"Pandora" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Janet Bostwick" > ha scritto nel messaggio
> ...
>>
>> "Pandora" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>>I have made this "Plait bread" (we call it Pane treccia) with sourdough ,
>>>eggs and flour.
>> snip photo links
>>> Cheers
>>> Pandora
>> Hi Pandora,
>> I noticed in this picture http://i1.tinypic.com/nnr1au.jpg
>> that you flattened the pieces you used to make the plaits (braids). Is
>> that a recipe direction?
>
> I would say yes. Because in the recipe is written :"Divide dough in 3
> equal parts, roll out the dough for a 60 cm lenghtness..."
> "Roll out" they say. I rolled out at about 1 cm thickness.
> Then when you put the dough inside oven (brought to 40°C and then turned
> off) for the rising , it grows, and grows much more when you turn on the
> oven for cooking it.
>
>
> I ask because it is different than we would do a
>> braided bread here. We would divide the dough into 3 pieces and make a
>> rope of each piece and then braid the ropes.
>
> Dough of this recipe is very tender, and I have used sourdough. This mean
> that a braided bread made with sourdough would grow much more then others,
> because it must stay for rising many hours. Perhaps is for this reason the
> recipe says "roll out". OTC bread would have risen too much, IMHO.
> BTW I asked myself the same thing
>
> Unless your recipe calls for
>> flattening the pieces, you might find the ropes easier and quicker.
>
> I will try, surely! Thank you.
> Pandora
>> Janet
>>
I would interpret 'roll out' to mean roll ropes beneath the hands. This is
the standard approach for making a plaited loaf or bun. You take a ball of
dough, place it on the bench and put your hands ( palms down) on the ball of
dough. You begin to push your hands back and forth, gradually moving the
hands away from each other. This stretches the rope. You roll in this
manner until the dough is the length you want. Your directions did not say
to roll the dough to a particular thickness, only length, that's why I
believe you want ropes.

Whether the dough is sourdough or not should make no difference. Dough of
whatever kind grows to full proof. Depending upon your particular sourdough
culture, the dough may grow slow or fast. If you want the dough to grow
slowly in order to develop flavor, simply limit the amount of warmth it is
subject to. I proof my sourdough loaves overnight in the refrigerator. By
morning they are fully proofed. Yeasted dough and sourdough generates its
own internal heat to a certain extent. It also takes some time for the
interior of a loaf to cool down in the refrigerator. You'd be surprised at
how much the loaf will grow in the refrigerator in 2 or 3 hours. Sourdough
is not necessarily lighter or more hydrated than a lean dough or an enriched
dough. It is all in the handling. I suggested that you might try making
ropes because in your pictures it looks as though you had to use a lot of
flour to get the dough rolled out. This not only alters the texture and
flavor of the bread, but would also make it more difficult to get the dough
pieces to adhere to one another. You might even have an interior crumb that
pulls apart in the sections of the plait.

Janet