A couple of newbie questions

[arago_sama]

Hi everyone,

I'm just now getting into baking breads; I've made a few out of Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice with decent results (the focaccia was amazing

Comments

[mangiati_vivi]

Not to be blunt, but when you mix yeasts of different activity levels, you're likely to get unpredictable leavening. (as you've seen in your pain au chocolat recipe

[kamaliitaru]

What the previous poster said 100%. That's the reason I don't use fresh yeast - I've had varying degrees of success with it, so I use the active dry stuff - that I buy in a too big container and stick in the freezer because I'm too cheap to buy the packets.

As far as the cooking time, there could be a few things going on - one being your oven could be a bit colder than what it says on the thermostat. If you are going to be baking bread regularly, I suggest you get an oven thermometer and check your temp. Each oven requires a little bit of a learning curve to learn if it's hotter or what not, since each one can be a bit different. For bread, I always make sure to preheat the oven a full 5-10 minutes. It's probably a waste of energy, but I get more consistent results if I do this.

I've also noticed that items that don't rise as much as they were supposed to can take a bit longer to cook. These can also take a bit longer to cook if the filling to dough ratio is different than the larger ones.