Freshly Baked Pain Au Levain
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This Daily Farm Photo of two freshly baked loaves of my pain au levain prompted some requests for tips on how to bake better crusty, freeform breads.
I easily came up with 10 simple things you can do to immediately improve your loaves. Then I realized one sentence on each would not suffice. So this post is much longer than originally planned. Also, I tend to get carried away on the subject of bread.
Let me preface this list by stating three things. One, bread bakers are an opinionated bunch. Two, there are at least six million opinions regarding bread baking out there. And three, most of these opinions contradict one another. Such a basic process can easily get very complicated. And very confusing. Start delving through a pile of books on bread baking, and in no time at all your head will be spinning and your brain will feel as if it is made of dough. (I speak from experience.)
This is by no means a comprehensive lesson on bread baking—or even a basic introduction. If you've never baked a loaf of bread in your life, I highly recommend you begin by making pizza dough. Click here for my simple recipe. If you're ready to try making crusty, European-style loaves such as the ones pictured above—or if you're looking for ways to improve the breads you are already making—I offer you these tips.
They're not deep, dark secrets. They're not magic tricks. They're simply ten things that made my breads better. They resulted in the loaves you see here—and in my going into the bread business (which you can read an update about here).
1. Do some reading.
Even The Covers Are Inspiring
Just don't overdo it. Pick one bread book and read it from cover to cover. If you like it and it makes sense to you, read it again. Then try a recipe. If you like the result (or if it came out terrible but you know it has potential), make it again. And again and again and again. I believe that it's better to make one bread 20 times than to make 20 breads one time. You cannot get to know a bread by making it only once.
I have a pile of cookbooks devoted to bread, but the only one that lives in my kitchen is Bread Alone by Daniel Leader. I've turned to it so many times it is now in about four pieces. It's a wonderful book, full of everything from detailed information on ingredients and mouthwatering recipes (and photos) to stories about visiting an organic grain grower and starting the Bread Alone bakery in upstate New York. It's easy to read, and the recipes are accessible even to a beginner. At first it may seem daunting, but it's not. Start with his "learning" loaves and move on from there. Update: Daniel Leader's latest book, Local Breads, is fabulous. His Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguettes (the first recipe in the book) are almost always in our freezer.
Another excellent bread book also comes from a New York bakery. Amy's Bread(update: a revised and updated edition will be available in early 2010) is packed with useful information (especially for beginners) and offers recipes for tempting loaves of all kinds and all degrees of difficulty. Artisan Baking Across America is a gorgeous book "to bake from, to learn from, to read for the sheer pleasure of realizing the devotion and mastery that go into the making of our best daily bread." It includes stunning photographs, intimate portraits of all kinds of artisan bread bakeries and bakers, and some of their best recipes. Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book Of Breads offers over 300 recipes for every type of bread you can imagine, and each recipe includes instructions for making the dough with your hands, an electric mixer, and a food processor. The recipe for pita bread alone was worth the price of the book.
Bread in novels: There is another book called Bread Alone. It's a quiet novel by Judith Ryan Hendricks, and it, too, is wonderful. Much of the story takes place in a Seattle bakery. I've read it at least three times, and it always inspires me to bake bread. The sequel, The Baker's Apprentice is a delicious read as well. Yet another similarly titled book is Sarah-Kate Lunch's By Bread Alone, a quirky novel I enjoy re-reading every couple of years.
2009 Update: Earlier this year I became friends with Judi Hendricks while reviewing her latest novel, The Laws of Harmony (which I loved), for part of a virtual book tour. Judi confided in me that she, too, loves Daniel Leader's Bread Alone and named her novel after it.
2. Start with the very best ingredients.
Depending on your point of view, this may sound either completely obvious or totally unnecessary. Flour is flour, right? Water is water? But when you are creating something with only four basic ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast), the quality of those ingredients is crucial. Wheat that is grown in dead soil and doused with chemical pesticides and herbicides, then sprayed with more pesticides once it has been harvested and is sitting in storage so it doesn't get bugs in it (yes, this is what is often done), and then highly processed and chemically bleached so that it is nice and white—this flour will never give you great bread.
Organic flour is the way to go. Stoneground if possible. It's hard to find stoneground white flour, but Heartland Mill produces their white flours using equipment that is very kind to the wheat. I use bread flour (sometimes called high-gluten flour) for my sourdough loaves.
