Basics of Bread Making by sophiambischoff

Basics of Bread Making

Basics of Bread Making intro

A collection of articles by White Crusty Bread recipe by Sourdough recipe by

Max Bernstein

Binging with Babish, Oliver Babish

Sophia Bischoff

Table of contents MIXING 18

Step one: Choose your ingredients 22 Step two: Scale your ingredients 24 Step three: Incorperate flour, water + autolyse 26 Autolysing, Flour + Hydration 28 On Gluten 30 On Starch 32 Step 4: Incorperate Salt + Yeast to develop Gluten 36 Step 5: Cover your Dough 40

PROOFING 42

Yeasts 44 Fermentation 48 Bulk Fermentation +Folding 50

HOW TO FOLD DOUGH 53 Dividing your Dough 58 Pre-shaping your Dough 59 Bench Rest 60 Final Shape 62 Final Proof 64

BAKING 66

Volume Test 68 Feel Test 69 Main Event 73 Final Shape 74 Scoring Patterns 76 Venting Steam 78 Finishing the Bake 80

STORING 82

RECIPES Crusty White Bread 6 Sourdough Bread 12

The Test 84 Stale Bread 86 Reheating Tests 88 Conclusion- Reheating Bread 90

Mixing:

That thing we do when we take our raw ingredients—in this case flour, water, salt, and yeast—and combine them into dough.

Proofing and shaping: Proof ing is about letting the yeast eat up the sugars from the flour, and burp out gas and alcohol, which makes the bread rise and gives it a nice flavor. As bakers, proof ing is about nurturing and caring for the dough, little-engine-that-could that it is. When shaping, we teach the dough what we want it to look like when it's a full-grown, fully baked loaf of bread.

Baking:

We start by stabbing the dough we've nurtured and loved, usually several times, and then fling it into a screaming hot oven. Fire, brimstone, and Maillard reactions galore! What comes out of the oven should be airy, crusty, and delicious.

Storing/eating: Eat the bread. We made it, we deserve it. Are you going to try not to eat the whole fresh loaf right away, slathered in butter? Well f ine, be that way. We'll talk about storage.

CRUSTY Ingredients

White Bread 1.

22 grams salt

instant or fresh yeast, combine flour and all of the water in a stand mixer f itted with the dough hook. If using active dry yeast , combine flour with 650 grams water and combine yeast with 50 grams warm water ; let yeast stand until foamy. Mix flour and water at low speed until they are

4 grams instant yeast,

dough. Alternatively,

5 grams active dry yeast, or

and

10 grams fresh yeast

using a dough spatula until dough

Vegetable, canola, or other

towel or plastic wrap and let the

1000 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 700 grams room-temperature water, divided if using active dry yeast

neutral oil, for greasing

If using

fully incorporated and form a uniform

water

forms. dough

combine flour

in a mixing bowl and mix

Cover the bowl with a kitchen rest for at least 15 minutes and

up to 1 hour.

Add salt , along with either the instant yeast , fresh yeast, or the active-dry yeast solution , and mix at low speed or by hand until

salt

and

yeast

are fully

incorporated and dough is smooth.

Turn stand mixer up to medium-high speed and mix until the dough feels elastic and bounces partway back when indented with your thumb, about 3-5 minutes. If mixing by hand, skip this step.

Working with oiled hands, gently

transfer dough, being

careful not to tear its surface, to a lightly oiled mixing bowl and

cover with plastic wrap. Let dough stand at

room temperature for 30 minutes.

5. Uncover

dough. Working with wet hands and/or a

plastic bench scraper,

loosen the dough, then gently lift

and pull the dough down towards you, folding it in half.

Give the bowl a quarter

turn and repeat , folding the half

dough in half towards you. Now give the bowl a

turn and repeat the fold a f inal time, being careful not to compress it too much.

Lastly,

pull the unfolded side of your dough

carefully up from the bottom, and pull it up and over to form a neat package.

Re-cover with plastic wrap and let stand until dough has increased in volume by half, about 1 hour 30 minutes longer.

Transfer dough in one piece to a lightly floured work surface. Using a bench knife , divide dough in half and shape each portion into a ball. Dust the tops of the dough balls with flour , cover with a towel , and let rest for 15 minutes.

10. Shape

Crusty White bread continued

the dough into rounds once again, gently

folding the dough over itself similar to how you did before, but even more carefully now. Now flip the

dough ball over so that the seams you just created are on the bottom and a smooth surface is on top. Let dough

rest on the work surface, seam-side down,

for 5 minutes.

11.

Transfer each dough ball, seam-side up, to a bowl or basket lined with a

lightly floured linen cloth

plain, not-fuzzy kitchen towel.

Refrigerate dough

balls or store in a cool place until dough has nearly doubled in size, about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes.

12.

set a Dutch oven on the oven’s bottom rack and preheat oven to 500°F (260°C). Meanwhile,

(if your oven has a convection setting, do not use it).

13. Remove

1 loaf from the refrigerator and gently

turn it

out, seam-side down, into the preheated Dutch oven.

14.

With a

razor

paring knife, score

the full surface of

3 inches apart. With a spray bottle f illed with water, lightly spritz

the dough with 2 parallel lines roughly the surface of the dough.

15. Cover

and

bake for 15 minutes. Lower oven

temperature to 450°F (232°C)and bake for 15 minutes longer.

Uncover and bake until crust is dark brown,

about 15 to 20 minutes.

16. Transfer

loaf to a

wire rack . Allow to cool for at least

1 hour before slicing.

17. Return

reheat at 500°F (260°C) for 10 minutes. Then repeat with the remaining Dutch oven to oven, and

ball of dough.

Crusty White bread continued

SOURDOUGH

For the levain 35 grams bread flour 35 grams whole wheat flour 35 grams mature starter 70 grams filtered water

For the dough 810 grams bread flour 90 grams whole wheat flour 680 grams filtered water

1. 2.

Bread Mix levain ingredients and rest in a warm area (70-80ºF) for 5 hours. One hour before your levain is done,

mix together your bread flour and whole wheat flour . Add 580g of your

water

to the

flour

mixture

(keeping 100g to the side for mixing later).

3. Mix

just until your dough comes

Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest in a warm area (same

together.

as your starter) for 1 hour.

