My flour only has 3 grams of protein for every 30 grams (10%). To remedy that, I bought wheat gluten and added about 3 tablespoon of that to the dough above. Is that wrong?

Any suggestion as to how much wheat gluten to add to my flour?

Thanks in advance!

Thank you so much Lili, for sharing your experience and making us part of your baking journey this way. You did very well with the tools and ingredients you had at hand.
And scoring is something you can keep practicing and get a chance to improve with each bake. A sharp blade and maybe a few of our tips will surely give you better results!
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…onfidence/
You can also experiment with the proofing, brand of flour you use, amount of steam..al these things can have impact on your scored loaf and the way it opens.

Above all, enjoy your baking moments and your home made bread.
It’s the best! 🙂

Unfortunately I still have not quite aced scoring – I’m going to get a proper lame to try and improve 😉

I’ve now made this bread twice and it is by far the best bread I’ve made – I don’t have a sourdough starter and don’t really have the patience and commitment needed to keep it going, so it’s been exciting to try a recipe with a poolish for the first time.

The first time I made the bread, it was exactly according to your recipe and turned out beautifully (both in taste and look!).

I thought you would like to know that even after realising after taking my poolish out of the fridge that I didn’t have enough white bread flour, it still turned out wonderfully!
I had already substituted 80g of the poolish for a mix of spelt and wholewheat bread flour based on a previous comment so was very nervous about needing to use more wholewheat flour instead of white flour. This is the proportions I ended up using:
– 300g white bread flour + 80g spelt/wholewheat bread flour mix in poolish
– 160g white bread flour + 140g wholewheat bread flour + 60g plain flour in the portion of flour added to the poolish. I had to add a tiny bit more water as well.

It still turned out deliciously! It is a bit less beautiful as I think the dough was a little too wet so it didn’t shape as nicely, but the texture is bubbly and chewy with a really nice nutty taste.

Thank you for making such a wonderful recipe that is actually very adaptable, even for a baking novice who doesn’t check their ingredients first 🙂

Best wishes,
Lili

Hello Melinda,
Yes, that is a great option. In fact, it is our preferred method and we keep bread in the freezer all the time. With this high hydration bread it is no problem at all. You can even slice it and take the slices you need out of the freezer.

Enjoy your baking!

Hello Heidi,
You can use the print option in your browser and then you will get the version without pictures and so on.

Enjoy your baking!

Hello Yusra,
That sounds excellent. Very happy the recipe is such a success, also with the addition of spelt and wholewheat. Very good to know, because we actually never do this.

Enjoy your crusty boules!

We think it will definitely get better with the lame and as for the flour, we would recommend trying a mix with the strong flour and type 55, equal amounts to start.

Have fun with this ‘mere a boire’ of possibilities!

Thanks for your reply!

I am in fact making a batch as we speak (there have to be some benefits to the lockdown!). Thanks for the tips, I do think my biggest issue is not going deep enough, but that is because my knife isn’t sharp enough and the bread is being flattened and tearing. I will sharpen it today and I have a lame on order so fingers crossed.

As it makes two, I might try one the usual method and I’ll put the other in the fridge straight after shaping and check how long it takes and if it scores better!

I read your flour guide recently and I do think that will make a difference- I have been using a supermarket bread flour (12% protein). I managed to order some stoneground flour last night from a local windmill: very strong canadian, strong UK/continental mix and t55. With those options available, do you have a recommendation for a flour mix?

I possibly add too much steam, so that is probably not my problem. The kitchen ends up like a hammam 😀

Thank you for taking the time to reply and your encouragement, and for giving me the bread baking bug, it gives me such pleasure.

Haha, we love your comment. We must conquer this nemesis of course :)!
First have you seen our tips on scoring with confidence?
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…onfidence/
We often see that the main problem is not scoring deep enough and especially not enough toward the edges of the bread. Also keep this in mind maybe. There are several options you can try. The first is to do part of the final proof as described but a bit shorter, then put the loaf in the fridge for an hour or so and then score. Another is to retard the loaf after shaping, directly in the fridge, but it is hard to say how long this will take to proof, you need to give it a few turns to test this and work out a schedule too, but the proofing time could be anywhere between 4 and 24 hours or longer. You can play with this by adjusting the amount of yeast too. You can get an indication of amounts of yeast and proofing times with our pizza dough recipe % table that you can find here:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…gh-recipe/
Another easy suggestion would be to, at the end stage of the proofing time, leave the loaf uncovered and let the other skin dry out a bit. But with practice of the scoring and our tips and a really sharp scoring knife of course, we are sure you will get there. Just see every loaf as a chance to improve your skill.
If possible also experiment with different (brands of) flour and add enough steam. This can make a big difference too!

Above all enjoy it, this will bug your nemesis to no end 😉

I’ve been lurking on your site for a few years and your no knead brioche and ciabatta-focaccia are foolproof staples of mine so thank you so much for them!

This particular bread is my nemesis and I am still to get to grips with it! Part of my issues is that I am an incompetent scorer. I have read that scoring cold bread is easier; is it possible to incorporate a fridge retard instead of the final 40 min prove? If so, how long would you recommend I leave it in there for?

All the best,