After my epic fail this past Saturday, I knew that I had to make up for it. But though those loaves definitely turned out wonky, they still tasted really good, and the family didn’t complain, though they did have a good laugh about my mutant bread (shown below).
But as I shared in my previous post, I did understand what I had done wrong. So given that, I had to put those lessons to the test.
First of all, I made absolutely sure my baking stone was set to go, and I pre-heated it for well over an hour before I baked. I also made sure that my loaves were completely proofed before I even considered baking them.
For my baguettes, I used a different shaping technique than what I have been using because I felt that the original technique I learned didn’t create enough tension on the surface. So I watched this video featuring master baker Scott Megee from The Artisan Crust channel:
I tell you what! That technique is the S%&T! I love the stitching technique that Scott uses. I did that and it I felt that it really gave me a more even distribution of the dough through the loaf.
Pre-shaping is so important! So is the bench rest immediately after the pre-shape. I also realized that I didn’t bench rest either loaf for very long on Saturday’s fail. But this time I took a good 20 minutes to let the dough settle down before I did the final shape. That combined with the new shaping technique made both loaves come out perfect!
As for the boule, I couldn’t be happier. I was a little concerned at the start of the bake because I kind of misjudged placing the dough on my stone and I had to pull it out, then reposition and all that movement kind of collapsed the loaf. But luckily it didn’t affect the oven spring.
I feel redeemed! Both the baguettes and the boule fit my archetype of artisan bread. The crust on both kinds are crackly with good ears; especially on the baguettes!
Bread making to me is very much like playing golf. I could be playing like crap and getting super-angry while I duff or skull or hook or slice. Then I hit a perfect shot. The club strikes the ball right in the middle of the sweet spot. I feel no resistance or impact and the ball shoots off like a rocket, landing smack dab in the middle of the fairway. And with that one shot, all my anxiety and frustration just goes away. It’s redeeming!
While I’ve had some wonderful successes in my journey of artisan bread making, I’ve also had some massive fails. I want to be transparent because especially when I first started baking bread, though they tasted great, I wouldn’t exactly call them ideal. Luckily for me though, I haven’t produced any bricks or inedible loaves. But I have a certain aesthetic of what my bread should look and taste like. And to be completely honest, I’ve only reached that ideal a few times.
Most have come pretty close to my ideal, and I’ve been relatively happy with the results. But some, like the loaves shown in the pictures above, have come out looking like mutant spores from another planet! I baked them just yesterday (at the time of this writing) to try out my new Fibrament-D baking stone. From what I can tell, a few things went wrong.
First, based on the cross-sectional cut, it appears that my baking stone wasn’t hot enough. I can tell that because the bottom half of the loaf has a much tighter crumb than the top. This means that the ambient temperature was much higher than the stone and it made the loaves spring much more on top. The dark almost burned top also indicates that there was a huge differential in heat between the ambient air and the stone. So next time, I will spend more time heating the stone.
Second, I used convection baking as opposed to heating from the bottom. This circulates the air evenly through the oven. But I think if I used just normal baking, the heat would’ve radiated from underneath the stone (there’s about 1″ of clearance on either side of the stone). That probably would have helped control the ambient temperature and relied more on the stone as the main heat conductor.
Finally, based on how both loaves exploded, I think my loaves were under-proofed. The fact that they exploded in such an uneven way is a sure sign that the loaves were under-proofed and the yeast had way too much energy left. So I need to let them proof for a bit longer. But I have to admit that it’s still tough for me to tell when the loaves are fully proofed because with the wildly varying temperature of my kitchen, I have to constantly monitor the loaves.
In light of that, I recently purchased a mini-fridge at an auction that I’m using as a dough retarder. I’ve baked a few loaves thus far using a long, overnight ferment, and the results have been promising. Chilled dough is also MUCH easier to score!
Just this one fail has taught me so many new things and it is really helping me appreciate everything that goes into the whole artisan bread-making process!
Here’s my recipe for a great-tasting bread that I love to make. I normally use local honey to add a slight sweetness, but if I don’t have it on hand, I replace it with an equal weight of brown sugar. I provide different hydration ratios to reflect the types of breads you can make. The 90% is excellent for making pan loaves. I use the 85% for making boules and batards, and use the 75% for hard rolls and buns.
