May 22, 2011

Culinary Institute Of America's (CIA) White Bread, Corrected


Everyone makes mistakes, goodness knows I make a whackload of them, but I hate it when published cookbooks are printed and sold with glaring errors.

The CIA's Artisan Breads At Home has at least one such error that I've discovered, so far.

I thought I'd try their "White Bread" recipe on page 71 for today's loaf. Normally I don't use the weighted measurement, I know you're supposed to but I don't think that weighing water is the way to go. Now I now better.

The first three "volume" measurements go as follows:
water 75F 1 cup + 2 1/2 tbs
butter 3 tbs
bread flour 3 cups + 3 1/2 tbs
I mixed all these together, along with honey, salt and yeast. What I got resembled crumbly shortbread dough, nowhere near bread dough. The instructions say that the dough should be tacky, but this was dry, dry as sand.

That's when I looked at the "grams" measurements:
water 75F 556 grams
butter 84 grams
bread flour 926 grams
Um, what? 1 cup + 2 1/2 tbs in NO WAY weighs 556 grams. To double check, I took out my Salter digital scale and weighed 1 cup + 2 1/2 tbs - it's 229 grams!

To fix the mistake in the recipe, I weighed out 556 grams of water, then took out 1 cup + 2 1/2 tbs and dumped the rest of the water into the dough. I had to add about 1/3 cup more flour to get it tacky, it's a very wet day here, but it's finally where it should be.

So, if you're lucky enough to have a recipe that shows both grams and volume, double check them against each other.

Culinary Institute Of America's (CIA) White Bread, Corrected
CIA, Artisan Breads
makes two 28oz loaves, I made one large loaf in a large loaf pan

2 1/3 cups water (556g)
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast (12g)
3 tbs butter (84g)
1 tbs + 1 tsp honey (28g)
3 cups + 31/2 tbs bread flour (926g)
2 1/2 tsp salt (24g)

Add the water to a large bowl, sprinkle with yeast and whisk together. Add honey and butter, combine.

Add the flour, about 1 cup at a time, mixing to combine completely. Turn out onto a kneading surface and knead dough until it forms an elastic smooth dough.

Grease the bowl and return dough back to bowl, turning to oil completely. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let ferment for 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Place the dough on kneading surface and divide into two 28 oz pieces. Round each piece into a ball, cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Shape each piece into a log and place seam side down into a greased bread pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 60 to 75 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425F 20 minutes before rise ends.

Transfer pans to oven, reduce tempt to 375F and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cool completely.

Submitting to yeastspotting.

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