4. Mix

your

dough

and

levain

together

using a little of your separated water to help incorporate.

Rest 20 minutes.

18 grams fine sea salt

5. Add

sea salt and the rest of your separated water and mix until incorporated. your

6. Slap and fold

for 2-4 minutes or until your

dough is smooth and begins to catch some air.

Rest 15 minutes in the same warm area you placed your starter.

7. Perform

6 sets of stretch and folds spaced

out by 15 minutes for the first 3, then 30 minutes for the next 3. Make sure to

place

your dough back in the warm area for each rest. Let your dough

rest for a remainder of

1.5 hours, for a grand total of 4 hours.

8. Dump out

and

divide your dough into 2

even pieces. Preshape each piece into a light boule and rest 5-10 minutes.

Shape your dough into 2 batards and place into bannetons dusted with either or

rice flour

all purpose flour.

10. Chill 11. Preheat

in the fridge overnight. a

cast iron combo cooker

in your

oven from cold to 500ºF for 1 hour.

place a dusted loaf into the hot pan, score the top, place the larger lid on top, and bake for 20 minutes. Carefully

13. Remove

the top from the combo cooker and

lower the oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for an additional 20-30 minutes, or until the loaf is deep brown.

14. Remove

cool on a wire rack until room temperature. Repeat with the other loaf. and

Sourdough bread continued

12.

Sample Schedule for Breadmaking

9 am

Mix Levain

1 pm

Autolyse Dough

2 pm

Mix Dough and Levian

2:15 pm

Mix in Salt

2:30 pm

Fold #1

2:45 pm

Fold #3

3 pm

Fold #4

4 pm

Fold #5

4:30 pm 6pm Next Morning

Fold #6, Rest for 1.5 Hours Shape Dough and Place in Fridge Preheat oven as guided and bake!

A chapter on

MIXING

Mixing the Workhorse Loaf Mixing.

Here's a word that gets thrown around a lot.

mixing is exactly what it sounds like— we're going to take our flour, water, salt, and yeast, and put them together to make dough. At the most fundamental level, mixing is about dough structure, And for the most part,

and it's the beginning of any baking adventure. But

mixing

bread dough has a lot of its own kinks and

quirks, and there are some big decisions to be made about how we go about it. All of these decisions will affect the

crust

(the exterior) and

crumb

(the interior) of our yet-

to-be-born loaves who, like phoenixes, will rise from the f ires of our ovens on their way to home-baked glory. We're going to dive into some of the most common questions about that sticky, shaggy stuff we call dough. What is gluten and how frightened should I be? What does kneading do? Should my arms be this tired? And, Oh No! I'm freaking out, how do I get this dough off of myself ? Before we get into the nitty gritty of actually making our dough, let's take a quick look at what exactly we'll be tackling today. Mixing a basic bread, like our

loaf,

boils down to f ive simple steps.

workhorse

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

Gather your ingredients. Measure those ingredients (with a scale!). Incorporate your flour and water, then walk away. This is our

autolyse.

Incorporate your salt and yeast and develop your

gluten . Also known as kneading.

Transfer to your proof ing container and try to contain your excitement.

It's proofing time .

Step 1:

Choose your ingredients. Sounds simple enough, right? And it often is. But it's also hugely important! This is the part of the bread-baking process where we make some of our biggest decisions about what kind of bread we're going to bake. Whether it’s about making a grocery run or shuffling through our cupboards, this step is always our start, and it will have a major impact on how we go forward. Lucky for us, today we're keeping it The

workhorse loaf

simple.

is a recipe for a classic

French white bread, similar to a baguette. In the

tips and techniques for how to work with fancier or whole grain flours , as well as working with a wide variety of yeasts

future, we'll be moving on to

(both store-bought and harvested from nature), but

plain old all-purpose white flour, any potable water, some store-bought yeast, and pure salt.

for now, we're keeping things simple:

I can hear you:

But I love using my organic flour! So do I! But it's not necessary here.

Any white all-purpose or bread flour will do just f ine.

I only drink sparkling water! Well that's a silly code to live by. The only thing you need to worry about with your water is the

temperature . If you're baking in a

cold environment, use water that's a little above room temperature. Working in a warm environment? Use water that's a little cooler. What sort of yeast should I pick? Whether it's

fresh,

active dry , or instant , the end results will taste pretty much the same. Just grab what's easiest to f ind. Will my fancy black Hawaiian volcanic salt work? Lets keep it boring for now: plain old un-iodized table salt or kosher salt is what to use. Most importantly, don't try and use anything too coarse. Very coarse salt won't dissolve properly, which will inhibit the development of dough structure later on.

Sc a l e your ingredients. Step 2:

This is what it sounds like, and it’s important!

Use a scale when baking.

Let me repeat that. Measuring cups

and

spoons

simply won't

cut it: depending on how tightly your

flour

or other ingredients are packed, volume

measurements can vary by as much as A

scale

50% .

ensures that your dough comes out

the same way each time. Make sure to weigh your ingredients carefully and separately. Pay careful attention to what kind of

yeast

you're

using and how much you need. Get familiar with your scale's tare (zeroing) function

—it allows you to ignore the weight of your measuring vessels, making it easier to accurately weigh your ingredients.

Step 3:

Incorporate Flour and Water,

Autolyse

and

gathered and measured our ingredients, we're ready to actually start mixing . You can

Now that we've do this in a

stand mixer

if you have one, but working by

hand will work just as well. For those of you working with a

stand mixer,

start by placing the

bowl, and then dump your ensure that

flour

water

into the mixing

on top. This will help to

doesn’t stick to the bottom and clump—

clumps make for lumpy bread.

(For those of you using active dry yeast, now is a good time to bloom it, following the instructions on the packaging. When doing this, make sure that you deduct the water you use from our overall formula or you will alter our dough’s overall hydration level).

Set your mixer to a medium-slow speed to get your

flour and water combining. In baker-speak, this is called incorporating . When your flour and water f irst start chasing each other around, your dough will look really dry and you might think you’ve made a mistake. Fear not! Just

flour remain. With a wet dough spatula —or some other, flexible bench knife— scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl a couple of times to make sure all of your flour joins the party. let it ride until no more dry pockets of

For those of you mixing by hand, get ready to get

messy.

