It's a Bread Eat Bread World
If you've ever wondered what happens if you forget to slash the top of your bread, this is it. Hard to tell if the loaf is eating itself or giving birth to a Brave New Loaf. Either way, it ain't pretty.
But golly GEE, it tastes good! This is the second loaf from the Simple Crispy Bread recipe I made last Thursday, baked after lazing about (I mean, fermenting) in the fridge for three days. The taste was much the same (yeasty and salty--in a good way), but the crumb and texture were very different. In the first loaf, the crumb was pretty tight with a lot of small, evenly distributed holes. In the second loaf, the crumb was looser with some bigger holes here and there, much more like a traditional hearth loaf. The texture was also very chewy and airy--a seeming contradiction in terms, but actually so delicious and adept at holding pockets of melted butter that we ate the entire loaf before I thought to take a picture to show you one of the slices. Oops!
3 comments:
It looks like a reenactment of "Alien", but I'd eat it because it still looks like a great loaf of bread!
How exactly does one slash? We put a little two-inch cross in the top of our most recent loaf and it still ate itself.
Hiya, Crankopotamus--
I've found that a good serrated knife works best for slashing--like a bread knife! You can also use an Xacto knife or, if you want to be super fancy, use a 'lame', which is a special bread-slashing tool. The most important thing is for it to be sharp.
Slash about a quart of an inch to a half inch deep, and make them fairly long--maybe 3-4 inches. You'll want to do it fairly quickly. Just SLASH-SLASH! and you're done.
Check out this post: http://my3loves.blogspot.com/2006/08/baking-our-sourdough-ourselves-part-ii.html
There's a good picture toward the end of a slashed loaf.
Gimme a holler if you still have questions!
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