Ingredients
All numbers are in grams.
Flour
90%
85%
75%
Gluten**
Salt
Yeast
Honey
Whole Wheat Flour*
1000
900
850
750
50
20
12
227
3/4 Recipe
750
675
638
563
38
15
9
170
1/2 Recipe
500
450
425
375
25
10
6
113
Provided three hydration levels for water: 90%, 85%, 75%.
*Use fine or extra-fine grind of whole wheat flour. I myself prefer to use white whole wheat flour.
**Gluten = Vital Wheat Gluten. This is optional, but really helps in gluten development and oven spring. You can usually find this at a grocery store. My local Lucky carries Bob’s Red Mill brand.
Baker’s Percentages:
Ingredient
Percentage
Flour
100%
Water
90%, 85%,75%
Gluten
5%
Salt
2%
Yeast
1.2%
Honey
22.7%
As I mentioned in my article on moving to whole wheat flour, things take longer and you have to do more when you use whole wheat flour. This mainly has to do with the slow moisture absorbance and thus slower gluten development. I also discovered that it’s better to do all the fermentation and proofing with a colder dough, so having room in your fridge is important – or in my case, I got a mini fridge to act as a retarder.
Instructions
Day 1
Mix flour, vital wheat gluten until well-incorporated. If using brown sugar, add it at this step. Add water and honey and mix into a shaggy dough then let rest for at least a half-hour.
After the dough has autolysed sprinkle salt and yeast evenly over the top of the dough, then mix thoroughly. Work the dough until smooth.
If you used a stand mixer to mix, transfer to a large bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes; otherwise, just let it rest.
Every half-hour for the next two hours, fold the dough. You may not have to do this many. After folding check the strength of the dough by doing the windowpane test to see if it has enough strength. In my warm kitchen, I only had to do three folds.
After your last fold, allow the dough to rise for at least a half hour or until it has expanded about 30% to 40% of its original size.
Cover your bowl with plastic wrap or transfer to a container and place it in your fridge. If you used plastic wrap, make sure air can escape.
Day 2
“Day 2” can be the next day or up to a week out. The longer you let it sit, the more flavor will develop.
Remove the container from the fridge and allow it to warm to near room temperature (~2 hours).
Dump the dough onto your unfloured work surface, and using your bench scraper, pre-shape the dough into balls. Bench rest the dough for 30 minutes.
After bench resting, divide the dough and do your final shaping, either into a boule or batard. If I’m making loaf bread, I shape using the batard method.
If you do the full 1000 gram recipe, divide the dough into three or four. The three-quarter recipe can be made into two large loaves, and the half recipe is great for single, large loaf.
Once shaped, place in proofing baskets or well-greased pan loaf pans. If you don’t have proofing baskets, use a lightly-oiled bowl that’s dusted with flour.
Chill the dough for two hours in your fridge.
A hour before baking, heat your oven to 475o, making sure your baking stone or Dutch oven are also in the oven to warm up.
Remove proofed dough from containers and slash/score. No need to let it come to room temperature.
If using a Dutch oven, place dough in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, then bake for 10 more minutes or until crust is the desired color.
If using a baking stone and a metal pan for steam, place the loaf on the stone, and pour a cup of hot water into the pan. Remove the pan after 20 minutes, then continue baking for another 10 minutes or until the crust is the desired color.
Allow the bread to cool completely before cutting! I used to disregard this, but if you don’t allow it to cool, the interior will get gummy. Not good.
At the end of my Afternoon Batard recipe, I added a section on using whole wheat flour. I didn’t write it just to satisfy readers’ curiosity. For health and dietary reasons – and to be completely transparent, a strong suggestion from my doctor – I have had to start using whole wheat flour in my bread – at least 50% of my flour is whole wheat flour.
I have to admit that it has been a rather frustrating experience making the transition to whole wheat flour. Up to this point, I’ve invested hours – almost daily – in becoming proficient in making bread with white bread flour. And then having to make an abrupt turn; well, it wasn’t smooth and I really felt like I was going all the way back to square one. The transition is akin to a painter who has mastered watercolor moving to acrylic or oil painting. The basic principles of color and shading are similar, but the change in medium forces adjustments to the technique.
