What's In The Bread?

The basic ingredients are simple - flour, water, salt and yeast.  The salt is added for flavor.  I understand that omitting the salt will give you bread that tastes like chalk.  Some people have very sensitive taste buds and can discern the salt, but most people simply taste the bread.

The unlisted ingredient is time.  Depending on the variety, ingredients can be mixed up to 48 hours before it is formed for its final rise.  This long fermentation period with some or all of the ingredients brings out the flavor in the wheat flour kind of like how fermentation brings out the flavor in beer.  The two day process results in a crumb with a different texture than the super-light one day process.  I am told that this is because the long fermentation period changes the enzymes in the dough which results in a thicker crumb, a creamier chew, a little more developed flavor and a longer storage life.

• The extreme of the 'long fermentation style' is natural leavening sometimes referred to as sourdough where the bacteria that is used to produce the bubbles that fill the gluten bubbles resulting in the bread rising comes from a combination of local sources (the air) and some foreign sources that are introduced into the dough.  The long fermentation period, sometimes under refrigeration for days, can produce creamy, rich tasting breads and acid like tangy breads (sour breads) depending on the fermentation period and the strength of the seed or starter.

Unlike the sourdough approach, I use commercial yeast AND time.  Commercial yeast was developed for production bakers who wanted to mix and bake in one day.  Use enough and you could get your dough to the ovens in half a day.  Enough yeast made the bread rise quickly, but a quick mix and bake didn't give the bread time to develop the flavor in the flour.  But, if you use less yeast and give the mix more time to develop, you increase flavor, keep the lift in the bread and impact the texture of the crumb.

Other ingredients I use include rye flour, rolled and steel cut oats, herbs like dried rosemary, thyme, dill, caraway and fennel seed, and dill; fresh, dried and frozen vegetables like onions, garlic, hot peppers; seeds of flax, sesame and chia, and other items like dried figs and cheddar cheese and honey and molasses.

This is not organic, although some of the components are organic, but it is simple.  It is real.

No added chemicals, fats, oils (other than the dairy in the pepper cheese bread).  Have you read the label on your store boughten bread?

Compare.  Here's the label from my Rosemary/Thyme Artisan Bread

Simply stated (without all the components of components) you have
- Enriched flour (that means that vitamins have been added back to try to replace some of the goodness removed when the wheat germ is removed)
- Water
- Salt
- Yeast
- Dried Rosemary
- Dried Thyme                            
Total =  6 Ingredients (and two are flavor enhancements)

That's it.  That's all.  No hurry.  No rush.  The mixed dough (partially or entirely) spends a lot of time in a food-safe bucket as part of the fermentation process.  There it just 'does its thing' as the bacteria in the yeast eats the food in the flour and alters the nature and taste of the dough and the bread.  But, this doesn't happen quickly.  It takes time.

During that time, the dough goes from a 'wet mess' to something resembling a bubbling goo as the bacteria does its thing.  But, it takes time.

Simple ingredients - simple processes - lots of time.  

Real Bread in the Artisanal Style