Yes, I finally did it!
My bread has always been okay, quite nice in fact, very tasty and pleasant to eat, but I had never achieved that glossy brittle crust that makes a loaf look so appetising and which shatters into a million crumbs when you bite into it, filling your mouth with a heavenly taste and texture.
I had heard about these techniques of adding boiling water in a baking dish at the bottom of the oven, and spraying a fine spray of water over baguettes before you place them in a fiery oven, but I had never managed to co-ordinate the arrangement.
I am getting better at breadbaking, though, white bread, especially, turns out very well, and I decided to test myself a little further. The oven spring (where the bread rises very suddenly when it is placed in a very hot oven) wasn't as great as I achieved on my last loaf, the top could definitely be shinier, but the crust was delicious and the crumb inside was light and airy - perfect for the butter test, and even better with English farmhouse cheese.
I'd gone back to my standard size loaf (based on 500g flour) after my giant efforts for a sandwich loaf two or three weeks ago. I prefer this neater size and dainty sandwiches, it's easier to store and lasts about the right number of days for my family. The larger one tended to outstay its welcome.
The texture of the bread was different, too. These smaller loaves, that I'm more used to baking, have a finer, lighter, drier texture. The larger loaves tended to be a little doughy (I probably need more practice at timing the baking) and heavy, and occasionally led to indigestion. And the slices were so large, better for someone with hands like shovels and an appetite to match.
Anyway, my usual recipe and method:
500g white flour
300ml tepid water
15ml oil
7g dried active yeast
5g sugar
5g salt
Combine the dry ingredients, make a well and add the water and oil. Mix to a light dough, first with a spoon and then bringing the last bits together with your fingers. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed until the dough feels smooth and elastic. Shape into a ball, place back into the mixing bowl, cover and leave to proof for an hour or so until the dough has doubled in size. Kneed again for a few minutes before placing in a greased loaf tin and pressing down with your knuckles to achieve an even spread in the bottom of the tin. Leave to proof again until double in size, about 30-30 minutes.
Pre-heat the over to 230 degrees and boil a kettle of water. When the bread is ready to go into the oven, pour boiling water into a roasting tin and place in the bottom of the oven. While you wait for the oven to come up to full temperature again, brush the top of the loaf with milk (I forgot to do this), before placing it in the hot oven. Bake for 15 minutes before reducing the heat to 200 degrees and bake for a further 15-25 minutes until the bread is done (you will know by the hollow sound when you tap the bottom of the loaf). Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a rack.
Be careful of the steam when you open the oven door.
I was intrigued by the action of the steam on the bread, so I hunted around the web for a bit to find out the science behind why this happens.
Why does humidity make yeast bread voluminous and airy and give it a golden, crackly crust?
It slows down the cooking process. When a loaf bakes, a crust forms due to a couple of processes. Moisture evaporates from the surface, causing the uppermost layers of dough to dry out and become rigid, and gluten—the elastic, protein component of the dough—coagulates (i.e., its molecules bond to one another to form a solid structure). Humidity delays these processes, which then delays the formation of the crust. Add steam to the oven, and the vapor will condense on the cold, raw dough, leaving a film of water on the exposed surface. This additional moisture absorbs some of the oven’s heat, thereby lowering the dough’s surface temperature. This in turn slows down the dehydration process and prevents the gluten from coagulating too soon—both of which keep the dough flexible for longer.
More about this and oven spring in an article by Paula Figoni, associate professor at Johnson & Wales University at Slate.com. You can also find out other interesting things from the links at the bottom of the article about why chillies make your nose run and some hard-boiled eggs are easier to peel than others. I had been wondering about both these things for some time, especially the egg-peeling - it definitely wasn't as difficult when we were children, we would end with shiny whole eggs, not pock-marked mutilated lumps that looked like they've been thrown around the kitchen, then scooped up by the dog and taken for a tussle down the garden. Now I know why!