Luckily for me, bread making has become a bit of an obsession so I wasn’t going to be deterred from this setback. Also, just within a few tries of making a few different types of loaves, I started to get a feel for it. Here’s what I’ve learned thus far (and mind you I’m still learning but these things have gotten my bread back “normal”):
The grind of the wheat flour – no matter what kind you use – is critical. I started out using course-ground wheat flour. It tasted okay, but the texture was way too gritty, and the crumb was really, really closed, even if I used a 90%+ hydration and used a gluten helper such as vital wheat gluten or psyllium fiber. Fine or extra-fine grind is the best.
As for the type of wheat flour, I absolutely love working with white whole wheat flour. It tastes much sweeter than red whole wheat. I’ve only made one batch using this flour, but I’m hooked! The taste and texture of the bread instantly hooked me! The loaves I just made used absolutely zero added sugar (which many whole wheat recipes include). The white whole wheat has a sweetness to it that doesn’t need fortification.
With any wheat flour dough, everything takes longer or you do things more. You have to do the initial knead longer. The amount of folding doubles at the very least (this first batch, I folded it 6 times before I got the right tension in the dough). Fermentation takes longer as well – at least a 3-4 hour bulk at room temperature, though I got better results with a slow, overnight fermentation (I baked half my dough the first day, then baked the second loaf the next morning).
I found that even more so than with white flour, shaping a loaf and creating surface tension with whole wheat dough is even more critical. Furthermore, final proofing takes quite a bit longer. Even with my early attempts, I didn’t proof my loaves long enough and they sprung up way too fast! You want oven spring, but you want it to be slow and gradual.
For instance, this morning, I shaped and proofed my second loaf fresh out of the refrigerator. When I’ve done a slow ferment with white bread, after an hour and half, the dough would be ready. But with this whole wheat loaf? After an hour and a half, it still needs another half hour to proof – at least (I’m proofing it while I write this). Even my loaf yesterday (shown above) – I barely proofed it enough. After it was finished baking, I realized I probably should’ve proofed it longer.
So as I said in my afternoon batard recipe, going to whole wheat makes the process at the very least, an all day affair. But to be realistic, it’s better as a two-day affair. Mind you, those days don’t have to be consecutive. The thing about cold fermentation is that you can let it go for a few days. Given that, my process will be mixing and doing the initial knead the first day, then putting the dough in the fridge for at least 18-24 hours. So I’ll mix in the morning the first day, and when I want to make a loaf, I’ll grab a piece out of the fridge then shape, proof and bake on the next.
I know, that’s a no-shit-Sherlock statement. Obviously, you can’t make bread without it. But there’s more to that statement than just the ingredient itself.
For dietary concerns, I’ve recently started incorporating more whole grain into my dough and I’m really looking to eventually move entirely to whole grain bread. I’ve made some loaves with nominal success with varying blends of bread and whole wheat flour. I’m blending mainly because of the crumb. 100% whole wheat dough, unless it’s worked for a long time or up above 90% hydration, just doesn’t rise that much – even with helpers like vital wheat gluten or psyllium fiber. Those provide a little help with oven spring and rising, but you just won’t get that wide crumb.
Enter white whole wheat flour.
From what I’ve been able to gather in my research, white whole wheat flour will get me that wide crumb. Granted, I still have to ferment it a long time and work it more than regular bread flour, but it apparently works great. Furthermore, by law, whole grain flour cannot have any GMOs in it and that’s a big concern for me and actually, a big reason why I’m moving to whole grain flour (or making sure I’m using flour produced by a company that ensures their flour is non-GMO certified, like King Arthur).
Given that, I’ve spent the last few days researching different brands.
And this is where I’ve gotten into a bit of a conundrum. Brands like King Arthur or Bob’s Mill tend to be a bit pricey – even with free shipping with Amazon Prime. Others, like Stafford County Flour Mills Hudson Cream Whole Wheat flour, are exceptionally reasonably priced, but shipping is expensive. For instance, a 50-pound bag of their Hudson Cream Whole Wheat is only $12.60 direct. But shipping is $48! See what I mean? Now that’s comparably priced to King Arthur with “free” shipping from Amazon, so I don’t feel too bad about the total price.
