Re: Homemade Bread
Here I am then !
Overall my advice to people who want to make their own bread is not to look for recipes. Bread isn't per say a recipe thing.
Imagine you asked someone if they'd like a glass of orange squash and they said yes. You wouldn't then say "and what recipe would you like me to use". You just make squash, a bit of squash concentrate, some water and maybe some ice.
You know that more concentrate will make it more orangey and more water makes it. . . . more watery.
And so it is with bread. It's just about choices of what you want. I'll lay out some of the basics.
Hydration Level
In baking good artisan bread you decide what level of water you want i.e. the hydration level and we express that as a percentage of the flour you intend to use.
An average loaf would use say 500g of flour.
A loaf with high hydration (lots of water) would create a loaf with an "open" crumb, i.e. with lots of largish holes like say you get in a ciabatta. A loaf with low hydration will create a loaf with a very dense and tighter crumb.
Take a look at the loaves in this picture:
The top loaf has a tight crumb, so low hydration level.
The lower loaf has larger more open holes in the crumb so had a high hydration level.
It's pure choice, like having strong or weak orange squash.
A high hydration level would be about 70%
A low hydration level would be about 50-60%
That water content makes a great deal of difference.
Flavour Depth & Sourness
It's important to understand that you can make two very different tasting loaves using the same ingredients. For bread to be as it should be, healthy and easily digestible, you need to ferment the dough for a long period. Most typical home made bread (Women's Institute etc) and most supermarket bread is rushed through the process and loaves are created in 1-2 hours. This is, with the best will in the world, crap bread, unhealthy bread and usually bread lacking any depth of flavour. Commercial bread is rushed this way using what is called the Chorleywood process. I avoid it TBH.
Let me explain how you can get 2 very different loaves using just technique.
We will use:
500g White bread flour
350g water
5g fresh baker's yeast
8g salt
For loaf No 1 we would mix all the above ingredients, let the dough proof and double in size for about 1 hour. Knock it back, shape it into say a log and whack it into a loaf tin, leave to rise again for another 30mins and then bake it.
You will get a nice looking tinned loaf. But it will have little taste.
Now we'll do it again
For Loaf 2 we will again mix those ingredients, but this time we'll only use 1g of the yeast rather than 5g. That's about the size of a pea !
We mix the ingredients as before, but now we will leave the dough out on the kitchen counter in a bowl, covered with a cloth and we will leave it out the entire night. So to be clear, we mix the ingredients at say 9pm in the evening and then leave the dough all night.
In the morning the dough will have doubled or tripled and be full of lovely bubbles. We tip it out of the bowl, shape it, put it in the tin, leave another 30mins to rise again then bake.
The difference between those 2 loaves is significant. Loaf 2 having been allowed to ferment for 10+ hours overnight will be packed with flavour.
The only difference was the amount of yeast we used.
The secret to all great tasting bread is
long fermentation time
You don't get this from supermarkets, even with what they call their own sourdough.
Sourdough
Sourdoughs sound fancy and difficult but they aren't. They are loaves that simply use
wild yeast rather than baker's yeast. You can make your own wild yeast really easily. Just mix flour and water in a little pot, leave it for 2 days. Then every day discard half of it down the sink, then add more water and flour to feed it. Over a period of about 5-10 days it will start to naturally ferment and become full of bubbles. Then you can use it as your yeast in your breads. It creates a more distinctive flavour.
Sourdoughs are all long fermented. That's what gives them their unique flavour. The longer the wild yeasts are allowed to ferment the more sour the flavour will be.
An easy foolproof sourdough "recipe" for a tasty Levain De Campagne is as follows:
White Bread Flour - 350g
Wholewheat Flour - 100g
Dark Rye FLour - 50g
Wild Yeast (levain) - 150g
Water - 300g
Process is simple. Mix all ingredients by hand or in a mixer.
If by hand, do 4 of the "10 second kneads" in the bowl separated by 10 mins.
Leave the dough to proof for about 1hr - 1.5hrs.
Then shape the loaf. Put the shaped loaf into a tin or cane bannetton (basket), I prefer the latter.
Leave to proof for a further 3-4 hours.
Turn out onto a hot baking stone and bake for 30-40 mins at about 200 degrees.
This produces something that looks like this:
Note that I obviously scored(cut) the dough before it went into the oven which produced that lovely criss-cross pattern.
Important Factors
For consistency and good results we
always weigh EVERY ingredient, esp the water. That's why water is expressed in grams. Hydration levels are important so if you're going to make your own bread then get a set of digital weighing scales and be sure to weight all ingredients.
Temperature is a key factor. In low temperatures the dough will take longer to rise. This can be useful if you want a longer fermentation for added taste. If the ambient temperature is very warm, meaning the dough will rise quickly, you can whack it in the fridge to slow down the process. This is called retarding the dough.
There are various other techniques to learn on this bread making journey. The more you get into it the more accomplished you will become.
Shaping bread properly is a key skill to be learned. You need a tight outer skin to the dough. Making a round boule is NOT about just rolling it around like a lump of plasticine.
There's a technique to stretch the outer dough skin as you form the boule. We can cover this in separate posts/threads if people are interested. Shaping baguettes is especially interesting.
Baking the loaf at the optimum time is also vital. Your dough can be under-proofed or over-proofed or just right.
The way to tell is to use the "finger poke" test.
Dip your fingertip in flour and then press it gently into the dough.
If the dimple springs back instantly then the dough isn't ready and needs more proofing.
If the dimple doesn't spring back at all then the dough is over-proofed and needs to be baked immediately and will probably not get as much height and oven spring as it should.
If the dimple springs back slowly then it's perfect and ready for baking.
Always use this finger-poke test. Never rely on recipes or timings as there are too many factors involved that can affect things. Temperature, yeast strength, flour density and so on.
The finger-poke test tells you reliably where the dough is at.
That'll do for now. Feel free to ask anything.