Baking on a snow day - and an epic quest for a ficelle

I woke up this morning to something I hadn’t seen since the last winter I spent in St. John's three years ago: a snow day. While looking out my bedroom window in the morning it immediately occurred to me: instead of studying for the next day's statistics exam I could play in the kitchen all day.
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You’re right. There’s no logic there. But the term "snow day" is ingrained in people from St. John’s since childhood to mean a day where the seemingly unshakeable concepts of “deadlines” and “school” and “work “ lose all meaning in a glorious white-out of snow.
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Bakers apparently, see things a little differently, as is evidenced by Georgetown Bakery staying open today despite the blizzard. (Check out the images of Brian as he made an epic quest this morning to get his ficelle.) I agree with the bakers at Georgetown: baking is a perfect snow storm activity.

This post records some notes and shenanigans from inside a kitchen entombed in snow: how to the get the crumb of rye bread just right, how to check your oven for hot spots,  and how to get perfect crust.

Brian makes his way up Bonaventure Ave towards Georgetown Bakery despite the blizzard

I got to work in the kitchen on my latest obsession: rye bread. Bread recipes always get me thinking because the slightest changes in the recipe sometimes yield the most drastic changes in the final product. An instance of chaos theory? A butterfly’s wing might cause a hurricane on the other side of the world and a 5% hydration ratio increase in my sourdough boule may result in a flatter, chewier crumb.

​I wanted to catalogue some of these modifications here and annotate them with answers I’ve found online while trawling the web and in my compendium of cookbook resources (more snow day activities of choice).

• When cutting into rye bread, I’ve found that my bread knife inevitably gets coated in a gummy patina of rye goop. This has occurred on all my test trials of Danish Rye and Finnish Rye that I’ve been making the past few months. It's kind of annoying. What causes this and how do I stop it? Amazingly I found a great answer for this problem here, summarized below:

"One cause of gumminess in 100% rye breads is excessive starch degradation related to amylase enzyme actions. Amylase action is slowed down by increasing acidity. You can increase the acidity by adding a small amount of lemon juice. [Also,] since rye bread doesn't have significant gluten for structure, but instead relies completely on starches and pentosans, it is imperative to let the loaf cool completely before cutting it so that the starches crystallize and the gums solidify."

• The back of my oven appears to be much hotter than the front of my oven. I discovered this when I had two loaves going: one in the front and one in the back; and the one in the back burnt quite badly. This was surprising, since the one in front baked perfectly. How could this be? I found a great answer in the go-to bible for bakers: Bouchon Bakery (pg. 26)

Kitchen notes on my Finnish Sourdough Boule recipe

​​"All ovens, even convection ovens, have hot spots, and it’s useful to know where your oven's hot spots are. There is an easy way to check for both hot spots and temperature accuracy: Buy a tube of refrigerated or ready-to-bake biscuits. Preheat your oven to the temperature given on the package, with a rack in the centre. Bake the biscuits for the time the package recommends. These doughs have been rigorously tested, and the time and temperature guidelines are accurate. If the biscuits are underdone even after the maximum recommended time, your oven is running cool. Then evaluate the biscuits: some will be darker than others; this will show you your hot spots."

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• The crust on my Finnish-style Rye Sourdough Boule often gets very “crusty.” What I mean is, it’s more like a protective shell trying to deflect all attacks from bread knives than an enjoyable feature of the bread. So what can I do? How can I make the crust more palatable?​

Turns out, this is a common issue bakers have been dealing with since bread was invented. The most common solution is to generate steam in the oven; this steam sticks to the crust and essentially slows its formation and prevents it from drying. It has the added benefit of creating better “oven spring,” too (the effect of the bread rising magnificently while in the oven) since the crust isn’t hardening too quickly. Steaming is such a key technique in good quality breads that professional bakers even use steam-injection ovens. Keen home bakers often use steam kits. For example, Bouchon Bakery recommends placing a tray of beach rocks on the bottom rack of the oven; when you bake your bread you spray the rocks with a water gun and it creates a burst of steam. No kidding! I’ve actually done this lots of times. The simplest method I’ve seen, though, is the technique championed by Chad Robertson in his Tartine series: baking the bread in a Dutch oven with the lid on. This effectively traps the moisture in the bread (of which there is a lot) and in effect the bread bakes a small steam sauna. The end result is a well-sprung loaf with crust that isn’t dried out.

While writing this, I’m currently in the process of baking a loaf of Finnish Rye sourdough. I’m using my new tricks: squeezing lemon juice into the dough, placing the bread toward the front of my oven for baking, inside of a Dutch oven for steam. I’ll update this later and let you know how it goes! 

In the mean time, here are more images of Brian's quest for a ficelle this morning in the midst of the first blizzard of the season.

White out on Fleming Street.

Georgetown Bakery - open on a snow day.

Robert at Georgetown is all like "so what it's a raging blizzard."

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Three days later...

Three days later and my statistics exam is over and my kitchen is full of delicious rye bread.

I'm converted to Dutch oven baking for superiour curst.

So how did my new tricks work out?

​Baking in the Dutch oven made the most notable difference. The crust was much more foregiving and gave the bread a better chance to "spring" in the oven, giving it a more airy crumb. To avoid burning the crust I stayed away from the hot spot I had previously discovered in the back of my oven, and I also employed another trick:  I crimped a piece of aluminium foil onto the bottom rack to deflect the radiant heat from the lower element. This has the desired affect: no burnt crust!

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Wait three days for best crumb.

​I didn't use the lemon to reduce the moisture of the crumb like I had planned, for the simple reason that I didn't want to go out in a blizzard in search of a lemon. But I did wait three days before cutting into the loaf and this made a huge difference in the structure of the crumb. Essentially it had had time to crystalize (effectively staling the bread), and I didn't have the problem of the rye goop sticking to my knife anymore. 

So... if you decide to try any my recipes for rye bread, my parting recommendations would be to bake it inside of a Dutch oven for best crust and waiting three days before cutting into it for best crumb.

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As for what to eat with rye? Look no further than gravlox, my all time favourite cured salmon, and which I have blogged about and written a recipe for, too. Just last night I brought a Finnish Sourdough Rye loaf and a quarter-pound of gravlax to a grad school potluck and it was all gobbled up. Especially good with a creamy red ale after finishing an exam season before Christmas. Enjoy!