On the other hand, I found a great flour called Kansas Diamond White Whole Wheat flour. It has gotten great reviews. But it is produced by Archer Daniels Midland, which is a HUGE agriculture conglomerate on the scale of ConAgra – get the picture? No, I’m not looking at them as the evil empire, but for me at least, I think it’s important to support independent producers; especially independent farms and farmers of which there are fewer and fewer as time passes.
And speaking of Amazon… as of late, I’ve really been doing my best to NOT buy from Amazon. We’ve all heard the tales of their business practices and how they treat their employees, and let’s face it: Jeff Bezos is a wealth-hoarder. I have some serious issues giving my financial support to someone who has so much, but shares so little.
Circling back to the title of this post, I am of the conviction that it’s important to know where your ingredients come from – or at least as much can be known. And I think it’s essential to provide direct support for the small, independent businesses that are quickly being gobbled up by the big corporate machine. Small businesses and the people who work and run them are the salt of the earth. For this writer at least, I want to make sure my life is seasoned with them!
I’m not sure why this is, but it seems that people equate making artisan bread with sourdough. I’ve shown several people pictures of the some of the loaves I’ve made and to a person they ask if they were sourdough loaves. What? Is making sourdough some kind of rite of passage?
To tell you the truth, while I like sourdough bread, my personal preference in taste is for yeasty, non-sourdough bread. Both traditional French and Italian loaves are not sourdoughs. They’re yeasty with an expansive crumb and have crisp crusts. But still, many people who have been following my posts still ask if I’m going to make sourdough. I answer that eventually, I’ll get around to it, but I’m not in a big rush.
But to be completely honest, even though my tastes run to the non-sourdough variety of bread, I have been completely immersed in developing my technique. Like any good cook, I’ve totally focused on my mise-en-place and working out my moves.
I don’t want to just bake different types of loaves or work with different dough hydration rates. I want to make a consistent product. That takes doing things repeatedly and developing my sense of all the ingredients and implements I need to get me to a high level of consistency – mise-en-place.
I don’t have any aspirations of being a professional bread baker, but when it comes to cooking, what I do aspire to be is a great craftsman. This is why I’ve geeked out on bread making. For me, it’s not enough to be able to say I know how to bake bread. I have to KNOW how to bake bread; that is, I have to have developed the craft so that on any given day and in any given environment, I can produce loaves of the same quality. For me, when I learn to cook something, I need to get to the point where the process becomes intuitive.
Take grilling meat, for example. I’m known in my local community as the guy who cooks whole pigs over coals. I’ve been doing it for over 40 years, having learned how to do it from my father when I was teenager. I’ve done it so much that I instinctively know what to do given the size of the pig, the temperature of my pit, the ambient temperature of the day, etc.. In other words, I can roast a pig with my freakin’ eyes closed, and I’m not bragging when I say that. It’s just a matter of fact.
I’m not there yet with baking bread. I’m getting there, that’s for sure. But there are so many things that I still need to learn before I can confidently say that I’ve attained a level of expertise. And because of that, I’m in no rush to make sourdough bread.
I’ve always been an innovator. Though I can create things independently, I’m much better at tweaking and improving an existing process. And I’m not boasting when I say that I’ve had a successful career in software development being an innovator. Call it a quirk of my personality; it’s just who I am.
When I picked up bread making a few months ago, within a week of playing around with recipes from Ken Forkish’s excellent book “Flour Water Salt Yeast,” (FWSY) I started experimenting with different variables in the bread making process. One of those things was what I kind of felt was breaking free of the Dutch oven.
While I loved all the content in FWSY, just a few times into making some of Ken’s bread recipes, I started feeling confined. I didn’t want to just make boules. I wanted to make buns and baguettes. I wanted to make pan bread and batards. But with a Dutch oven, I had one shape and one shape only: The shape of my Dutch oven. It felt incredibly limiting even though I was still learning.