Place your flour and water in your bowl, then, with your dough spatula, begin scraping the

flour

into your water, paying special attention

to the sides and bottom. As your dough comes together, get your spare hand into the mix and, starting at the edge of your bowl,

fold the dough

over itself with the spatula as you use your other hand to squish any dry spots to ensure they get incorporated. Once your

flour

and

water

are fully

incorporated and there are no dry spots, stop and wait. Your dough should look This is known as the

loose and formless.

shaggy mass stage . At this

point, you might be thinking, OH NO! This is way too wet! It isn’t. I promise. Hearth breads are made from really wet doughs, which is part of what accounts for their exceptionally open crumb.

Cover your dough and step away from it for a half hour. Set a timer if you want, or go distract yourself with an episode of New Girl. This resting period is called an While our dough is

autolyse*.

autolysing,

*Autolyse allows our flour

let’s take a minute

to hydrate more

to talk about some dough chemistry, and explain

fully, ultimately

why stepping away is good dough parenting.

giving us a better impression of how far to take our f inal mix. 27

Autolysing, Flour, and Hydration. A Dough-Chemistry Kerfuffle....

CHEMISTRY?

I HATE CHEMISTRY! Don't worry. we'll keep it straightforward here and give resources for those who want to chase the dragon on their own time. First, lets talk about what happens when

water

meets

flour , or, in more baker-chemical terms,

when flour is hydrating.

Flour

is milled

grain.

When we say it's been milled, we

mean that it's been ground up into a powdery

flour.

grain , we see grain is more than just starch. Grain, and I mean each grain , is made up of three main parts: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. White flour has had the bran and germ removed, leaving just the milled endosperm, which is made up mostly of starch , along with some protein —usually between 10-14%. But if we take the time to consider the

that

In this organic mess,

there are also enzymes: molecules whose job it is to break big molecules down into smaller ones.

On Gluten

You've heard of

gluten ? ,

It's essential to good bread structure, and it's made up of a couple of proteins —giant In

chains of amino acids.

flour , the two most important proteins are glutenin

and gliadin , and each plays a vital role in giving dough its elastic (ability to be stretched) and plastic (ability to hold its shape) properties. In

dry flour , these proteins

are at rest in a curled up state.

Let's look at the glutenin* first. This means that it's attracted to the

water

on a

molecular level. This attraction causes individual

glutenin

molecules to unravel, or denature, and become

long, slightly curly strings. Once denatured, these long, strand-like molecules begin bonding with each other both at their ends and along their middles, forming a three dimensional, net-like structure. This structure is what

* Glutenin is a

hydrophilic protein.

* Gliadins are a

component of gluten. They givie bread the ability to rise properly during baking.

allows dough to stretch and hold the large amounts of

water

gas which we'll be needing for our dough to rise. The glutenin net also tends to stretch like a spring, and

pulling back on itself once pressure is released. This is what we call a

dough’s elastic property.

If all we had was

glutenin , though, we would never be

able to shape our dough into loaves—any shaping and stretching we do would immediately snap back into place. A baker cannot live on spandex alone!

This is where gliadin comes in. Unlike

glutenin,

gliadin* is hydrophobic. This means

that in the presence of water,

gliadin

remains tightly

curled up in its native state. While you might think this would inhibit dough development, it's actually really important: the enough of the

gliadins act like ball bearings, disrupting glutenin - glutenin bonds to allow them

to slide past each other. It allows our dough to cast a wider net —holding

more water and more gas— and

make bigger bread. This is good. Without this quality in dough, forming shaped loaves of bread would be nearly impossible.

Gliadin

gives dough its plastic quality.

gluten , which provides the Gluten is the house that bread lives in. During our autolyse, gluten

Together, these proteins form

structure that makes leavened bread possible.

formation is allowed to happen passively, and giving our gluten structure this sort of head-start means that our dough will require much less mixing and kneading further down the line. This means less work for us, the bakers.

On Starch

So what’s happening with the

* Globule is a small round particle of a substance. 32

starch during our autolyse The answer is

twofold.

When

water

is added

and our proteins are getting tickled into

globules* of starch molecules water and swelling. This is important, because dehydrated starch is formation,

are absorbing

virtually inedible. Hydrating our flour is the f irst step toward making it into food, and since

flour

is made up mostly of

starch ,

making it edible is a really good thing. The second part of our answer has to do with

enzymes.

See,

starches

are long-chain

molecules too, much like our proteins. But rather than being chains of amino acids,

starches

are made up of lots and lots of

simple sugars, bonded tightly together.

But our yeast —which is on standby— can't eat big starches.

It needs simpler sugars to feed on. Lucky for us, just so happens to contain the

enzymes

flour

necessary to

starches into simpler sugars. These enzymes are called amylases, and they are the same enzymes break down

our bodies will use later on to digest the bread. During the

autolyse , these amylases

are given a chance to start

breaking down starches into yeast-food.

will help our bread ri s i se h Th appily.

Note:

these processes are just given a head-start during the autolyse. They will continue up until the moment we bake. Many bread recipes don't call for an

autolyse , and that's ok.

When it gets down to it, this step is optional. However, for most hearth breads, an

autolyse

will greatly increase

the consistency and quality of the bread. Moreover, it will give us a better idea of when to stop mixing our dough and set it to rise. As this series moves into working with wetter doughs, the After the

autolyse

will become even more essential.

autolyse , your dough will seem looser than when

you left it. Probably much looser. Don’t worry—it’s your bread’s way of telling you that the gluten has started to organize itself and relax. This will make an elastic dough, capable of holding lots of

gas.

Step 4: Now it's time to add our

salt

and

Incor pora to D te Sa evel lt +Y op G luten east

yeast.

But why couldn't we add them during our

autolyse ? Thanks for asking!

gluten network overall, it's also very water-hungry. If we added salt to our autolyse , it would compete with our proteins and starches for water , causing them Although

salt

strengthens our

to take longer to hydrate. While this wouldn't be a disaster, we've already committed ourselves to a f ive-hour project here, so why make it harder on ourselves? And as for the

yeast , its job is to ferment our flour , causing

the bread to rise and develop flavor. But on a chemical level, mixing —and

autolysing, in particular— isn't about flavor. It's about structure . Were we to put our yeast in during our autolyse , it would start belching out gas . When we begin our kneading steps later, we would just end up pounding this gas back out. In short, the yeast just doesn't have a job to do during the autolyse .

