Flour + Water + Yeast + Salt = BREAD!!
So last week I gave a sense for how you begin the transformation from flour, water, salt and yeast into a loaf of bread. It’s a multi-layered process, one that I am still learning, and one that I am told by bakers is never fully mastered. There’s always more, always a new technique to try, always a new combination, always a way to push the ingredients farther, extract more flavor, or create a more challenging bread.
These are the seeds soaking overnight for the Multi-Grain Batard.
So after mixing your dough, letting it ferment in bulk, and then preshaping it, you are ready to make the final shape for the dough and let it go through its final rise before baking.
4. Shaping – I realized after rereading last week’s post that I went into detail about preshaping, but left shaping out in the cold. Shaping is a very important step for the obvious reason that a bread without shape is no bread at all. But more than just so the bread looks good, good shaping ensures your bread will rise well when it bakes.
Bread making/baking is all about walking a fine line. In the case of shaping, its all about getting the correct tension in the dough. Dough is all about this yin and yang between two key characteristics: extensibility and elasticity. Extensibility refers to how loose a dough is, how much it can be stretched out. If you think of pizza dough that can be pulled and stretched and thrown up in the air, that is a very extensible dough. Elasticity, on the other hand, refers to how much a dough snaps back into place when its pulled. Different doughs require different balances between these two characteristics, but you’re basic dough wants a fairly even balance – not too loose, but not to elastic.
So after that aside, shaping is the last step where you get the chance to readjust the proper balance of tension in the dough. All of your steps up till now have played a part in this balance, but the shaping is your last chance. Don’t blow it!!
Why does shaping readjust this balance and how? Well, I’ll tell you.
It all comes back to gluten. Gluten is a network of fibers (fibers only being a metaphor) that is created in dough once the flour becomes wet. Gluten fibers create a network within the dough that gives the dough strength and tension (ah, key word, links back to the shaping discussion). When the yeast is activated by water during the mixing phase, it starts to metabolize the sugars in the flour. The by-product of that is CO2 (and other things, but we’ll stay on point for now). The CO2 needs to be trapped in the dough in order for the dough to rise; if the dough isn’t strong enough (ie if the gluten isn’t developed enough) the CO2 will just float out of the dough and evaporate. This leaves you with a flat, dead piece of dough. No good.
Ok, so how do you strengthen your gluten network? Folding. Folding. Folding. Everytime the dough is folded back on itself (as happens when it is being mixed), the gluten strands start lining up. Imagine how easy it is to rip a piece of paper, now imagine folding that paper over itself 4 or 5 times. Try to rip it. It’s the same concept with gluten.
All of this means that when you shape, you are getting your last chance to fold the dough. To give it strength or to relax it; whatever it takes to get it to the optimal level of tension to ensure a good rise once it gets in the oven.
Now, the fun part of shaping is the actual shapes. These are as varied and numerous as the people who came up with the shapes. Many shapes are dependent on the type and character of the doughs being made. So, some shapes (like bagels) require a lot of strength to be able to hold up through the boiling and baking process. Others (like ciabatta) are so loose that they cannot be shaped. They are simply cut into squares and left to proof.
Here are the Potato Rosemary Rolls, shaped and proofing before the bake.
Other more traditional shapes are baguettes, boules, batards (these can have pointed ends or be blunted), or braided (such as challah). There are ring breads, bread with hats, breads folded over themselves, breads cut into small pieces that then grow back into each other when proofed and baked – the possibilities are endless.
Ok, well, looks like I’ve written a bit too much about shaping and won’t be able to get to the next step of proofing this week. Stay tuned.
Here’s a look at this week’s breads…Enjoy!!
Multi-Grain Batard Blossom!
Potato Rosemary Roll Daisy
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Checkerboard Ciabatta
I believe I was once told not to play with my food; oh well!