So I started using a baking stone to bake all my bread; actually, two of them as I have a double-deck oven. That opened up a whole new world to me and literally forced me to learn about working dough and forming the gluten network structure. It forced me to learn how to properly shape all kinds of dough to create surface tension. It forced me to learn how to use steam to get a great oven spring.
Once I stopped using a Dutch oven, I had a few epic fails, mostly with collapsing loaves that would come out fairly dense. I’m smiling as I write this because they were ugly loaves! I’m a lot better with shaping now, though I realize I still have a ways to go. But in spite of that, I have a sense of freedom now that I’m not using a single baking medium.
Which leads me to the title of this post…
I was recently on an online forum where people share their bread making techniques and their finished products. Ninety percent of the folks shared their boules, which made me immediately think that they used a Dutch oven. I’ll be honest: When I read how they were making their bread, I immediately thought they kind of cheated.
I know. It makes no sense. These loaves were legit! Great crust, great crumb, and I imagine, great-tasting as well. But having graduated beyond the Dutch oven, I couldn’t help but feel that they were limiting themselves to just that style of bread. I immediately felt ashamed for thinking that, which is why I’m writing this post – kind of as an apology for being a bit condescending.
The plain fact of the matter is that I have completely geeked out on home-based bread making. I spend hours every day researching different techniques and adapting them to my home kitchen. I want to learn how to make all types of different bread. I want to experiment with different hydration rates and different flours. And the funny thing is that I can’t even eat 95% of the bread I make because I have high blood pressure! 🙂
So I realize that my journey is completely different from others. And to avoid ever descending into sanctimonious behavior, I’m going to share my journey in this blog.
This bread is meant to be made in an afternoon (or less than half a day). And while using a pre-ferment like a poolish or a levain will certainly have more complexity in flavor, this is an absolutely delicious bread that stands on its own!
FYI, this loaf shaped by hand and proofed in a couche. I didn’t have any suitable batard baskets at the time! 🙂
Ingredients
The following will make two loaves about a pound and a half each. Note, I do all the mixing with a stand mixer. You can do all of this by hand if you want. I use a mixer up-front because I know I’ll get consistent results. This is a 70% hydration dough. It’ll be a little tacky but not floppy, and as you work it, it will become smooth and really strong.
BreadFlour
Water
Salt
Instant Yeast
800 grams
560 grams
15 grams (~1 tbls)
3 grams (scant 3/4 tspn)
100%
70%
2%
.4%
This is a 70% hydration ratio if you’re curious
A couple of important points:
Alternatively, you can replace 200 grams of the bread flour with fine or extra-fine grind whole wheat flour. But if you do that, up the water to 584 grams to make a 73% hydration dough – the wheat flour needs some extra water. Also, up the autolyse time from 20 to 45 minutes.
The amount of flour indicated is optimized for a 5-qt. stand mixer bowl. Other recipes call for 1000 grams, but I found that the standard KitchenAid dough hook will make the dough climb into the mechanism, and you’ll get machine oil in your dough – not good.
Note also that I use instant yeast. If you’re going to use active dry yeast, wake it up in a couple of tablespoons of 105-108 degree water. But bear in mind that you’ll need to remove that amount from the water measurement above. With instant yeast, you’ll just dump it into the dough.
You’ll notice that this recipe uses a significantly smaller amount of yeast than other recipes you might see. This is to ensure a nice, moderate yeast development. Don’t worry, you’ll distribute the yeast throughout the process by folding!
Dough Temperature Is Important!
Most online recipes will list water temps at 105-108 degrees to wake up the yeast, and that’s fine to wake up active dry yeast in a couple of tablespoons of water as mentioned above. But it’s too high if you use instant yeast, and at that temperature, your dough will go crazy and rise way too fast. This will affect the flavor and your finished product will be a little bland.
The prevailing wisdom is that your dough temperature should be only 75-80 degrees when working it. To figure that out, you need to measure the temperature of your flour (I use a digital thermometer), then you can use the table below to get near the proper temp (it doesn’t have to be exact):
Flour Temp
Water Temp
55
110
60
100
65
90
70
80
75
70
80
60
85
50
Hydrate the Dough
Mixing the flour and water first activates enzymes and releases sugars in the flour that help with fermentation and also start activating the gluten in the dough. Also, especially with high hydration doughs, it gives the flour a chance to absorb water up-front. This process is called autolyse (pr. ahto-lees).
