Getting from Flour & Water to a Loaf of Bread
Bread making/baking can seem alternately simple/easy and complex/complicated. On one hand, bread is made of just four ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. Four of the most common ingredients come together to create one loaf. Nothing special, nothing fancy (unless you want); nourishing, satisfying and delicious. On the other hand, four ingredients is not a lot to work with to create nourishing, satisfying and delicious food. How do you get flavor, strength, leavening and texture from such simple ingredients? All within a reasonable and consistent time frame?
I personally vacillate in my thinking of bread baking (of course, its typically when things go wrong that it seems like an unfathomable process to me). Perhaps it should be described as simple, but not easy. And complex, not complicated. It is the push/pull between these two extremes that keeps me coming back and baking more and more. It is an irresistible challenge and while the process has become clearer and more predictable over the years, each batch of bread is different and has its own idiosyncrasies that need to be handled in their own particular ways.
So how does it happen? Bread baking breaks down into roughly 12 steps and almost each step has vagaries and nuances that need to be understood to produce high quality bread. Now don’t get me wrong, one can make bread that is edible and probably pretty tasty without really understanding what’s going on. But to go from passable bread to something truly outstanding, it really helps to have a deep understanding of the physical, biological and chemical changes taking place within your dough.
I’ll highlight a few of the first steps and follow up on other steps in future posts.
1. Mixing - Mixing can be as easy as you want to make it or as difficult. Many recipes call for adding all ingredients into a mixer and then kneading or mixing for a certain amount of time. Others call for just mixing flour and water, letting that rest for an hour and then mixing again with salt and yeast. Others call for mixing the flour, salt and yeast with only a portion of the water, waiting and then adding the rest of the water. All of these methods result in different consistencies and characteristics to the dough. They allow you to make improbably wet doughs or create a dough that is strong, but barely mixed, which maintains the maximum amount of flavor.
The point of mixing is to hydrate the flour and yeast. Hydration activates the yeast, getting them to start breaking down the wheat into sugars (releasing flavor) and producing acid and carbon dioxide as byproducts (more flavor and leavening). The kneading/mixing motion of the hydrated dough also combines two proteins in wheat to produce gluten, a strong network of fibers that provides structure to bread.
2. Bulk Fermentation - After the mixing period, the dough must relax and have time to accumulate flavor and leavening. The fermentation period is typically for 1-4 hours and can often go longer if the dough is retarded in the refrigerator. The cold temperature causes the yeast to slow their activity and in some cases go completely dormant. This results in a different and often more desirable flavor profile to the dough.
3. Preshaping/Shaping - A typical batch of dough for a home baker results in 2-5 loaves depending on their size. The entire batch of dough is fermented during the bulk fermentation stage. During the preshaping/shaping stage, the dough is divided into equal weights. Many times the dough will not easily go into its final shape; however, dough does have a tactile memory. By preshaping the dough pieces into similar but less rigid forms as the final shape, the dough has a chance to “learn”. Preshapes include loose boules (the preshape for boules and batards) and cylinders (which are the preshape for a baguette). The dough needs to rest 20-30 minutes between the preshape and the final shape.
Ok, that’s a lot of bread process to absorb at one time. More next time.
This week’s breads are shown below:
Walnut Raisin Boules
Fresh Basil Focaccia in the Dappled Afternoon Sun
Sesame, Poppy, Onion and Everything Bagels