Water should be pure. My water comes from a spring-fed, 300-foot deep well (actually 700 feet deep if you figure we're already 400 feet down in a valley). It's run through a large outdoor filter, and then I filter it again once it comes out of the tap. Municipal tap water is full of chlorine and often other contaminants. These do not make good bread.
Salt is a chic ingredient these days, and some of it is incredibly expensive. There are many natural alternatives to common table salt, which is pretty nasty stuff. Sea salt is nice, but it can be heavily processed, and some people recomment not using any sort of sea salt since our oceans have become so polluted. Kosher salt, a coarse salt which can come from either mines or the sea, contains no additives. Look around, see what you can find, and experiment with it.
Yeast is always a topic of hot debate among bread bakers. Some highly respected professionals swear by "instant" yeast (which can be mixed right into the dry ingredients), while others refuse to even utter the words. Fresh yeast is another hot topic (again, some people swear by it, while others say it's too much trouble as it doesn't stay fresh for long and can be hard to find—I've never baked with it). My sourdough loaves do not use any added yeast. Once you have a sourdough starter, that's all you need.
If you do use yeast, make sure that it is alive—no matter what kind. I use instant yeast for sandwich loaves and pizza dough. I buy it in one-pound bags and store it in the freezer where it keeps for months (though others say it won't, and still others say you should never, ever freeze yeast—see how it can get really confusing, really quickly?)
Oatmeal Toasting Bread 'Old' Dough (bread recipe here)
3. Use a sourdough starter or a sponge or a poolish or a lump of old dough.
There are all different types of "starters." Some are made in a few hours, some in a few days, and some live in your fridge forever. If you make bread two days in a row, you can just save a lump of dough from the first batch and mix it into the second (or you can even freeze it for another time, like the Oatmeal Toasting Bread dough pictured above). Any kind of starter will vastly improve the crust, crumb, and flavor of your loaves. It is simply a matter of finding which one works for you. I have had my two sourdough starters ("regular" and rye) for nearly four years. The older they get, the better they make your bread. I made them using the directions in Bread Alone.
4. Find a wooden dough bowl and use it forever.
This is the bread baker's equivalent of the cast iron skillet. The more you mix and rise your dough in it, the more seasoned it becomes. Clean it with only a plastic scraper and a damp cloth. Wash it with water if you must, but never use soap (though if you buy a used wooden bowl, you'll need to clean it thoroughly with soapy water and soak it briefly in a mild bleach solution before the first use). Old yeast cells will survive in the bowl, enhancing fermentation and building flavor in your doughs. I've been using the same antique wooden bowl for a dozen years. It is four inches high and about 13 inches from rim to rim. It will hold enough dough to make three good-sized loaves. Every so often I take a cloth and rub almond or mineral oil into the wood to keep it from drying out. (The only place in the house warm enough for dough to rise in the winter is right next to the woodstove, which lets off extremely dry heat.)
New wooden bowls are available in various sizes, or you might luck out and find one at an antiques store or flea market. Another place to look is on ebay. Use search phrases like "wooden dough bowl," "antique dough bowl" "wood dough bowl" "wood bread bowl," "old wood bowl," etc. Old bowls are often very pricey, though, because decorators and antiques collectors love them.
If you want to buy a new wooden bowl, I would check out The Bowl Mill in Vermont. I haven't purchased any of their bowls, but they appear to be of superior quality and workmanship. They have bowls of all sizes and made from several types of wood. The larger the bowl, the higher the price, of course. A 10" by 2-5/8" hardwood (usually maple) bowl is just $23.00. If treated properly, a wooden dough bowl should last for years and years.
Whether you decide to buy a new wooden bowl or an old one, remember that you don't want one that has been painted or stained or is cracked.
Update: While I still love using my wooden bowls, most of the time I now let my dough ferment (the first rise) in a straight-sided plastic container with a snap on lid, which makes it so much easier to see when the dough has doubled in size. For a photo, see my Carrot Herb Rolls Recipe post on A Year in Bread.
