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!
The Last Week in Bread (for now, at least)
So this week constitutes the final week of Round 2 of Pandora’s Bread Box Community-Supported Bakery subscription. This was a great round; 8 weeks, 3 days a week for 21 subscribers. It was demanding but rewarding. The number and type of subscribers expanded (ie they’re not just all close friends anymore) and more and more challenging breads were included in the weekly boxes.
I’m grateful to all of the subscribers for supporting the CSB and providing feedback, both positive and negative. Its been fun getting to know each of the subscribers better and trading baking stories.
For the final week, the breads are Ciabatta, Soft Pretzels and Florentines. Ciabatta is one of the most difficult breads to make because it is a very wet dough. A wet dough, surprisingly enough, has a high proportion of water to flour making it about the consistency of thick goop. This make it incredibly difficult to manipulate, shape and work with. It takes about an hour to mix all the water into the flour (doing so slowly allows the strength of the dough to build so it can accept all of the water, otherwise you run the risk of disintegrating your dough). It then rests for 3 hours, building strength, flavor and the characteristic air bubbles. You then shape it (basically just stretch it out into its rectangular shape) and let it rest for another hour. Then you slide it onto a 460 degree baking stone and bake it up.
Ciabatta was the first type of bread I ever tried making. I made it every weekend for 5 months and I never ever had any success. The dough was never wet enough and I never got the big holes that are characteristic of the bread. This was before I understood much of anything about baking: the direct relationship between the wetness of the dough and the size of the holes, how to slowly mix in the large amount of water, how the strength of the dough increases the longer it ferments.
It was all I could do to keep making bread, I was so disheartened. Little did I know I was attempting to make one of the most difficult breads out there; not a good choice for a newbie.
Anyways, I’ve finally got a good handle on it. There’s definitely room for improvement and I’ll keep refining my technique. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy it.
The pretzels are really fun to make (and to eat!) They’re a great snack and should be eaten the day you get them. Seriously, after a night, the salt melts into the dough and they lose they’re crisp outside. Eat them today!
I like to just eat pretzels plain, but many people dip them. Honey mustard is a popular dip. Just mix 3 tablespoons of mustard to 2 tablespoons of honey. I encourage you to mix the types of mustard, such as a combo of Dijon and Deli/Brown mustards.
The final baked good this week is Florentines. When I was a kid and my sister and I would accompany my mom to the grocery store, the lady at the bakery counter would always give us a free cookie. Sophie would bounce around in her choices, always getting a different kind. But I had found my favorite, the Florentine, and never tried anything else. For those of you who know me, I guess my sticking with one thing once I like it is not so much a surprise. But its my memory of eating that Florentine as I followed my mom around the store that have nurtured a special fondness for them.
Anyways, I hope this week’s breads are delicious and enjoyable for everyone. I’ve had a great time this round and hope to be baking for you all again next round.