To make things easier to follow, I'm f irst going to explain how to accomplish this in a mixer, and then explain the quirks and tricks of doing it by hand.

If kneading with a stand-mixer, add the

salt

and

yeast

to your

autolysing

dough, and

then set it to a nice, slow speed until you can't feel any graininess in the dough—just a few minutes should do it. If you're using active yeast, and have bloomed it, the water it's bloomed in goes in, too. * Once everything is incorporated, we now have what’s

complete dough , meaning we have flour , water , salt , and yeast all getting busy with each other. It’s time to develop our gluten . This means we’re called a

going to organize our gluten into a coherent, threedimensional structure. Here we are taking our threads and ropes, and weaving them into a gas-trapping net.

* Beware: some of the water might splash out and hit you

in the face if you stand over it being nosy. Should this happen, estimate back in the amount of water you think was lost—likely no more than a tablespoon or two.

To develop gluten

set your mixer to medium high

speed, and let it go for a few minutes. It’s important not to set your mixer speed too high, or the

gluten

structure will start to rip,

keeping our loaves from rising to their full potential and making a denser bread than we want to eat. When the dough just starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, it’s time to stop. Give it a

tug . It

should stick to you just a bit, but be able to give you a gentle, decisive handshake. You should see the dough curling around the hook a little, and if you get in close, the curls should look almost like little muscles. Using a dough spatula,

transfer

your dough into a lightly oiled bowl large enough to let the dough at least double in volume. The oil will keep our dough from sticking to the bowl, and allow it to rise unhindered. Be sure to cut the dough out of the bowl in pieces, or scrape the whole mass out at once.

Try not to tug and rip it out of the bowl, which will tear the

gluten

we’ve just developed and make our dough

stickier. If working by hand, do yourself a favor and get your oiled container—the one that the dough is going to proof in—ready to go right next to you.

We’re about to get really messy again.

If kneading by hand... Start by

sprinkling your salt and yeast evenly over the

top of your dough. With a dough spatula and your hand, begin

folding the dough over itself to incorporate, giving

a quarter turn of the dough between each fold. As you do this, you will feel the dough begin to tighten, and what once was a loose mess will begin to look and feel orderly. Keep working the dough until you don’t feel any salt or yeast granules left. If you used

active dry yeast

and are also

incorporating the last of your water, make sure that the water is fully incorporated, too, and that there is no residual slipperiness or pooling around the sides and creases.

By now, chances are that you've already worked the dough as much as, if not more than, the folks using a mixer. If your dough still feels

slack , don't worry—we can always

add in an extra fold during proof ing, which will be discussed next..

Double chances are that your hands are caked in dough. With your dough spatula,

scrape

your dough into your bowl, getting as much off your hands as you can, and then go clean up your sloppy self.

But wait a minute—when do we do that whole kneading thing?

Congratulatio ns! We’ve already done it.

If you used a stand mixer, you kneaded your dough when you turned your mixer to that

medium-fast speed . If you mixed by hand, then the work you did to incorporate your

flour

and

salt—along with our autolyse—

got you most of the way there.

The more a dough is kneaded, the tighter and more regular a baked loaf 's crumbwill become. The purpose of

kneading

any dough is to

develop

gluten , and incorporate micro

bubbles

into the mass of the dough which will

inflate during proof ing and baking. The more a dough is kneaded, the tighter and more regular a baked loaf 's crumb will become. Sandwich breads are kneaded more. Really wet doughs, like a rustic French miche, are hardly kneaded at all. For a mediumwet dough like the workhorse loaf, we knead enough to bring our dough together into something shapeable, but not so much that we lose our regularly-irregular crumb. At the French Culinary Institute, we called this middle-of-road sort of mix an

improved mix.

Step 5:

Cover your Dough 40

it's

Rising Time Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and get your station clean. And with that, it's time for our f irst rise, or bulk fermentation.

A chapter on

Proofing 42

Yeasts Fresh Yeast

(a.k.a. Cake or Block Yeast): Fresh yeast

has the highest moisture content of the

three varieties. This extra water means it’s bigger, which makes it easier to measure. Also, since the

yeast

hasn’t been rendered dormant through processing, it has more leavening power than

yeast.

active dry

instant

Some people swear that it tastes better than

other commercial

yeasts

as well, but I’ve noticed no

differences in taste between

fresh yeast

and the

others. Its chief draw-back is that since the

yeast

in an active state already, it will spoil and die faster than

active dry

instant , giving it a short shelf-life,

generally not more than two weeks.

Active-Dry Of the three types of commercial yeast available,

active dry

has the longest shelf-life—in a sealed

container in the fridge it will keep for years. For a home baker, this makes

active-dry

yeast a good choice.

However, the manner in which it’s processed means that

yeast

cells are already dead at the time

they are added to the dough, i.e. you need to use more than the other two varieties to get the same rise. For doughs that are very heavily yeasted, some people f ind that the

yeast debris

active-dry

creates undesirable

Yeasts

many of the

flavors. It also needs to be reactivated in water—i.e. bloomed—prior to being added to the dough. If you’re impatient, like me, this annoys you even though it isn’t a big deal and probably shouldn’t.

Instant Yeast: Instant yeast

requires no blooming and activates

more quickly than

active dry . This means that it

can be added directly to our dough and we can be on our way. Also, it has a relatively long shelf life, and that shelf life can be extended by keeping it refrigerated. For a home baker, I believe

yeast

instant

is the ideal choice.

carbon gluten dioxide +

= bigger more open bread. As the yeast respirates, our bread rises.

* S. cerevisiae

also known as “Baker’s Yeast” is a unicellular fungus responsible for alcohol production and read formation.

Proofing * Amylases is

chiefly in saliva and pancreatic fluid, that converts starch and glycogen into simple sugars.

Yeasted breads get bigger.

That’s why we call them leavened. For a baker, this is what we call rising. Rising is the most dramatic physical change a dough undergoes on account of yeast activity. Technically speaking, rising is a product of a process called respiration , which occurs in conjunction with fermentation, that we’ll discuss next. You see, S. cerevisiae* has a serious sweet tooth—think of it as a microscopic Cookie Monster. And flour just so happens to be packed with starches— long chains of

Yeasts continued

Rising

simpler, smaller sugars, such as glucose, sucrose, and maltose.

