Bake 8: Cob

For the bread episode technical challenge, the bakers were asked to bake a cob using Paul Hollywood's recipe within 2 1/2 hours. Now I had to look up a cob of course, it is a round loaf of white bread. After our successful sourdough loaves this seemed reasonable. Here is our 'model' of a PH Cob:

Ingredients:

500 g white bread flour (plus a little extra for finishing)

40 g softened butter 

12 g fast action dried yeast

10 g salt

About 300 ml of warm water, PH recommends 'tepid' water, so aim for 100-110

A dash of olive oil

Do note that without a proving drawer to speed up the two 1 hour proving times, it is not actually possible to make this loaf within a 2 1/2 hour window.

Start by weighing out your first 4 ingredients and measuring the water. We have a ThermaPop that I use for all kitchen things that don't need a candy thermometer. Measure the water in a pyrex (since they have ml!) and then take its temperature and adjust. If your water is too hot then it will kill the yeast. 

Add the flour and butter to a large mixing bowl, add the yeast to one side, and the salt to the other. If they are in direct contact the salt will impact the yeast, it can be a bully. Stir to combine. 

Add half the water and mix around with your fingers. Continue to add water and turn about in the bowl until your mixture has picked up all the flour. Given our dryer climate I did add all the water.

Once you have a rough dough, lightly oil your work surface and turn the dough in the oil to lightly coat. Now knead like mad. The recipe says to knead 4-5 minutes, and that is nice, but it took closer to 10 minutes to get to the needed gluten development to pass the windowpane test. I don't know if that is a product of my kneading ability or something else but do check your gluten development every couple of minutes once you have kneaded the initial 4-5 minutes so you know when your dough is ready to move on to the proving step. You want a smooth stretchy dough. 

Lightly oil a bowl or tub (I used a straight sided tub) and add the dough. Cover with a damp tea towel or lightly oiled plastic wrap. Allow the dough to sit until doubled in size. The recipe noted it would take about 1 hour, and mine was very close to that. 

I have a dough bucket I use for proving because then you can see exactly when it has doubled, the straight sides allow for consistent rising, rather than a bowl with sloped sides that is harder to tell. If you have brilliant visual spacial skills though, prove in any shape bowl or container you want!

Once doubled, line a baking tray with parchment or silpat. Scrape the dough out of the container and knock it back, then using your hand to roll the dough up to turn into a smooth round loaf shape. Leave it on the lined baking tray, covered by a tea towel or lightly oiled plastic wrap (reuse that wrap from the first prove!). Again we want it to double in size. This will take another hour or so depending on how warm your space is. 

Once risen, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and put an old empty roasting pan on the bottom of the oven. 

Sprinkle some flour on top of the loaf and gently rub it in, you do not want to deflate the loaf. Using a large sharp knife make shallow cuts to create a diamond pattern. Put the baking tray + loaf in the middle of the oven and pour cold water in to the roasting tray and quickly shut the door. 

Bake for about 30-35 minutes until you see a crisp shiny crust on your golden loaf of bread. It should sound hollow when you tap on the bottom. Allow to cool on a wire rack. 

In our second rise we had a slight distraction (toddlers anyone!?) so the oven was delayed in preheating which led to a slight over prove. At least that is what Paul would say, "fantastic but slightly over on the second prove which is why it deflated". We will make it again and see if we can keep the full dome in tact.