5. Sprinkle in the flour and stir like crazy.
When you're mixing up your dough, add only about a handful of flour at a time. Use your whole arm to stir, making wide sweeping motions (I use a wooden spoon.) This will "whip" the dough and allow the gluten to develop. This technique works best with a wide, shallow bowl. Take several minutes to mix in all the flour (saving one cup to add while kneading). Then turn the bread out onto a floured surface and begin kneading it.
6. Give It A Rest And Then Add The Salt.
Honey Whole Grain Dough Ready For A Little Rest
This tip not only greatly improves nearly any type of bread, but it also allows you to decrease your kneading time (which improves the bread even more). Autolyse (pronounced AUTO-lees and used as both a noun and a verb) is a French word that refers to a rest period given to dough during the kneading process.
When making your dough, mix together only the water, yeast, flour, and grains until it forms a shaggy mass. Knead it for several minutes, and then cover the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. (I simply leave the dough on the floured counter and put my wooden bowl over it.) During this time, the gluten will relax and the dough will absorb more water, smoothing itself out so that it is moist and easier to shape. After the autolyse, knead the dough for several more minutes, mixing in any other ingredients such as herbs or nuts or dried fruit.
Since salt causes gluten to tighten, hindering its development and hydration, it should not be added to the dough until after the autolyse. And if you are using the "old dough" method (where you add a lump of finished dough from a previous batch of bread to your new dough rather than use a sponge or starter), do not mix it in until after the autolyse either, as it contains salt.
When you incorporate an autolyse into your bread baking, you will be rewarded with loaves that have greater volume and a creamier colored crumb, as well as more aroma and sweet wheat flavor. They will also look nicer and taste better. Bread doughs that contain a high proportion of white flour will benefit the most from an autolyse.
7. Keep the temperature low & the rise slow.
Taking The Dough's Temperature Before The First Rise
The fundamental art of bread baking can easily turn into a scientific study full of confusing technical jargon and complicated explanations. Since this is only an article and not an entire book, I am going to simply skip straight to the bottom line with this tip: the longer your dough is allowed to rise, the better your bread will be.
The two ways to extend rising times are by adjusting the temperature of the dough and the amount of yeast you put in it. The lower the temperature, the slower the rise. The less yeast used, the slower the rise. Crusty, European-style breads often rise for many, many hours. For example, the sourdough breads I make contain no added yeast at all, only the sourdough starter—actually called a chef—that lives in my refrigerator.
The night before I plan to bake bread, I mix the chef with flour and water and set it in a place that is about 70 degrees Farenheit for 8-10 hours. The next day, this mixture becomes the base for my finished dough, which will rise for a total of another five to six hours before it is finally baked.
Many bakers agree that the ideal room temperature for bread dough to rise is between 70 and 76 degrees Farenheit. If you're baking in a kitchen that is cooler than 70 degrees, you can easily raise the temperature of your dough by using warm or hot water (or milk). Keep in mind that kneading the dough will also increase its temperature by a few degrees.
If the air in your kitchen is above 80 degrees, you can use cold water in your dough (and can hopefully find a cooler place to let it rise). Storing your flours in the freezer is another way to lower the temperature of your dough. An instant read thermometer, like the one pictured above, is a handy item to have for taking water, flour, and dough temperatures, and it's indispensible if you're a serious bread baker. You can buy one for about $5.00. Inexpensive digital thermometers
are also available for under $15.00.
Using less yeast than is called for in a recipe will allow the dough to rise for a longer period of time. A basic rule you can apply to nearly any bread recipe is to simply use half the yeast and double the rising time. You may have to make adjustments, but this is a good place to start. By doing just this one thing, you should see an amazing improvement in your breads. They will have more grain flavor, a nice, dense crumb with irregular air pockets, and a pleasant chewiness.
8. Catch Yourself A Couche.
Pain Au Levain Rising In My Homemade Couche
Couche is the French word for "couch" or "resting place." In the bread baking world, a couche is a piece of heavy canvas that is dusted with flour and used to support freestanding loaves, such as rolls and baguettes, while they are proofing. (When making bread, the second rise—after the loaves have been shaped—is referred to as the "proofing" phase. The first rise is the "fermentation.") As you can see in the photo, the couche cradles the loaves, keeping them straight and preventing them from sticking together.