When our flour met our water during the autolyse, enzymes called amylases* began breaking down the flour’s starches into these simpler sugars, which the yeast readily devour. As the yeast eat sugars released by the starch , they belch out carbon dioxide , and that gas congregates in tiny air bubbles. It’s those same air bubbles that we incorporated into our dough during mixing. These bubbles are in turn held inside our dough by the gluten structure we developed during mixing, and which we’ll further develop during bulk fermentation.

Fermmentation In the simplest of terms, happens when

yeast

fermentation

cells eat and poop. It’s

what happens when yeast cells consume and produce

ethanol

is what

sugars

and other derivative

yeast during fermentation —along with a multitude of other reactions— are what give great bread its chemicals. The alcohol produced by the

characteristic flavors and aroma.

Generally speaking, more fermentation means tastier bread. In the most technical, terms

anaerobic reaction

fermentation

is an

(meaning it happens in the

absence of oxygen) that the

yeast

performs after

respiration, which is aerobic and requires oxygen. In bread baking, the word

proofing

most commonly

refers to the f inal rise dough undergoes, which takes place after being shaped into a loaf, and before it is baked. In practice, however, the words

proof

and

fermentation

are sometimes used

interchangeably. What’s important to realize here is that shaping dough affects its physical form, but doesn’t impact its internal chemistry—the processes and chemical reactions at work during our bulk and f inal rises are the same.

Fermentation With that vocabulary in mind, let’s take a look at the dough we all just birthed, and, armed with patience, get back to work.

Bulk Fermentation and Folding

Step One

The

bulk fermentation

for any dough is a crucial

step in the bread baking process, even if it isn’t the most exciting one. We call it a

bulk fermentation entire

because we are letting our dough —the

batch— ferment as one mass, before dividing and shaping it into loaves. It’s during our bulk fermentation that the yeast does the majority of its work, helping our dough gain flavor as ethanol and other byproducts are produced, and gain structure as

CO2 inflates

our

gluten network .

At a comfortable room temperature, our

fermentation

bulk

for the workhorse loaf will take

about one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours.

warmer dough will rise faster than colder dough , so make sure you take stock of the

As a rule,

environment in which you’re baking. I can hear you asking, “Why not make my dough really warm so it’ll proof faster and I can have bread sooner?” There are several reasons we don’t want to

bulk fermentation. Chief among them is that the fermentation that produces good flavor really only takes place in earnest after the yeast have exhausted most of their oxygen supply. If we rush the

allow our dough to rise too quickly, we’ll get lots of

CO2

but less alcohol than we want, meaning our

bread won’t taste as good.

too warm , our yeast will inflate the dough faster than its gluten structure our dough

can organize itself —the

bubbles that make up our dough’s internal structure will over- inflate and pop like balloons. This will hurt our shaping efforts later and give us flatter, less sexy looking bread.

I know, two hours feels like a long time. Trust me, it’s worth it. Don’t rush the bulk rise. So, can the bulk rise be slowed down?

Bulk Fermantation and Folding

gluten is less temperature sensitive than yeast. Meaning that if we get Furthermore,

Yes.

slower bulk rise will encourage more flavor and s tructural development up to a point. But remember, the yeast has a A

limited food supply, and we want to make sure to leave it enough food for a successful

final proof,

and make sure enough

sugars

are present to allow our crusts to properly caramelize when we bake them. If you want

proof for longer , try bulk-fermenting it in a cooler place, but

to let you dough

don’t allow it to go longer than three hours or

structure

and

flavor

may be compromised.

How to Fold Dough. 52

Us bakers do have some important work to do during the bulk fermentation . About a half hour into the bulk rise , it’s time to fold , or turn , our dough. Folding dough effectively takes a bit of practice, but is one of my favorite parts of making bread. A good fold lets us stare into a dough’s soul.

So, why do we fold dough? Lots of reasons. To start with, By f irst

folding dough develops gluten structure.

stretching

and

layering our gluten, we help our water and air . As we trap

dough more effectively hold more

air

in our dough during these motions,

folding

also helps to establish a more open crumb structure in our baked loaves. Secondly,

folding dough redistributes our

yeast and its food, making sure each little Cookie Monster gets its f ill. Also,

temperature,

folding dough helps to regulate its

keeping it consistent through its mass.

Together, these two consequences of folding regulate yeast activity, and help our dough stay on schedule.

Start by wetting your dough spatula and hands

Gently scrape around the edges of the bowl to

Without tugging, pull the side farthest from you

Give the bowl a quarter turn, then perform

Give the bowl a half turn, and repeat the

Pull the unfolded side of your dough carefully up

with water.

prevent sticking, and make a clean fold possible.

up and towards you, and fold your dough in half.

How to Fold Dough

To perform a fold,

the same motion again.

same motion.

from the bottom, and pull it up and over to form a neat package, like so.

All the while, allow the dough to stretch itself—your hands are just assistants.

Performing these motions too aggressively may tear the gluten, making the process counter-productive.

How to fold continued, taught but pillowy , and have a spring to the touch. Also, you’ll notice that The dough should now feel

the dough is far less sticky than before, mostly because gluten is

amazing , and does all sorts of useful things

with water and air.

Re-cover the bowl and relax. Our second fold will be

performed about half an

hour later, when the creases from our f irst fold have

melded together , showing us that our gluten network has

relaxed

and is ready to be

re-stretched.

With this second fold , we want to be very careful not to push too hard on our dough, or we might de-gas it and undo a lot of the work done by the yeast and ourselves thus far.

still have delicious bread.

Re-re-cover the bowl. It will be most of an hour before we disturb our dough again.

Check your dough after another 45 minutes or so.

How to Fold Dough continued

Don’t shake the baby—every bit of gas counts. In the event you do squash your dough a bit, don’t worry about it too much. Just be extra careful during shaping to treat your dough gently. These things take practice. You will

Wet your hand and gently push on the dough surface.

Feels dense?

Feels really dense?

