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Post by spence on Sept 19, 2022 17:25:25 GMT -7
I've enjoyed baking breads for a long time, and doing so from period recipes is a special pleasure. Incorporating procedures and gear they might have used only makes it better. One piece of equipment they commonly used but which is seldom seen these days is the wooden dough bowl. Their use goes far back in history, as this one from 15th century shows.  I picked up a dough bowl from an antiques mall many years ago, not an original but a contemporary replica made of tulip poplar wood. I have learned to use it, as they apparently did, to mix, knead, form and proof the loaf entirely in the dough bowl. Great fun, and many a tasty loaf is the result.    Has anyone else made use of a dough bowl? Spence |
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Post by brokennock on Sept 20, 2022 1:27:37 GMT -7
I am ignorant of such things so please forgive my question.
What is special about a dough bowl? Is there something special about its shape or something that makes it unique and able to have an effect on the dough that can't be had when using another bowl?
Standing by awaiting something that will seem so obvious once I'm told, so I can feel stupid once again.
Thank you
- "Pork Brains"
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Post by spence on Sept 20, 2022 7:55:29 GMT -7
Nothing special. The bread made using a dough bowl is identical in every way to that made using any other equipment. It's other things which make it seem special. Seem, not actually so. The venison from a deer shot with a flintlock double shotgun at 20 yards tastes exactly the same as that from one shot with an AR-15 at 300, it just seems to taste better. And even that only to the one who did the shooting.  Spence |
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Post by Black Hand on Sept 20, 2022 13:56:14 GMT -7
Perhaps the wood keeps the dough from being too moist or drying too quickly. I can see how the porous wood could serve as a reservoir for yeast.
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Post by spence on Sept 20, 2022 16:35:43 GMT -7
Perhaps the wood keeps the dough from being too moist or drying too quickly. I can see how the porous wood could serve as a reservoir for yeast. Yes, that's true. The Japanese use cedar mixing containers, sushi-oke, to make their sushi rice because the wood absorbs excess moisture. If you mix yeast dough in a wooden container and then mix dough with no yeast in the same container without scouring it, yeast will get into the dough and it will rise. The microbiology of bread making is complex. For instance, if you get sourdough starter for the famous San Francisco sourdough and bring it to Kentucky, in a fairly short time the yeast and bacteria symbiosis in the starter will be replaced with those endemic in Kentucky and you won't be baking San Francisco sourdough any more. All that is true of any wooden vessel, though, and the dough bowl we are discussing is in no way different in its effect on the bread. Still, baking a bread recipe from Dr. John Coakley Lettsome published in 1797 and using a period style dough bowl to do it in the way they would have done gives me pleasure, seems special. As with any mind game, it's only special because I choose to make it so, But I do make that choice. Spence NB Dr. John Coakley Lettsome: I, John Lettsome, Blisters, bleeds and sweats 'em. If, after that, they please to die, I, John Lettsome. |
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