Baking for One: new experiment
Feb. 21st, 2011 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjIt's been a very long time since I've done anything new for my Baking for One Diaries. It's partly the "Ohh, shiny ... squirrel!" forces in my life, but one of the elements of my shifts in eating habits has been to greatly reduce the carbs and baked goods in my life. Oh, I still schedule my life around gorgonzola biscuit day at Arizmendi and the like. But I tend to fill my baked goods quota with really good stuff from professional bakeries rather than home-made stuff.
But for some reason this weekend I felt inspired to take another stab at the problem of Very Small Bread Batches. The major issues being the volume-area scaling problem as it applies to heat and moisture loss. In other words, a single-roll batch of dough cools much faster and dries out a larger proportion of the dough during rising processes than a large batch does. So the heat doesn't stick around long enough to rise properly, or if you add artificial heat you have to be a lot more careful about keeping the dough moist or at least moisture-sealed.
After my initial disastrous attempts a number of years ago, I gave up, but somewhere between then and now I got an idea. A home yogurt maker (the kind that makes little single-serving containers) is designed to incubate food-modifying micro-organisms within an atmosphere that at least minimizes humidity loss. Would it work to make mini-batches of bread by doing the primary rising in a yogurt maker? And happening to have a yogurt maker ....
For the first experiment, I decided to go for a crumpet/english muffin type product as it would test the rising process without the complications of kneading and whatnot. So I took warm water, dissolved a bit of yeast in it, added a pinch of salt and a splash of vegetable oil, and then mixed in an equal volume of flour as I had water and stirred vigorously for a couple minutes to work up a little gluten. I filled the yogurt cups half-full of this fairly liquid batter and set the timer to incubate for a few hours.
I should note at this juncture that while the yogurt maker originally came with about a dozen plastic cups with lids, I discovered that the glass jars that I get rice seasoning in are the exact same size (and come with plastic lids) so at this point I have several dozen of them saved up to use as well (and they clean a bit more easily).
Half-full was a bit too full. When the batter started working, it puffed up and dribbled down the sides, making a mess in the incubator (which, fortunately, is easy to clean). When I noticed that I gave each container a good stir (the equivalent of punching it down) and then let it rise again. Well, ok, actually I figured I'd successfully done proof of concept and it was late so I gave the timer a couple more hours on and then went to bed. And then I was busy in the morning so it was afternoon before I had time to play with it some more. I figured if it was completely spent, I'd just time the next experiment better.
But when I went to actually do the baking, the batter/dough was still frothy (although quite yeasty -- but that was also a matter of how much I used at the start). So I oiled up some crumpet rings and put the iron frying pan on very low. This is also a point where some experimentation will be needed as I filled the rings with a bit too much batter (I was feeling impatient and only had room in the small fry pan to do one at a time.) There was no clear sweet spot between doughy on the inside and scorched on the outside, but if they'd been half the thickness it wouldn't have been a problem. They were more of a thickness to be English muffins, so I ended up forking them apart and toasting them to finish them off. The results were quite edible with a good slathering of orange marmelade. And I have some clear directions for fine-tuning the process. The trick is getting things started at the appropriate time relative to when I want to eat.
This experiment used a cup each water and flour to start and resulted in four thick muffins (largely because I'd incubated it in four containers). I think the next experiment will be to halve the amount in each incubator cup -- i.e., 1/8 c. each flour and water for each cup -- and then do one muffin per cup as before. This should solve both the overflow during rising and the thickness during baking. One breakfast's serving really should be only 2 items, so I'll see how things work if I mix up a batch with 1/4 c per ingredient. The only practical way to handle the timing for a breakfast goal is to do a single long overnight rise.
Once I perfect this, I may move on to actual bread. Maybe.
But for some reason this weekend I felt inspired to take another stab at the problem of Very Small Bread Batches. The major issues being the volume-area scaling problem as it applies to heat and moisture loss. In other words, a single-roll batch of dough cools much faster and dries out a larger proportion of the dough during rising processes than a large batch does. So the heat doesn't stick around long enough to rise properly, or if you add artificial heat you have to be a lot more careful about keeping the dough moist or at least moisture-sealed.
After my initial disastrous attempts a number of years ago, I gave up, but somewhere between then and now I got an idea. A home yogurt maker (the kind that makes little single-serving containers) is designed to incubate food-modifying micro-organisms within an atmosphere that at least minimizes humidity loss. Would it work to make mini-batches of bread by doing the primary rising in a yogurt maker? And happening to have a yogurt maker ....
For the first experiment, I decided to go for a crumpet/english muffin type product as it would test the rising process without the complications of kneading and whatnot. So I took warm water, dissolved a bit of yeast in it, added a pinch of salt and a splash of vegetable oil, and then mixed in an equal volume of flour as I had water and stirred vigorously for a couple minutes to work up a little gluten. I filled the yogurt cups half-full of this fairly liquid batter and set the timer to incubate for a few hours.
I should note at this juncture that while the yogurt maker originally came with about a dozen plastic cups with lids, I discovered that the glass jars that I get rice seasoning in are the exact same size (and come with plastic lids) so at this point I have several dozen of them saved up to use as well (and they clean a bit more easily).
Half-full was a bit too full. When the batter started working, it puffed up and dribbled down the sides, making a mess in the incubator (which, fortunately, is easy to clean). When I noticed that I gave each container a good stir (the equivalent of punching it down) and then let it rise again. Well, ok, actually I figured I'd successfully done proof of concept and it was late so I gave the timer a couple more hours on and then went to bed. And then I was busy in the morning so it was afternoon before I had time to play with it some more. I figured if it was completely spent, I'd just time the next experiment better.
But when I went to actually do the baking, the batter/dough was still frothy (although quite yeasty -- but that was also a matter of how much I used at the start). So I oiled up some crumpet rings and put the iron frying pan on very low. This is also a point where some experimentation will be needed as I filled the rings with a bit too much batter (I was feeling impatient and only had room in the small fry pan to do one at a time.) There was no clear sweet spot between doughy on the inside and scorched on the outside, but if they'd been half the thickness it wouldn't have been a problem. They were more of a thickness to be English muffins, so I ended up forking them apart and toasting them to finish them off. The results were quite edible with a good slathering of orange marmelade. And I have some clear directions for fine-tuning the process. The trick is getting things started at the appropriate time relative to when I want to eat.
This experiment used a cup each water and flour to start and resulted in four thick muffins (largely because I'd incubated it in four containers). I think the next experiment will be to halve the amount in each incubator cup -- i.e., 1/8 c. each flour and water for each cup -- and then do one muffin per cup as before. This should solve both the overflow during rising and the thickness during baking. One breakfast's serving really should be only 2 items, so I'll see how things work if I mix up a batch with 1/4 c per ingredient. The only practical way to handle the timing for a breakfast goal is to do a single long overnight rise.
Once I perfect this, I may move on to actual bread. Maybe.
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Date: 2011-02-22 08:38 am (UTC)Your food plan wouldn't work for me though, I have to eat starch daily--if I don't no amount of other foods will make me feel full. It is easier for me to stay slender if I keep starch somewhere near 40% (by volume) of my diet, because that keeps the total intake reasonable.