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Stage 3, but if you missed it, then back to the mix and knead step… or back to the preparation step…

The Big Bake

The next morning comes – round about 5:45am and the dough has risen!

Hooray and up she rises… early in the morning!

The task now is to do the usual clean and sanitise, get the ovens on and get the dough scaled (measured) out and into proving baskets, tins and so on. Additionally, on this particular day I have the added pressure of sticky buns… These are made in the morning from scratch using a fairly standard enriched dough recipe (with eggs, sugar and milk), filled, baked, glazed and sold… Todays were cardamom and cinnamon.

Starting with the sourdough:

The dough is tipped onto the counter and weighed out into the size I’m after. These are medium (600g) loaves so the dough is a rather generous 740g. After scaling, the lumps are shaped into boulles before final shaping.

These are just rough rounds. I then get the proofing baskets and couch ready

and do the final shaping and leave them covered to rest and rise a little more. This is being done against the clock, so that’s 24 (actually 25 as there was a bit of spare multiseed dough) loaves and I aim to have this all done inside half an hour.

Meanwhile the Lincat oven is up to 200°C and the rye loaves which I’d gotten out of the fridge earlier can go in with a big blast of steam…Not forgetting to set a timer!

These are the wholemeal and cheese breads scaled and pre-shaped… There will be 2 cheese loaves, a batch of cheese sticks and 2 cheese rolls for the lovely staff in the cheese shop in Totnes…

The wholemeals are in tins.

The cheese loaves are roughly shaped, filled with cheese cubes and rolled into a log.

These are left to rise in these baskets along with the cheese rolls which I’ve also stuffed with cheese…

Meanwhile, I’ve made up the sticky bun dough – threw it all in the mixer, let it knead and transfer it to a bowl to rise.

This is the start of the cheese sticks. Pull the dough out into a rough rectangle, 2/3 cover in grated cheese then fold, roll, turn and repeat another3-4 times…

Getting there..

Done – for now. It’s covered with the (recycled) cling film and put in the fridge for an hour or so to relax.

The rye breads are usually done by now, so they come out and are left covered in their tins for another 10 minutes or so.

And now it’s about 7:45 or so – I’ve had to do a round of washing up/cleaning and lifted the risen dough to the silicone sheets that go into the Rofco oven and attacked them with a razor…

This is a closer view of one of them – I’m using a large plywood sheet that has been cut to the exact width of the Rofco to load them into the oven.

After loading the Rofco, I’ve more to go into the Lincat. These are transferred directly onto the board with a bit of flour then into the Lincat.

This is the Lincat loaded with the dough – there’s that extra loaf at the bottom (the bakers own!)

Meanwhile the bun dough has risen and we need to tip it out, roll it into a rectangle, cover it with the filling mix (butter, sugar, cardamom), fold and cut, twist and knot…

They’re all the same size… honest!

Left to rise…

What next – it never stops here… I think the wholemeals might be ready to go into the oven.

Or maybe this was when they were done…

This is the breads inside the Rofco oven. After 12-15 minutes, I open the door and whip out the silicone sheets to let them bake the rest of the time directly on the stones.