Place the flour into your mixing bowl. Attach your dough hook to your mixer. Set the mixer to its slowest speed, then slowly add the water. Mix until the flour and water are incorporated (it’ll be lumpy). You can help the mix by occasionally stopping the mixer and scrape the sides down with a silicon spatula. Once fully incorporated, let the flour-water mix rest for at least 20 minutes.
You can also mix by hand, which some may prefer. I like to use a mixer for this first step because I get a more consistent and faster mix.
Start the Fermentation and Initial Folds ~ First Hour
Evenly sprinkle the salt and yeast over the top of the dough, then slowly incorporate them at the lowest speed setting on your mixer (you may have to do the occasional scrape down of the sides). Once the salt and yeast are incorporated, dump the dough onto your board or counter. Do not flour the surface as you will mess up the ratio!
Knead the dough for 6 minutes. You can refer to this video for proper kneading technique:
In the video above, Jack said to knead the dough for 10-12 minutes. But after initial kneading, we’re going to fold the dough a couple of times (or a few times) over the course of the first hour, so we don’t need to do the full 10 minutes. Just make sure you work out the lumps!
Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, fold the dough. Here’s a great video on how to properly fold dough:
My preferred method of folding is in a bowl, but I use my hand instead of a scraper or spatula as in the video. It allows me to feel the dough better. No matter what method you use, be careful to not tear the dough.
Rest the dough for 50 minutes, then fold again. Once you’re done folding, invert the dough to rest on the folds.
TIP: At this point, the dough should feel smooth and luxurious in your hands. I love when it gets to this point!
Fermentation ~ Hour 2
After letting the dough rest and ferment for an hour, do one more fold and again invert the dough to rest on the folds and let it sit for another hour.
TIP: If you replaced a 1/4 of the bread flour with whole wheat flour, I’d recommend doing a fold after a half-hour after your first fold, then do the final fold a half-hour after that.
Final Fermentation?
Maybe… This final step can take an hour or it may require more time. What we’re looking for is that the dough ball has expanded in size (around 50%) with plenty of bubbles on the surface (not popped, mind you). But with dough fermentation, there are so many variables that affect how fast a dough rises from ambient room temperature and dough temperature or how much yeast you used that it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact time. But in general, the final fermentation should take 1 1/2 to 2 hours after the final fold if the ambient temperature of your room is around 70- to 75-degrees.
TIP: When I have the time, I use a scant 1/2 teaspoon of yeast to let the yeast develop slowly. I also do a couple of more folds than are called for in this recipe. I also use this small amount of yeast if my kitchen is really warm.
That said, check the dough after an hour. If it doesn’t show much activity, don’t panic. As long as you smell a sourness and perhaps a bit of alcohol, it’s all good. You can help the dough along at this point by doing one more fold. But this time, be extremely gentle with the dough and do not tear it! Once you do this last fold, your dough should really expand and become jiggly. Just be patient!
TIP: For goodness’ sake, don’t fret about the time! 🙂 Fermentation is not something that can be bound by time. I do a lot of vegetable fermentation (specifically hot peppers, and it sometimes takes several weeks to get the peppers where I like them – especially in cool weather). Take note that published recipes are written to address an average of conditions. Use your eyes and your hands. Don’t just blindly follow a recipe’s time table!
The reason we’re going 3-4 hours for fermentation is to allow the bacteria to do some work as well as the yeast. This is why I use a small amount of yeast. It gives airborne bacteria and naturally occurring yeast to play a role, however minor, in the fermentation process and flavor development.
Shape the Dough
I learned to shape a batard by watching the following YouTube video (actually I watched a bunch of them, but I prefer Jack’s method of pre-shaping and shaping). Check it out:
NOTE: You can certainly divide into fourths, as in the video, but this recipe is optimized for two medium-sized loaves.