Show, and come back

part of your kitchen. The

in a half hour. More

dough should feel like a

rising time is just f ine

waterbed, pillowy and

so long as we don’t

with some spring, but

just up and forget

your f inger should leave a

about it.

slight imprint. Is it there

Go watch the Daily

Move it to a warmer

yet? Good. You’re ready to divide the dough, which is the f irst step towards shaping your very own loaves. 57

Dividing Your Dough To divide the dough, lightly

flour

the top

with AP flour, scrape around the sides with your dough spatula to free it from the bowl and quickly flip the bowl upside down. The dough should flop out in one large blob, and what was at the bottom of the bowl should now be on top. It’ll also be really sticky. This is good, like so: Lightly flour your hands, bench knife, and the counter top on which you will be shaping. With your

bench scraper , decisively

cut the dough in half, pushing the halves away from each other with the bench knife, making sure to keep the bench knife’s blade f irmly flush with your counter’s surface.

Pre-Shaping Your Dough Pre-shaping

is all about giving your dough a heads-up about what

shape it’s going to be later, and giving the

gluten

a little time to get

situated. Think of it as a dress-rehearsal for the big show. For us, our f inal shape is going to be round —a is going to be round as well.

boule— and so our pre-shape

pre-shape , we’re going to perform a

series of folds similar to what we did during the bulk rise. We want to do this in as few motions as possible, making those motions decisive and clean, without being aggressive.

Most important here, is to not over-think this. Just try to get some tension on the surface of the loaf. If we mess with it too much now we’re just going to push our hard-earned gas out of it. Pre-shapes—like rehearsals— aren’t meant to be perfect. Lightly

flour

the tops of the rounds and cover

with a towel. Once you’ve folded your dough into a neat little package, gently flip it over

with your bench knife to let the smooth side face you. For the moment this is the top of our loaf-to-be. The place where the different sides of the dough meet and meld is our seam, which should end up on the bottom.

It’ll look something like this:

Bench Rest Allow the pre-shaped loaves to hang out on the bench for a while—anywhere between f ifteen and forty minutes will do the trick. By letting the tension we built during our pre-shape relax, we'll be able to create even more tension during our f inal shape, all without tearing the surface of the loaf. This helps make big, beautiful bread.

This is our bench rest.

While this is happening,

we should ready our proof ing baskets or bowls, which will help support the structure of our loaves during their f inal proof.

Start by choosing something the right size. These are going to be big loaves of bread, but we don't want to get crazy. The proof ing baskets —called

bannetons— that I use at home are made specif ically bannetons

use a medium serving

bowl

colander , the

size vessel you might use to serve potatoes for four during dinner.

Once shaped, our loaves should fill the basket a little more than halfway, which will leave adequate room for the final rise.

Bench Rest

for 1.5-2 lb. loaves of bread. If you don't have

To ready your baskets, choose two large kitchen towels made of smooth cloth. Don’t use anything fuzzy unless you plan to eat that fuzz—it will stick to the bread. Using

rice flour

(although plain old AP flour will

work fine, just go a little heavier), a light-to-medium coating of

brush the towels with

flour . We don’t want to

go too light or the loaves will stick; too heavy and we’ll be eating clumps of burnt flour off our crusts.

Place

the towels in the proof ing baskets or bowls and go about your business.

Final Shape

We're making what's called a

boule: a big, round loaf.

That means that our f inal shape will be the same as our

pre-shape . We know our loaves are ready for f inal shaping when giving a gentle tug on the rounds shows some stretch and does not immediately pull back.

Once our dough has shown us that it’s ready to be shaped,

flip the rounds so the seam side is now facing up again, and once again perform the folds listed before, gently developing tension along the rounds’ surface. Use

flour

to keep the dough from sticking to you and the

bench, but not so much that the dough won’t stick to itself.

Too much flour will keep our seams from holding, or will show up as clumps of unincorporated flour after baking. It’s best to just flour your hands and scrape underneath the loaves with your bench knife to prevent sticking.

Once you’ve folded your dough appropriately, cup your hands together and pull the dough towards

boule’s

rotating the boule a quarter turn between pulls. Like with the

exterior,

pre-shape , we want to use as few motions as possible. If the dough surface begins to rip,

Final Shape

you to generate tension along the

you’re pulling a little too hard. It’s not a disaster. Just stop. Remember: We’re proof ing our boules in round containers. All the little imperfections will smooth out there. Even more to the point, shaping bread isn’t f ine art. We’re going to eat it. Shaping is about tension and structure, not aesthetic perfectionism. Let the rounds

rest seam-side-down for

just a minute or so to make sure the seam

bench quick, firm motion , flip

holds together. Then, using your

scraper

with a

the boules carefully into the baskets, making sure the seam side is facing up. What’s facing up in the basket will become the bottom of our loaves once they’re baked.

Final Proof Cover the boules in the baskets with towels and place them in the fridge, where they will undergo

final fermentation , or final proof . During this time,

their

the loaves should nearly double in size.

Proofing

our loaves in the

fridge (also called retarding) will slow down their f inal rise, giving our loaves more flavor. Also, retarding loaves during their f inal proof makes them easier to handle and score before baking, which will improve the crumb, crust, and appearance of our baked loaves.

Baking 66

The Volume Test So, how do we know when it's time to bake? With a few simple tests and a bunch of practice, we can start to

Volume matters.

conf idently determine this moment.

I always start by looking at my loaves. From the time we set our loaves for their f inal proof they should have

increased in volume by at least half.

your loaves have doubled or more, this might mean we're approaching

overproofing.

Since judging the

volume

of our loaves can be tricky, I

recommend using the same proof ing baskets each time you bake until you begin to get a feel for this process. This will allow you to better gauge what changes in volume may signify in terms of dough progression. I almost always bake 900-gram loaves of the workhorse recipe, and I proof them in the same bannetons each day. This means that I can see day in, day out, that when my dough begins to rise above the lip of my baskets, we're nearing baking time.

The Feel Test From the moment we f inished mixing, our dough has

gas . As we folded and shaped our dough, we organized our gluten so it would better hold

been inflating with

bake, we want our dough to be fully inflated — all the way to the center of our loaves —but for our gluten to still be in charge of the situation. In my experience, the best way to judge this is to

press

on the center of the loaves with a lightly floured hand.

