Experiments
9 November 2023 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI made the lardy cake , using half the suggested quantity of lard (even that was quite tricky to incorporate) and putting it in the electric oven at about 25°C in order to get the final rise complete before too much of a puddle of sugar-water had oozed out underneath. The whole raising process took about 36 hours, given current temperatures and the way that enriched dough slows things down.
Then I baked it at 220°C for 30–40 minutes, as instructed by the recipe, but took it out after 30 minutes because the top was not just 'golden brown' but starting to burn. However, when it cooled down it turned out that the middle of the cake wasn't properly cooked, and it didn't have a glossy brown underneath but only a damp white one; I think the oven temperature was too high, and certainly I don't normally bake sourdough at those temperatures. It might have worked better if it had been cooked more slowly for longer -- as it was, once I'd inverted it I ended up with a hard burnt crust on the bottom and a squidgy top, which made it hard to cut. Halving the quantity of fat seemed about right, though...
I also put my bathroom clock in the oven, because it stopped *again* when I had a bath (which doesn't create anything like as much steam as a hot shower in winter; just a few wisps rising off the surface of the water rather than dense clouds obscuring the far side of the bathroom...) It did duly start again after half an hour or so in a warmish environment, but I left it in there until the lardy cake had finally risen, in the hopes of drying out for good whatever moisture was short-circuiting it.
I haven't done any more bathing since, but was rather concerned to discover that the clock was exactly half an hour fast this evening -- possibly I did set it wrong on taking it out of the oven(!)
Then I baked it at 220°C for 30–40 minutes, as instructed by the recipe, but took it out after 30 minutes because the top was not just 'golden brown' but starting to burn. However, when it cooled down it turned out that the middle of the cake wasn't properly cooked, and it didn't have a glossy brown underneath but only a damp white one; I think the oven temperature was too high, and certainly I don't normally bake sourdough at those temperatures. It might have worked better if it had been cooked more slowly for longer -- as it was, once I'd inverted it I ended up with a hard burnt crust on the bottom and a squidgy top, which made it hard to cut. Halving the quantity of fat seemed about right, though...
I also put my bathroom clock in the oven, because it stopped *again* when I had a bath (which doesn't create anything like as much steam as a hot shower in winter; just a few wisps rising off the surface of the water rather than dense clouds obscuring the far side of the bathroom...) It did duly start again after half an hour or so in a warmish environment, but I left it in there until the lardy cake had finally risen, in the hopes of drying out for good whatever moisture was short-circuiting it.
I haven't done any more bathing since, but was rather concerned to discover that the clock was exactly half an hour fast this evening -- possibly I did set it wrong on taking it out of the oven(!)