I have come up with 3 basic steps in addition to eating your own bread. You MUST eat your own bread.
If you don't cut it; taste it; evaluate the crust, crumb and taste, how do you know what you are producing?
Of course you will see it, so you can evaluate the looks (and compare your bread to the product of your favorite bakery), but as we said last time, looks aren't important unless it tastes good.
So - what's ahead of you in your journey to make Great Bread? What can you expect?
You should plan on:
- Practice, practice, practice
- Focus on your style
- Use basic equipment
- Read what others are doing
Practice
Yes, you will need to practice and practice a lot. Even if you only strive to create one variety of bread, it's going to take practice to work out the kinks. But, plan also on practicing to figure out which recipe you will follow. After a bit of time, you will realize that there are recipes that you want to follow over and over - and there are other recipes that you never want to make again.
Items to consider in the recipe:
- Number of ingredients
- Accessibility and shelf life of ingredients
- The time it takes start to finish, interrupted or uninterrupted
- Batch size and whether it can be halved or doubled without issue
- Oven time, counter space, tools and cleanup required
- Sensitivity and precision required
Many of these things can be assessed as you read the recipe.
Why are they important? Example - While I would love to use whole cream in my breads, I don't want to keep it in the refrigerator and have to 'use it up' before the due date. So, I stay away from recipes with whole cream (or refrigerated products for the most part). And, if you don't enjoy making the recipe, you won't look forward to making it. And, if conditions have to be right in your home to enable adequate counter space and oven time or if making your recipe results in a giant mess that no one likes to clean up, the recipe will probably not be a 'go to' bread recipe.
Your Style
Practice also relates to the style (the next item). It's a sort of a 'chicken and egg' thing: as you practice and try various recipes, you will develop your style - and as you develop your style, you will gravitate to recipes that reflect that style.
In the beginning, I didn't know what they meant by style. But, as you taste different breads and try making them yourself, you start realizing that there are similarities to the ones you like. Some examples include sourdoughs (or naturally levened breads though they are not necessarily sour); dutch oven breads; no knead breads; lean breads(little sugar or fat); rich breads (containing eggs, sugar, oil). Also, one could specialize in breads of a particular nation: French, Italian or other breads. There are other breads with nuts, whole grains, dried fruits and even vegetables that may grab your interest.
And, what do you want your finished product to look like? Like the wonder bread loaf (using loaf pans)? Like bread from an artisan market (round and oval and long like french bread)? Like muffins - made in single serving portions? Each of these is baked separately. If you use no pan, then you need to make a loaf that is 'firm enough' to 'stand' on it's own while the oven warms it up and bakes it into it's shape.
Inherent is this 'shape' decision is the 'use' of the bread. An artisan loaf needs to be cut and every piece is a different size than the previous - so the sandwich eater needs to be a little tolerant. Also, those sandwich bags were made for square slices.
As you practice your bread making skills, you will have an affinity for certain types of breads and your style will become apparent.
What is best? The best style is the style you like to make and which you and those close to you like to eat.
Basic Equipment
Like any hobby, there are lots of people trying to sell you 'essentials' to making it easier for you to make better stuff. Bread making is no different. Of course, some of the things (like a a dutch oven) are essential to a certain style of baking and you don't know that you don't want to make that style without having tried the equipment.
Here's a list of where you might want to put your dollars - and then a list of some places where success is less certain:
A digital scale - Once you decide you are going to bake bread, you need a digital scale. The scale allows you to measure your ingredients on a consistent basis. While a cup measure may include more or less flour depending on how compressed the flour is, a gram is a gram is a gram of flour. A side benefit is that you don't have to clean up measuring cups as you can simply put your mixing bowl on the scale and add in your quantity of each ingredient. My scale has a readout that can be moved away from the base unit so you can read it even if you use a wide diameter mixing bowl.
If you have anyone in the house who has tried one of those 'point based diets', you may already have a digital scale. Use what you have and see where it gets you.
A quick read digital thermometer - How do you know when your bread is done baking? They say that you can turn the hot loaf upside down and thump the bottom. If it gives you a hollow sound, it's done. Also, it's done when it hits 195º to 210º F, depending on the recipe. I see the lower temp with whole grain breads and the upper with light breads. I generally go for 200º as my sign of done - and I haven't had a problem.
They sell 'instant read' digital thermometers for under $10 that take 15 or so seconds to read the temp. That's not instant when you are sticking your hand in a 500º oven. It may be what you use until you are ready for the big investment - but you take your loaf out of the oven to check the temp.
That primo thermometer is costs a little under $100 and is really instant read. If you are baking (and checking) 8 loaves a week, you will appreciate the real instant read capability.
A good sharp bread knife - Every loaf of bread needs to be sliced whether it is into sandwich slices or hunks. Your knife can make it a cinch, or a chore. The good news is that you can get a very good bread knife for under $10. I got mine at the Costco Business Center. Today, you can't buy one at a time, but you can get 2 for $12. An offset nylon handle and serrated blade, it can be sharpened with a stone. And, if you can't sharpen it (for some reason), buy another.
A baking (or pizza) stone - The whole concept of baking bread is based on heat transference. The hot oven brings the cool dough up to temperature, drying it as it heats. The bottom of the bread should set up before the top. Any expansion of the dough (oven spring) as the dough comes up to temperature should be toward the top and not the bottom. One way we see to this is to have a stone at the bottom of the loaf. The stone absorbs a lot of heat and then transfers it quickly to the base of the loaf.
A spray bottle - this is used to 'mist' the oven. A humid atmosphere allows the outer crust to stay soft to allow oven spring to come out the top (where the dough is slashed) rather than at whatever weak spot it can find (often, the side).
A pie tin - Used to put a little water into the oven where it will turn to steam - in addition to the spray bottle.
A couple of buckets or mixing bowls with a lid - kind of obvious that you need something to mix the dough in (if you are not using an electric mixer). The buckets are used to store the mixed dough as it ferments (from 1 hour to 24 hours). The buckets should 'fit' your batch size. In the beginning, if you don't have a lid, you can use plastic wrap or even a damp towel. The dough is covered so it doesn't dry out. It's important that the container be plenty big - so that it can expand as it needs to without inhibition.
Cooling Rack - With enough space to allow two batches of bread from your oven to cool.
Electric Mixer - This relates to style of bread, for most people. For others, working the dough by hand is not realistic. I find that hand kneaded dough and machine kneaded dough perform differently (at least in my kitchen). The machine kneaded dough is generally lighter/fluffier. But the hand worked dough (I do a 'no knead plus' approach) has a more satisfying 'bite' to it. It may not be as fluffy and tall, but it is rich and meaty. I would suggest that you borrow a mixer (like a KitchenAid) from a friend to find out whether you 'need' one for yourself. But, you don't need a mixer to make great bread. Look at the no knead videos on youtube. Thought they are usually one or two loaf batches, you can do the same thing with 4 pound batches, as long as your mixing bowl will handle that much flour (about one kilo).
Beginner Items?
If you are just starting out and don't know if this journey will go anywhere, try these starter items (without buying anything):
an oven proof pan with cover - 3 or 4 quarts (preferably metal). This eliminates the stone, spray bottle, pie tin and even thermometer.
a cooling rack
a big mixing bowl
a kitchen towel
The next installment will address mixing and baking.