The Tests

gas, and maintain its shape during baking. When we

Push firmly but not aggressively . If we've shaped our loaves properly, they should be able to handle this. As the center of the dough is pressed, the edges should billow outwards, like a water-balloon or over-stuffed pillow. Pay careful attention to how much your dough resists your hand. The exterior of the dough will always feel

soft,

even when underproofed. To get the most lift

during baking, we need to make sure that the center of the loaf feels

aerated

dough feels signif icantly

as well. If, when pressed, the

denser

in the middle, then it

no resistance whatsoever, then you might be overproofing them, and isn't time to bake. But if the dough offers

should bake immediately.

This is what it sounds like. Poke your loaf.

(Boooop!)

imprint , but that imprint should gently bounce back and mostly Your f inger should leave an

disappear in a few seconds.

No finger impression:

The gluten is still very taught from shaping. Your dough needs more time.

Shows finger impression: Bake immediately. If you've performed these tests, and your loaves are fully risen, pillowy but secure, and can handle being poked around a little,

then it's time to get baking.

Setting up the Oven There are many ways a home baker can set up their

oven

for bread,

and some are more effective than others. In preparation for today’s bake,

place one of your oven racks as close to the bottom of the

oven as it will go, and, if you have a put it on that

bottom rack .

baking stone

Baking Steel,

into your big oven, and

load your baking vessel

set the temperature to 500°F

(260°C), for at least half an hour before you plan to bake.

cast iron combo cooker—a skillet and saucier set that locks together— with the skillet half I'm using a

on the bottom and the saucier used as a cover. A regular

cast iron , stainless steel , or enameled Dutch oven

will

work just as well.

Setting up the Oven

On top of all that business,

Bread ovens are great at two things that home ovens aren’t:

creating ambient heat,

and

Baking our bread inside preheated

retaining steam.

Dutch oven s helps us

as home bakers to address these concerns and

create more delicious bread at home.

The Main Event With our

ovens

preheating, full of heavy

stuff, and our yeast pre-gaming for their last hurrah, let's take a quick moment to assemble our bread-loading equipment and prepare ourselves to work fast.

What will we need? Our Dutch ovens are going to be really hot, so start by f inding your

towels.

oven mitts , and/or a large stack of dry

These will help keep us from burning ourselves.

I use a set of welding gloves because most oven mitts aren’t going to offer much at 500°F.

I recommend using a combination of the mitts and towels if you don’t have high-heat gloves.

fill your spray bottle with water and set it on

your counter. We'll be using this to create steam inside

This will help our loaves rise and form thick, crunchy crusts.

our Dutch ovens.

choose your weapon. In order to score your loaves —meaning slice open the tops before baking— you’ll be wanting something very sharp , and preferably Last,

The Main Event

Next,

very thin as well. The industry standard is to use

lame

razor blades

and a

(pronounced “laahm”), a double-sided blade

designed specif ically for the purpose of scoring bread. Alternatively, a

box cutter

with a fresh blade or a

sharp paring knife will do the job. In a pinch, a serrated knife will work, but won’t offer as clean a line as a thin, straight blade will.

Final Shape

Load and Score Your Loaf

With your oven

nice and hot , remove

one

of your loaves from the fridge and bring it to your loading area. Speed matters here.

Working fast will make for bigger, sexier bread. Make sure you know what you plan to do before you begin loading your dough. If a cut comes out wonky, just keep moving. This is another moment where perfectionism will hurt the f inal product. This takes practice, and control will come with time.

Working quickly to prevent heat loss, grab the bottom half of your Dutch oven and place it on your stove, or whatever heat-proof surface you will be working on.

Shut the oven door to keep the heat in, leaving the other half of your baking vessel inside. Carefully

flip your proof ing basket

Dutch oven. Your loaf should cleanly and gently flop onto the center of

over the

the cast iron surface.

spray bottle,

surface a few

give your loaf

spritzes . You can also spritz

it by hand with water. Try to get your loaf from a few angles to promote an even rise. Then, with your decisively

scoring tool,

quickly and

slash your dough. Ideally, you

want to slash the loaf from end to end, cutting roughly half an inch deep.

Be careful not to burn yourself here.

Loading and Scoring

With your

If you want your scores to pull back and create “ears,” make sure to hold your blade at roughly a 30 degree angle relative to the dough’s surface. If you’re new to scoring bread, I recommend making two long scores across the dough surface, roughly three inches apart. Quickly your

open your oven again and place

Dutch oven

and scored dough inside,

on your oven’s bottom rack and

put the

lid securely on top.

Close your oven, and set a timer for 15 minutes. Then take a deep breath, and make yourself a drink.

Nice work, folks.

Scoring Patterns Scoring makes our bread look pretty but it is alsa an essential function during baking. Gases

trapped in our dough want to expand

during baking in order to create oven-spring. We want to let them escape in a controlled manner before they expand too much. Our

gluten matrix

could rupture and collapse

before it’s had time to fully set and hold its shape if we don’t score.

Scoring is what allows for these controlled avenues for both expansion and evaporation. With respect to aesthetics, bakers often use different

scoring patterns

both to control

f inal shape and as a sort of signature on their loaves, a practice which dates back to communal ovens used by towns in Europe during the Middle Ages and afterwards.

Scoring Patterns

STEAM 78

Venting Steam After 15 minutes of baking at 500°F (260°C), gently lift the lid of your

Dutch oven

to vent

steam and heat , just for a moment. The reason we want to vent this

steam

heat and

from our baking chambers has to do

with the design of home ovens. See, most home ovens are designed with baking elements on the bottom of the oven. This is why we created our baking chambers so close to the oven floor; our proximity to the heating element helped us to maximize oven-spring.

oven-spring only really occurs in the f irst 10 minutes or so of baking, our attention as bakers shifts from generating volume in our loaves, to ensuring that our

Steam

However, as we progress through our bake, and since

crusts form properly and our crumbs dehydrate and set. Too much

steam

in the baking chamber will inhibit crust

formation; too much heat coming from just one direction in our ovens may cause our bottoms to burn before our loaves properly dehydrate and our crusts brown. Once vented, replace your lid, lower your oven temperature to 450°F (230°C), and reset your timer for another 15 minutes. Continue sipping on that cocktail.

