(This post was originally published on November 27, 2010. Though today is not Black Friday, I’ve kept up the tradition of bread baking rather than shopping.)
Black Friday Bread
Black Friday means different things to different people. I’m not much of a shopper, so for me the Friday after Thanksgiving was really a great day for baking. I didn’t have to work, and the forecast was for clear skies, and not quite as cold as the day before. My plan was to bake 18 loaves and make this the last major bake before winter sets in.
Everything started out fine. I fired the oven at 6:00, and catnapped for another half hour before feeding the fire again. After breakfast, I mixed up dough for 6 loaves of sourdough rye, 4 loaves of 2 day multi-grain, 4 loaves of regular whole wheat and four loaves of Italian bread with flax seed. The tricky part of the day came from trying to match the readiness of the oven to the readiness of the loaves. The wood was burning really fast, so I was worried the oven wasn’t heating well enough. I added more wood after noon. Meanwhile, the dough was rising more slowly than usual because the kitchen was not as warm as it is in the summer. I turned the heat up in the kitchen. Both the oven and the room heated up more quickly than I anticipated. That meant the dough was ready and the oven was too hot.
What I should have done, is waited for the oven to cool, but I was impatient. I had company over to see how the oven worked, and a photographer on hand to take pictures. Everyone had other things to do than wait for the oven. I put in the 6 loaves of rye, figuring I would check them in 5 minutes. I did, but one look made black Friday take on a whole new meaning. The loaves were a solid black; tops, bottoms, and sides all the color of charcoal, though they were still raw in the middle. I thought about taking them out, but decided to leave them in. After all the crusts couldn’t get any more burned, and the inside needed more time.
One of the reasons I love baking bread in the outdoor oven is that it’s always an experiment. Most of the time, a hotter oven means a shorter bake time, but the timing doesn’t work if the oven is too hot. I let the oven cool before baking the rest of the bread, which came out beautifully. Even the burned loaves weren’t a total loss. I was able to salvage almost half of each loaf by cutting off all the crusts. The crustless rye made great bread stuffing for the turkey I cooked today for our after Thanksgiving family gathering.
It just goes to show that it’s all in your perspective. I ruined 6 loaves of bread, but learned a new way to stuff a turkey, and I still have12 new loaves of good bread. Over all, I’d call my black Friday a success. And next time, I’ll wait until the oven cools.
BRIC-A-BRAC 