So the second loaf of the pain au levain has been sitting in the fridge for...about 27 hours now. Time to bake!
The oven was on at 300c for about 2 hours (we'd just finished having roasted goose breast for dinner). I cranked it up to 44oc, took the dough out from the fridge, did the normal routine: slash, spray and steam, then put it right into the oven (yes, straight from fridge to oven). In order to make sure that it will still get a decent overspring in the oven, I covered the loaf with a large stainless steel bowl for the first 20 minutes.
Many people praise how wonderful the overspring is when the dough was covered during the first xx minutes of baking. I never really bother doing it. Since the author of the bread states that retarding the dough will affect overspring, I got a bit worried. So time to use this little trick.
The bread rose nicely, with beautiful blister all over.
Next, I increased the oven temperature to 475C, and got ready for my sourdough bagel bake. This recipe is based on Reinhart's Crust and Crumb. I only made two changes:
1. I added 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast to compensate for the 0.8oz starter (recipe calls for 8oz starter but I only got 7.2oz);
2. retarded in the fridge for only 5 hours instead of overnight
Though the amount of yeast is tiny, I can definitely small the yeasty scent from the bagel :(
The bagels were overproofed a bit. Though I was on schedule, the addition of this small amount of yeast did mess up the activity of the dough. When I boiled the bagels, they floated right up. Fortunately, the finished products came out beautifully (I baked them for 15 minutes instead of 12 minutes)
I have a feeling that the texture will be more like a sandwich bun than a bagel. But that's all right, these are yummy artisan bake and I'll savour them one after after!