Before you start shaping, turn your oven on to 475 degrees. If you have a pizza or baking stone, make sure it’s in the oven on the middle rack. And on the lowest rack, place a metal baking pan (you’ll be adding a cup of water later to create steam for the first 10-15 minutes of the bake – I’ll explain later).
Once shaped, sprinkle flour on the top of each loaf.
Place a piece of parchment paper on a peel or the bottom of an inverted cookie sheet if you don’t have a peel. Cover each loaf with a clean towel or paper towel.
TIP: You can also proof in a proofing basket, but it’s not mandatory. If you’ve created enough tension on the surface of your dough while shaping, it will stand on its own just fine and not collapse during the final proof.
In warm weather, your proof may not take long. At the height of summer as we are in right now in California, my loaves have been fully proofed in just 20 minutes, which is why I don’t provide a specific time. But, it’s easy to determine if your dough’s ready using the finger-dent test.
If you push your finger into the dough about a 1/2″, and it springs back immediately, leaving a very small indentation, it’s not ready. But if the dough springs back slowly and the indentation stays even after a few seconds, it’s ready. I realize that this isn’t very exact – it’s a real feel kind of thing. But to me, that’s one of the beauties of mastering bread making – and I’m not a master by any means, but I do love the uncertainty.
Scoring the Loaf
Scoring your loaf gives it that artisan look, but it also ensures that you’ll be letting out steam from the bread in a controlled fashion and prevent huge bubbles forming under your crust or eruptions in odd places on your loaf. Here’s a great video showing different scoring patterns and techniques:
In general, with long loaves like batards and baguettes, cuts should be made fairly parallel to the long axis of the loaf. With boules, you’re pretty free to do what you want. This article explains the hows and whys of scoring a little more in-depth than the video.
Time to Bake!
Before you place the loaf in the oven, heat up some water (it can be hot tap water). Fill a glass or container with about a cup and set it near the oven.
Now, get your loaf, and slide it onto the baking stone. Before you close the door, carefully pour the cup of hot water into the metal baking pan. This will create steam which will help the oven spring.
Set your timer for 20 minutes. Once it goes off, remove the parchment paper and rotate your loaf 180-degrees to ensure even baking. Also, remove the water pan if there’s still water in it. Bake for 10-15 minutes more: 10 minutes if you want a golden crust, 15 if you want a darker crust. Personally, I like the darker crust, and will sometimes even bake 17-20 minutes longer to get to a darker crust color.
A dark crust ensures that the Maillard reaction occurs, which happens at high heat, causing the amino acids and sugars to interact. It’s what gives carmelized foods their distinct taste. It’s not burned, it’s caramelized and to me at least, it’s the sign of well-baked bread. In my finished loaves, I want to see three colors on the crust: Brown, Yellow, and White.
Finally, remove your loaf and place it on a cooling rack and let it cool for at least 45 minutes before cutting.
That’s it! I know this was a rather lengthy article, but if you follow these steps, you’ll make a great straight dough bread time after time!
Want to Use Whole Wheat Flour?
If you want to use whole wheat flour, I recommend starting with half whole wheat and half bread flour with this recipe. You may not get all the benefits of a 100% whole wheat, but you’ll get more nutrition than a pure white bread. Given that, unfortunately, this turns the process into a bit of an all day affair – you just start in the morning instead of the afternoon and most of the time’s spent waiting anyway, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Given a 50-50 ratio white to whole wheat flour, keep these things in mind:
Increase the hydration up to 77-80% (640 grams of water) instead of 560 grams. Wheat flour absorbs more water than white.
Increase autolyse to at least an hour to allow the whole wheat flour to absorb the water. Some folks autolyse for hours anyway, but in keeping with doing this in a day, you don’t have to go so long.
Because this is higher hydration dough, I don’t recommend kneading after mixing. Instead, do at least 4 or more folds in the first two hours. You’ll know you’ve done enough folds when the dough has good tension and it doesn’t collapse much after folding. You can also do the windowpane test to check your dough’s doneness.
Alternatively, you can avoid doing all the folding and popping your dough into a container and let it ferment in the fridge for 24 hours or even up to 5 days. This slower fermentation really develops flavor!
The Dawg House! 