Couches made of special havey baker's canvas can be purchased from commercial bakery suppliers. My couche is made from a yard of raw canvas I bought several years ago at a fabric store for about $4.00. Before using it the first time, I washed it in hot water (without any detergent) to remove any sizing from the material. Since then, I have simply shaken it out well after each use. If you do need to wash your couche, use cold water (so the flour doesn't turn to glue) and no detergent.
You can place your couche either directly on a counter or on a large baking sheet (I can't imagine life without my commercial half-size sheet pans) if you need to move the loaves somewhere else to rise. Sprinkle it generously with flour and rub the flour into the canvas. Long loaves such as torpedos or baguettes should be placed in the couche seam side up.
Update: See this Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguettes post to learn how you can make a parchment paper couche.
When you are ready to put the loaves into the oven, flip them over onto your wooden baking or pizza peel
(or an upside down, large rimmed baking sheet) so that the seam is on the bottom and the floured side is facing up. I own a second peel that has an aluminum blade and long handle which I use to take breads and pizzas out of the oven. The thin metal easily slides under the crusts, and that long handle is really handy. You can even use a peel like this to remove large cake pans from the oven.
This is how you get that pretty white pattern on the tops of your loaves (the dark parts are where the crust "bloomed" after it was scored just before putting it into the oven). And, more importantly, your crusts will be thicker and bolder because extra flour will have embedded itself in the dough while it was rising.
9. Turn your oven into a stone hearth.
A baking stone will simulate a stone hearth in your oven and is a must if you are trying to bake crusty, freeform loaves. (It's also the secret to making fantastic homemade pizza.) It will allow your breads to bake more evenly, and the initial, intense burst of heat on the col dough will help to create high, richly colored loaves and chewy, better-tasting crusts.
There are many shapes and sizes and thicknesses of baking or pizza stones available. Be sure to choose one that leaves a 2 to 3-inch gap of space on all sides in your oven so air can circulate. My baking stone is 14"x15" and about 3/4" thick, and I've had it for over a dozen years. It's now dark and seasoned. After each use, I just brush it off. If you must wash yours, use only water, never soap.
You should season a new baking stone by heating it once or twice in a moderate oven before using it. When making bread or pizza, always allow your baking stone to preheat in the oven for at least 45 minutes so that it is nice and hot. I find that placing my baking stone in the center of my oven gives me evenly baked breads. If the bottoms of your breads are burning before the tops are brown, or vice versa, try placing your baking stone on a lower or higher oven rack.
2009 Update: In order to simulate the 7-foot wide ceramic hearth deck oven in our commercial kitchen (that's finally almost finished!), a few years ago I started baking all of my pan loaves on my baking stone. I place the cold stone in the cold oven like usual, let the oven heat up, and then put the loaf pans full of risen dough directly on the hot baking stone. I really like the results, and the loaves are nice and brown on the bottoms and sides.
10. Make some steam.
Have you ever wondered how some European-style breads get that gorgeous, glossy shine on their crusts—and why your loaves never turn out looking like that? Well, they can. All you need to do is fill up your oven with steam during the first part of baking. Steam slows crust formation, which allows for the best possible oven "spring." It also gelatinizes the starch on the surface of the bread so that it develops a thin, glossy, beautifully brown crust.
There are two easy ways to create steam in your oven. One is to fill an inexpensive plastic spray bottle with water and mist the walls and floor of the oven for several seconds right after you put the bread in. Repeat this two more times at two or three minute intervals. (Warning: Do not spray the oven light! It makes a really big mess when it shatters.)
Try to open the oven door as little as possible when you're misting so that you don't lose all your valuable heat. You can set your oven 25 to 50 degrees higher than you need it to be to adjust for the heat loss while misting, and then just turn down the temperature once you're finished. As long as your loaves do not have a decorative flour pattern on them (like the sourdough onion rye bread shown above), you can directly mist the dough as well. Or you can use a pastry brush to paint them with water before putting them in the oven.
The other way to create steam in your oven is by carefully pouring about a cup of hot water into a preheated pan you have set on a rack underneath your baking stone. Do this right after you have put your bread in the oven. Use a wide, shallow, old metal pan or a cast iron skillet. Do not use your favorite Corningware stoneware roasting pan, even though it is the perfect size. It will end up badly cracked and you will end up in tears. If desired, you can also directly mist the loaves and oven walls at the beginning of the baking process when you use this method.
