Once the dough rested over night did it feel tighter at all? The dough when it is fresh is very soft and more difficult to work with. If not, you may just want to add another 1/4 cup of flour to your next batch and see if that helps. Our dough is quite wet, but you should be able to handle it.

If Whole Foods is bagging a local flour it may be a soft southern flour that is lower in protein and therefore will not have as much gluten and result in a wet dough? Or your flour may have been more aerated for some reason when you measured it.

Did you already have a chance to watch our videos to see if your dough looks like ours? http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?page_id=63 be sure to scroll down to the videos about Artisan Bread in Five.

Thanks! Zoë

I can say that the 2nd batch of flour was definitely unbleached all-purpose flour, Whole Foods brand label. I live in the Nashville, TN area and am using the basic boule recipe ( 1 1/2 Tbsp rapid-rise yeast, 1 1/2 Tbsp coarse salt, 3 c lukewarm water-tested with thermometer at 98*, 6 1/2 c of flour measured out in the scoop & sweep method).

Mixed the water, yeast and salt in a 6 qt container, added the flour and stirred it until no dry flour remained. The dough was really sticky. I let it rise in the lidded container on the counter for 3 hours (my kitchen temp was around 68*). I refrigerated the dough for 4 hours, and then took enough to bake a 1 lb. loaf.

Jolinda

We’ll take it from there, should be able to figure out the problem.

Jeff

Thanks for the quick reply!

I am using an oven thermometer and it reads 450* (I can even see it during the baking process). I’m also using a pizza stone and baking for 30 minutes. At the 30 minute mark, the crust ranges from golden to dark brown with a few spots of really dark brown.

I am taking the amount of dough to make a 1-lb loaf (1/2 of a the halved recipe, 1/4 of the reg recipe).

The last loaf I baked last night (took it out of the oven around 10:30p). It cooled on a wire rack overnight. When I sliced it at 9:30 this morning, it was cold.

I am going to try another loaf tonight – the dough will have been in the container in the fridge for almost 24 hours.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Jolinda

I wonder if you are using an oven thermometer? If you are baking a 1-pound loaf for the recommended amount of time and it is still coming out gummy, I suspect that your oven is running a little too cool. It is easy to fix if you have an oven thermometer.

It is also important, but difficult, to resist cutting the bread when it is warm. The bread will be gummy until it has cooled and released the internal steam.

Hope that helps. If not, we will think of something else. Thanks! Zoë

The second go around, I used a fresh bag of flour and got marginally better results. I still have very large (quarter-sized) air holes in the top of the loaf but the bottom is a dough hockey puck.

I have been really careful to follow the recipe closely. I’ve viewed the videos and feel I am not kneading or over-working the dough.

HELP!

thanks!

Your timing is great for this question, we just finished a book all about whole grains and healthy breads that will be out this fall. There are a few recipes in the book that sound like the one you are looking for!

I will look up this bakery, sounds great!

Zoë

I have been trying to recreate their “Whole Grain Health” loaf using the 5 Minutes A Day method, but have not yet made it turn out quite right. It’s 100% whole wheat (but you’d never know it by the mild flavor), sourdough starter, studded with flax and sunflour seeds, and sweetened with a little honey. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life and never tire of it. I even ordered it by mail once (since I know longer live in NY) because I missed it so much, which was an absurd and costly indulgence. Even more reason to try to figure out a home-baked version!!