Step By Step For Bread Making Simple

Bread baking is simpler than most people make it

You need flour, water, salt, and yeast. That is it. The rest is time and temperature control. I started baking bread because store bought loaves were getting worse over the years, and I figured it could not be that hard to replicate what I grew up eating. It took me three failed batches before I understood what was actually going wrong. The first batch I ever made, I used warm water straight from the tap and the dough refused to rise. It sat there for four hours looking like wet cement. Turns out the water was around 120 Fahrenheit, which was close enough to kill the yeast without actually killing it outright. The yeast was still alive but metabolically confused, barely doing anything. I switched to lukewarm water around 105 Fahrenheit and the whole process changed overnight. I know that sounds trivial but it is the kind of detail nobody mentions until you have already wasted two cups of flour.

Step By Step For Bread Making Simple

Mix 500 grams of bread flour with 10 grams of salt and 3 grams of instant yeast in a bowl. Add 350 grams of water at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir until no dry flour remains. This is your shaggy dough stage. It should look ugly and sticky. That is normal. If you are using hand mixers or stand mixers at this point, stop. You are complicating something that does not need complication. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes. This is called autolyse and it does something important without you having to do anything. The flour absorbs water fully and gluten strands begin forming on their own. I usually just cover the bowl with a damp towel and walk away. During this time I clean my counters because the next phase requires more effort. After the rest, fold the dough. Grab one edge, pull it up and over the center. Rotate the bowl a quarter turn. Repeat eight times total. This builds structure without kneading. You will notice the dough becoming noticeably smoother and less sticky within these folds. If it still feels like wet clay after the eight folds, let it rest another 20 minutes and fold again. Do this every 20 minutes for about two hours total. That gives you four to six fold cycles.

After the final fold, let the dough bulk ferment. This is where most people rush and make mistakes. The dough needs to roughly double in size, which usually takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending on your kitchen temperature. A kitchen at 75 Fahrenheit will work differently than one at 68. Watch the dough, not the clock. When you poke it gently with a flour-dusted finger and the indentation slowly springs back about halfway, it is ready. If it springs back all the way, it needs more time. If it collapses, you overproofed it. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Shape it into a boule by pulling the edges toward the center and tucking it underneath. Create surface tension by rolling it on the counter with a cupped hand. Place it seam side up in a bowl lined with a floured towel. This is called banneton substitution when you do not have a proper proofing basket. Let it proof in the refrigerator for 12 to 18 hours. Cold retardation develops better flavor and makes scoring easier since firm dough holds its shape during the bake. Preheat your oven to 500 Fahrenheit with a Dutch oven or heavy baking stone inside for at least 45 minutes. A cold oven will not give you proper oven spring. When the dough is ready, dump it onto a piece of parchment paper, score the top with a sharp blade at a 45 degree angle about a half inch deep, and lower it into the hot Dutch oven. Cover and bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 205 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit. An instant read thermometer is not optional here. Guessing doneness by tapping the bottom sounds like something from a baking show but it is unreliable. I learned this after burning the bottoms of two loaves trying to time it by sound alone.

Let the bread cool completely before slicing. I know this is hard. The crust is crackling and the smell is filling your kitchen. But cutting into it while hot releases steam too quickly and the crumb becomes gummy. Wait 30 to 45 minutes minimum. Here is something most guides will not tell you. Using bread flour with 12 to 14 percent protein content matters more than people realize. All purpose flour at 10 to 12 percent protein will still produce edible bread but the crumb structure will be denser and the crust softer. If you want an open airy crumb with a crisp crust, bread flour or even high gluten flour is worth the extra few cents per pound. I tried a whole wheat version once using only whole wheat flour and the result was a brick. Whole wheat absorbs significantly more water and the shorter gluten strands cannot trap gas as effectively. A 20 percent whole wheat substitution works fine. Beyond that and you are baking something else entirely. Another thing nobody talks about is the hydration level. This recipe sits at about 70 percent hydration, which is manageable for beginners. If you want to push to 75 or 80 percent for a more open crumb, you will need to master stretch and fold techniques properly and accept that the dough will be much stickier and harder to shape. It is not impossible but it is a different skill tier. I would not recommend jumping there on your first few loaves.

The downsides to this method are straightforward. It takes most of a day from start to finish if you follow the cold ferment route. You need a Dutch oven or equivalent setup. You need a thermometer. And if your kitchen is very warm, the bulk fermentation window shrinks dramatically and you need to stay present. There is no hiding with this method. The dough tells you what it needs if you actually read it. One edge case I ran into that I still think about. I once lived in a very dry climate and my dough was consistently absorbing more water than the recipe called for. The hydration percentages in recipes assume a standard humidity baseline. In dry air, flour can be significantly drier and will drink more water. I ended up adding about 25 grams extra water per batch and the difference was noticeable. The loaf had better oven spring and a more tender crumb. Check your flour bag for moisture content if you are in a very dry environment. Some brands bake their flour and it stays dry longer. I also found that newer buildings with poor insulation cause temperature swings that affect fermentation times. My apartment gets cold at night and warm during the day. The bulk ferment would finish in three hours one day and take five the next. Tracking kitchen temperature with a cheap digital thermometer next to your dough bowl is probably the single most useful upgrade you can make. It costs about eight dollars and removes the guesswork from timing.

Once you bake three or four loaves using this method, the whole process becomes routine. The folding takes about ten minutes of actual work spread over two hours. The rest is waiting. The rewards are real though. A properly baked loaf from your own oven will have a crust that cracks when you press it, an interior that is moist but not dense, and a flavor that is slightly tangy from the cold ferment. Store bought bread has none of that. It is soft for about two days and then it is stale. Your loaf will stay good for three days at room temperature and can be frozen sliced for longer storage.