After about 10 minutes of
> playing about,
> and about half a cup of extra flour I have a dough.
>
> Your paste being thus well powdered will be firm, after which
> make it up
> into the form of a loaf, and placing it upon a sheet of paper
> you must cover
> it with a hot napkin. You must  also observe to set your said
> paste neer
> unto the fire, but not too nigh, lest that side which should
> be too nigh the
> fire might become hard. You shall leave this paste in the
> said indifferent
> hot place until it be sufficiently risen and it will require
> at least five
> quarters of an hour time to rise  in and when it shall be
> suffiently risen,
> which you may know by its splitting and separating itself,
> you must make it
> up into the form of a cake or tart which you must garnish
> over and then put
> into the oven to be baked. {snipped is oven info, suffice it
> to say that it
> is to be baked like normal bread, not in a slow or really fast oven.]

The amount of fat in the dough will probably inhibit the rise.  Given the
short duration of the rise, I would expect the dough to only puff slightly.

I would also expect this to be a fairly soft dough.  Note that the
instructions say "firm" (thus not oozing from gravity) but do not call for a
hard dough (as the manchet recipes do).

>
> OK, well, Now I have this lump in my bowl which doesn't
> particularly look
> like a bread dough, but I figure it called for yeast and
> rising time. I
> start letting it rise, and after 5 quarters of an hour I
> wander over and
> poke it a few times. Nothing happened at all. Nada, Zip,
> Zilch. Didn't even
> split asunder. OK, well. Hmm, not bread as we know it. Well,
> it DOES happen
> to have the texture of a nice pie crust/coffin paste. Grab
> the booklet and
> look into it. I see that the page previous to the French
> bread is a toxic
> pie. Well, OK, mushrooms, but to me they are toxic. Then
> there is a page
> with the French bread commentary, and another page with French bread
> commentary, a duplicate of the first. Well, the loose page
> did say it was an
> errata page ;-) On the reverse of the French bread page #2 is
> a recipe for
> French bread, so I make my typical form of exercise, leaping
> to a conclusion
> and figure what I have just made is a crust for a mushroom tart.
>
<clipped>
>
> margali

I suspect the yeast wasn't as potent as it should be or that the milk was a
little too warm when you added it.  You may also have used a little too much
flour (making a slow rising hard dough), which happens to me every so often.

IIRC, the French Bread recipe is from Robert May.  One of these years, I'll
have to take a shot at it.

Bear