2009 Update: To be perfectly honest, I rarely bother with the steam anymore, and I really haven't seen much (if any) difference in my breads. When I do want to create steam, I follow this tip from Daniel Leader's wonderful book, Local Breads: Before you turn the oven on, place a cast iron skillet (one of the best kitchen bargains on the planet) on the rack below your baking stone. After you slide your unbaked loaves onto the hot baking stone, toss a handful of ice cubes into the hot cast iron skillet and quickly shut the oven door.
Oh, let's just make it an even baker's dozen tips.
11. Storing your edible masterpiece.
Once you've baked a delicious loaf, you'll want it to stay as fresh as possible (assuming it lasts more than a few hours). Crusty loaves will keep best if you leave them unwrapped at room temperature. You can store them, cut side down, in a breadbox or a cupboard or even on the kitchen counter. To re-crisp the crust, mist your bread with water and reheat it in a 400° oven for 5 to 8 minutes.
I store sandwich-style pan loaves in plastic bags at room temperature, but only for a couple of days. During the summer I keep them in the fridge (which will make some people cringe), but I always toast refrigerated bread.
If you're not planning to eat your bread right away, consider freezing it. Bread freezes beautifully. I always bake several loaves at a time, no matter what kind of bread I'm making; there's no reason to go to all that effort for just one loaf. I put whole or half loaves in heavy-duty, zipper freezer bags and toss them in the chest feezer, though some people recommend wrapping each loaf in aluminum foil first. You can defrost frozen bread at room temperature, or you can go straight from freezer to oven.
12. Write everything down.
I used to be really bad about doing this, but I now find it indispensible. Each time you bake bread, simply take a few minutes to write down everything you did, from the amount of ingredients you used to the length of each rise, to how the finished bread looked and tasted. The more detailed your notes, the better.
There are so many little things that can affect your bread baking—everything from the brand of flour to the weather can make a difference in how your bread comes out. For instance, when it's cloudy because of a low pressure system in the area, bread dough actually rises more quickly because it has less atmospheric pressure on it. Taking notes allows you to not only look back and see what worked and what didn't, but also helps you figure out why.
Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread (recipe here)
Each time I bake bread (even if I'm making my Farmhouse White for the 200th time), I pull out one of my bread notebooks and make detailed notes about the entire process. I also record the indoor temperature and humidity, the outdoor temperature, what the weather is like, and any other variables I can think of. This information can be especially helpful for the breads you don't bake very often.
Honey Whole Grain (recipe here) Baked Using Every Tip Except Numbers 8 & 10
(For sandwich loaves, I love my Chicago Metallic Commercial Loaf Pans)
13. And finally: Practice, practice, practice.
There is nothing that will improve your breads more than simply making them over and over again. And the best part is, there is nothing that will thrill your friends and loved ones more than receiving the results of your bread baking efforts.
So that's all there is to it. Just take these tips with you into the kitchen, and in no time at all you should be hearing those sweet, magic words, "This is the best bread I've ever tasted!"
Got more flour left? Check out these other Farmgirl Fare bread recipes:
Beyond Easy Beer Bread (my most popular recipe)
Whole Wheat Beer Bread
Onion Rye Beer Bread
How To Make Pita Bread
Savory Feta Cheese & Scallion Scones
Cranberry Christmas Scones
White Whole Wheat Scones with Currants & Oats
Parisian Four Hour Baguettes
No-Knead Crusty Freeform Bread
Italian Rosemary Raisin Bread
Fresh Tomato & Basil Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
Whole Grain Cottage Cheese Bread
Italian Black Olive Cheeks
Carrot Herb Rolls (And A Bargain Bread Book For Beginners)
Easy Rosemary Focaccia
Three Onion & Three Cheese Pizza
Still hungry? You'll find links to all my sweet and savory Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes in the right hand sidebar under Previous Posts: Food Stuff w/ Recipes. Enjoy!
© Copyright 2005 FarmgirlFare.com, the warm and crusty and slathered with butter foodie farm blog where Farmgirl Susan shares recipes, stories, and photos from her crazy country life—and everything is better with homemade bread.
Labels: artisan bread baking, bread baking, bread baking tips, recipe, sourdough breads
+of+copy+3+ayib.JPG "The Year is over, but we're still baking!")
