I adore blisters on my bread: these beautiful crunchy bubbles that have such a rich variety of caramel shades🙌🏻 They make bread look so rustic and I love it!
I've read in some source that sometimes blisters are considered to be a defect of bread, but I personally was always trying to get them on my bread and was so happy when I understood how to make blisters so bubbly👌🏻😉
During my bakings I found some key points:
📌- using more white flour rather than whole wheat or rye flours in your dough
📌- hydration not less than 70-75%
📌 - another important factor is a long overnight cold retard at 2-4 °C (36-39°F) which helps to incorporate lots of CO2 in the dough
When bread is baked, CO2 that remained dissolved in the dough at low temperatures, starts to expand but is trapped by the already-set crust which results in beautiful blisters
📌- using wood pulp proofing baskets:
the best blisters are always appear after proofing the dough in such baskets. They are more breathable, the aeration of the dough is the best in such baskets. If you don't have them, you can use any proofing baskets that have at least small holes, so the dough can breath in them. But I definitely advise you to try those ones made of wood pulp👌🏻
📌- no flour on the surface of the shaped dough. In such a way blisters will be bright and shiny. Also wood pulp baskets prevent any sticking of the dough and so you don't need to use any flour with them
📌- high temperature for baking (not less than 250°C - 480°F) and a good oven spring during fist 15 min. Too little steam will make the crust dry too fast before blisters can form
📌- cold water💦 sprinkled over the surface of the dough right before putting it into the dutch oven or on a baking stone will make bubbles bigger and shiny
I hope it will be useful, have a nice bread!🙌🏻😉🌾