Week 3 Group C: Quadratus & Sourdough Bread

Our group attempted to make bread with three separate types of dough, with varying degrees of success.

1: Quadratus

Dough Ingredients

• Flour: 502g
• Salt: 10g
• Water: 350mL

Timeline

Time since beginning	Action taken	Notes
0:00 – 0:15	Kneaded dough, shaped loaf, placed bread in cast-iron pot & coals/logs on top & underneath	Really large, very hot fire, and a little bit of wind
0:35	Briefly removed from fire: bottom was pretty badly burned, so removed coals from below pot & moved pot further from the fire
0:41	Removed from pot & left to cool!	Crusted to bottom of pot, had to use a knife to remove bottom layer
0:48	Bread cut into quarters & found to be undercooked on the inside: proceeded to cut a portion of the loaf into smaller flat sections
0:53	Portion of sections placed in cast-iron skillet on the fire	This was our first attempt to make fry/flat bread
0:58-1:00	Skillet briefly removed from fire to add olive oil
1:02	Fry bread removed from fire
1:09	Additional olive oil & new set of sections placed in skillet & far from the fire	We abandoned this because the increased distance from the fire and the wind led to it very quickly getting covered in ash.

We found the initial loaf to be too crispy on the outside and underdone inside. However, these textures remained very consistent the next morning, indicating at least a small degree of longevity. We also learned that because we made the loaf small and round, cooking overall would necessarily be more difficult than if we had made it flatter.

2: Sourdough

We used a sourdough starter for this loaf which we did not make ourselves & therefore cannot describe the ingredients of.

Timeline

Time since beginning	Action taken	Notes
0:46-0:48	Placed pre-made dough into cast-iron pot, which was placed into the fire with the coals/logs on top	Still a fairly strong fire, but less than before
1:06	Checked on loaf: 2/3s of the sides burned, returned to fire
1:17	Removed from fire

This loaf turned out very soft inside, with a very even texture, despite the burnt exterior. Removing coals from underneath the cast-iron pot prevented the bottom from becoming more burnt than the sides were: in this case, the primary issue was the fire was too hot relative to the placement of the pot. The next day, the bread remained very soft and tasty, significantly more so than the quadratus bread.

3: Quadratus/Focaccia

We chose to change the ingredients of the quadratus bread slightly to see if we could improve upon our previous results. When kneading the dough the first time, it quickly became dried out, so we chose to add extra water at the beginning of the process.

Initial Ingredients

• Flour: 500 g
• Salt: 10g
• Water: 400mL

Timeline

Time since beginning	Actions taken	Notes
1:30	Began kneading ingredients
1:34-1:36	Added pinch of flour and approximately 20mL of olive oil into the partially-kneaded dough
1:38-1:39	Placed fully kneaded dough into cast-iron pot relatively far from the fire, added coals and logs to lid
1:57	Checked on loaf, found very even cooking but a clear indicator that more time was necessary	Because of increased wind and lack of fire maintenance, we had to add logs to the fire around this time.
2:13	Added additional logs and coals to top of pot	We were approaching the end of the time allotted for the lab & wanted to increase likelihood the bread would cook faster.
2:45	Removed bread from heat
7:09	Placed bread in oven preheated to 350 degrees F	We attempted to finish cooking the bread in an actual oven as a way to compensate for lack of lab time.
7:19	Increased heat to 400 degrees F
8:15	Removed from oven

We were optimistic about this one. The twice-cooked nature caused this bread to turn out very durable, but surprisingly hard for something ultimately undercooked. It remained edible, but the addition of the olive oil was not an improvement.