Big gobs of flour!

[kentauros]

Yeah, I could rant on this in Cooking & Baking, but y'all appreciate a good rant even more :P

So, I'd like to frappé the baker or likely "celebrity master chef" that came up with this "artisan technique" of plopping gobs of flour all over the outside of bread loaves and not dusting it off after baking!!1!! I don't want a mouthful of flour that isn't bread!

I've seen as much as an 8th of an inch of this browned flour stuck to the crust and have to knock it off the loaf myself. Plus, it adds that much more weight to the total weight of the loaf, and it isn't getting eaten, so why do it?

Sure, I know those affluent people that can't boil water love the look of 'artisan' breads, but I seriously doubt any sane bakery in Europe uses this technique. I've worked at a Swiss bakery (in the US) and we never did that shit with our loaves. I'll dust the top of a loaf with a spinkling of flour to cut down on the way the crust browns as well as to keep it soft. But I always knock it off the loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven. I even use an old drafting board brush to get the rest.

Oil well. I guess it could be revenge by the bakers to the braindead affluent that only care about the look instead of the taste. I'm not affluent but do buy such loaves sometimes for the known quality of the bread (when I'm too lazy or tired to bake.) Just drop the loaves on the baking pan a couple of times when you take them out of the oven. Then sell spray-on gobs of flour for the idiots }(


(oh, I left "spinkling" as is because it looks like a fun made-up word to use sometime :P)

[velvet]

1. goodness gracious

I didn't know dusting the dough with flour before baking made the crust softer. Must try that.

Spinkling, noun: a small spink, used by non-affluent bakers who can't afford a full-size spink.

[kentauros]

2. I'm guessing it acts an an insulator

or prevents moisture from escaping.

And thanks for the definition of a word that resulted from taking Benedryl and having a light vodka cocktail :P