After a half hour of baking in our covered

Dutch

ovens , it's time to uncover the loaf and allow our crusts to color and our loaves to dehydrate.

Finishing the Bake

This part of the bake usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes, but will depend on your oven conditions and how dark you like your loaves to be. To prevent the bottom of your loaf from burning, I recommend of your

stacking the bread-f illed half

Dutch oven

on top of its lid, if such an

arrangement is stable. If that won't work,

slide

another rack into your oven just above your stone, and

place your Dutch oven on top of that, to

provide some insulation from the directional heat coming from the bottom of your oven and stone.

Storing

Does refrigeration really ruin bread?

Ah bread, ye short-lived staff of life. If it weren't for how quickly bread goes

stale , I, for one, would eat a lot more

of it. But purchasing a big, beautiful loaf, then watching it turn to stone before I'm even halfway through it, is more than my carbohydrate-loving eyes can bear. Not to get all biblical here, but if Moses was able to get water from a stone, surely we should be able to get a few extra

Refrigeration Tests

The Test

days from our loaves before they require a similar level of divine intervention. And wouldn't the

refrigerator —the

magical modern box of prolonged freshness, with fancy models miraculously dispensing water from their rockhard doors—be the logical place to do it?

Actually, no.

The

refrigerator

really is bad for

bread, though the full story is a little more complicated than just that. To get to the bottom of it, I decided to do a quick little experiment that, sadly, required harming quite a few squishy young loaves.

STALE BREAD

What happens when bread goes stale? To the casual observer, the

staling

of bread seems like a cut-anddried case of a loaf that's cut and dried out. But moisture loss is only a part of what causes bread to go stale. The other part?

The retrogradation and recrystallization of starch.

What this means : Wheat flour , the primary

ingredient (along with water and yeast) of bread dough, is packed full of granules of

starch . That

starch , in its natural state, is largely in crystalline form, meaning the starch molecules are arranged in a def ined geometric structure. Once mixed with

water

to form

a dough and baked in the oven at high temperatures, the crystalline structure of the as the

starch

breaks down

absorbs water and

becomes increasingly amorphous (meaning the starch molecules have no clearly defined structure).

starches

begin to slowly regroup into a more ordered, crystalline structure again, and it's this gradual return ("retrogradation") to the crystal state

("recrystallization") that causes bread to harden and grow

stale.

This process is so central to

Stale Bread

As the bread cools, however, those

staling , in fact,

that even bread that has been hermetically sealed to prevent all moisture loss will still harden and turn

stale.

The reason a refrigerator is bad for bread: When bread is stored in a cold (but above freezing) environment, this and therefore

staling,

recrystallization,

happens much faster

than at warmer temperatures.

Freezing, however, dramatically slows the process down.

Reheating Tests To test various ways of storing bread, I went to a local bakery and purchased four white baguette loaves, all from the same batch that had been freshly baked a few hours earlier. I then cut the baguettes into smaller sections, weighing each one to make sure they were all the same weight, and discarding the ends so that each section had exposed crumb on both sides. I divided the bread up into three groups:

room temperature, refrigerator, and freezer.

For each group I tested several wrapping methods:

unwrapped, enclosed in a paper bag, wrapped thoroughly in plastic, and wrapped thoroughly in foil. "breadbox" test, I placed two pieces of bread in my microwave , one unwrapped and one in paper.

As a bonus

I don't actually own a breadbox and have no plans to buy one, but I f igured a microwave might be a decent standin for a breadbox's small, enclosed storage space. (I skipped plastic- and foil-wrapped samples in the microwave since such tight wrapping supersedes any humidity-retaining benefits a breadbox might offer.)

Results from the experiment: All unwrapped bread samples suffered, with the and

refrigerator

samples completely stale; once

defrosted, the unwrapped freezer sample showed very mild signs of

Clearly, allowing unchecked moisture loss is the quickest way to make bread go fully stale.

hardening/drying.

paper bag did very little to prevent drying of the bread: room temperature , "breadbox" , and refrigerator samples were all very hard, though surprisingly in this test the refrigerator sample was The

not quite as stale as the others (this was the one result that diverged

Reheating Tests

temperature,

"breadbox" , room

from my expectations, but in any case none of the paper bag samples were good so I still wouldn't recommend it). The

paper-bag freezer

sample fared about as well as the unwrapped one.

The Plastic- and Foil-wrapped

room-temperature

refrigerator samples,

freezer samples, once

samples were about

while still retaining

defrosted to room

the same, showing

some give and

temperature, had

slight f irming but still

tenderness, were

retained more of their

retaining a good degree

signif icantly more

original fresh-baked

of give and tenderness

f irm than the room

softness than any of

throughout.

temperature versions;

the other samples.

this remained true even after they had warmed to room temperature. 89

Conclusion What's clear is that the

refrigerator

is just a plain-old bad idea for bread.

But I wasn't done yet:

What about reheating the bread? I set my oven to

350°F and toasted all the samples

simultaneously on a baking sheet. Hands-down, the best reheated bread came from the

wrapped freezer

plastic- and foil-

samples, almost indistinguishable from

its fresh self a day earlier. But what's interesting is that the

wrapped room-

temperature

samples, which

and

refrigerator

had staled at remarkably different rates, were indistinguishable from each other once reheated. As it turns out, even after bread has been baked and cooled, after the

starch

has recrystallized to create a stale

texture, you can actually

process

reverse that crystallization stale bread

through reheating and return the

to a state much closer to its original glory (assuming you didn't allow much moisture loss during storage). Not as good as frozen, but still much improved.

So here's my practical advice. In lieu of intervention, the best way to store bread is well wrapped in plastic and/or foil in the freezer, whether sliced or not, then reheated in the oven. If you don't want to deal with reheating the bread, wrap it well in

plastic and/or foil

and keep it at

room temperature; it won't be as good the next day, and it will only get worse from

Reheating Bread

acts of god and any other kind of divine

there, but you should be able to eke some extra life out of your bread before it's no longer enjoyable. And if you do let it sit for too long (or if you make the mistake of refrigerating your bread), pop it in the oven and you should be able to reverse a fair amount of the staling, assuming you had it wrapped well enough to prevent drying. Now that really is squeezing water from a stone.

Basics of Bread Making

Articles inside

Venting Steam

Feel Test

Volume Test

Main Event