high-bar baking

This is the other reason I do not make babkas. The first reason is because they’re on my “do not make, you’ll eat them all” list. Yes, that is a real list. Other contenders include: Texas Sheet Cake, oat fudge bars, Miss Kelli’s cookies, and Ted Lasso shortbreads. But the other reason is that I start to get a little obsessive. 

This time, what I was mostly testing was gluten development. You don’t want to know how long I ran my mixer before I passed the windowpane test with this dough. I made kale, I called my mom, I put the sheets back on my bed. There was Much puttering around the house. It was north of half an hour, all told. And I didn’t give it one single assist. The very, very first time I made this recipe (the time it really worked!), I didn’t mix the dough by hand at all after the butter stage. I didn’t help the mixer out, I just let it run. And I remember it running forever. Since then, I’ve always scraped the bowl down a little to speed things along. I don’t think I’ve ever windowpane-tested it either. Today I did. Today I tore off a chunk and stretched it out until I could see light through it without a single tear. (This is “torn-tear,” not “crying-tear,” though I thought about it). Even though I had to test it a half dozen times before it worked. I honestly thought that would fix my collapse issues. 

And I did have a better result than I did last time. It helps that I actually let it rise, too. When I started, I turned the oven on until it hit 115 (I was going to do 105, but I missed it), then turned it off and let it hang out until I was ready to proof in it with the light on. Maybe I over-proofed it? Why do under-proofing and over-proofing have to have the same signs and symptoms? Also, word to the wise, when your dough’s in the mixer for that long, remember to pull your cooling filling out of the fridge. Otherwise you get to melt it all over again. 

I’m mostly disappointed with the very middle-bottom. She’s underbaked, ever so slightly. But I temped it! My thermometer said two hundred degrees in the center, which is ten degrees hotter than it even needed to be, so who knows. Because it’s the bottom, I think next time I’ll try to bake it on my pizza steel, see if that helps it along. I just don’t want it drying out.

Here I go again, I’m already planning for the next time. I guess it’s never really over. I know there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.