FAQ for alt.bread.recipes

Sample Recipe

Purpose of this section

The sample recipe below is intended to instruct the reader in some basic techniques, with detailed explanations as we go along. This is a standard white bread made by the straight dough method. This recipe illustrates a number of basic concepts and is a good place for the novice bread maker to begin. People with some experience but little success in bread making can learn a lot by simply reading through the section and noting points they may have previously misunderstood. None of this is meant to suggest that you have an interest in making this particular kind of bread. The lessons learned here can be applied to many other kinds of bread, too.

This recipe promotes best practices. That is, it suggests that there is a right or best way to do certain things. This should not be taken to mean that the straight dough method is better than other methods or that a pan bread made with milk, sugar, and fat is better than a lean hearth bread. The recipe was selected only because of the breadth of concepts it illustrates.

The format of this section allows for the inclusion of lengthy explanations. It is not meant as a model for the formatting of working recipes. There may be occasions when you find a recipe you like in a book or periodical and want to rewrite it in a better format; and you are encouraged to do so. However, you should feel free to use whatever such format you find most convenient rather than relying on this section as a model.

Tools and equipment

These tools are required to complete this exercise:

Item	Comments
Kitchen digital scale or balance scale (not spring scale)	Many of the problems people have with bread making can be traced to measuring ingredients, especially flour, by volume rather than by weight. You should establish the habit of weighing ingredients.
Measuring spoons	When you need a very small quantity of an ingredient, measuring spoons can be more accurate than an inexpensive scale.
Large mixing bowl and some smaller bowls or containers	An inexpensive set of stainless steel bowls is ideal. A heavy earthenware bowl is a luxury to use for mixing, but it is too heavy to use for weighing ingredients on the scale.
Large, sturdy spoon for mixing	You want a spoon that can stand up to significant strain. It can be wood or metal, but if you can bend or break it with your hands, it won't do.
Smooth, clean work surface (preferably wood)	An unfinished wooden surface or a plastic cutting surface board can be cleaned by scraping. A laminate, stone, or faux stone (such as Corian) surface cannot be scraped but must be washed instead, which is more time-consuming.
Rubber or plastic spatula, or flexible plastic bowl scraper	Bowl scrapers are inexpensive (often given away). They wear out, so it is a good idea to have more than one.
Bench knife (bench scraper) or large, sharp knife	If you have a scrapable work surface, get a bench knife. See Equipment and tools section for details on what to look for.
Instant-read thermometer	Many of the problems people have with bread making can be traced to carelessness with temperatures. An instant-read thermometer is an inexpensive tool and is important to have.
Oven thermometer	You need to verify that the temperature you set your oven for is the temperature in the oven. Most ovens are badly calibrated, and a separate oven thermometer is the only way to correct for that.
Loaf pans	Dark metal loaf pans are best, but you can use any suitably shaped oven-proof container to begin with. This recipe should yield three loaves of slightly over a pound (500 g).
Bread knife	A sharp serrated knife is best for slicing bread. Kitchen specialty shops carry bread knives in various price ranges.

Other, more specialized, tools, as well as mechanical equipment, may be good things to have as you gain experience or progress to other breads, but the above will always be useful. For descriptions and details on selecting and purchasing particular items you may not have, see the Tools and equipment section.

Mise en place

Cooking and baking get a lot of terminology from French. This is one you should know. It means "setting in place," and refers to having all ingredients at hand, measured according to the formula in the recipe, and arranged in the sequence you will need them, according to the procedure in the recipe. There is one exception. The water used for dissolving the yeast is a small quantity that will cool off quickly once measured. You should gather this item just prior to use. If you are using US measurements (pounds and ounces, teaspoons and tablespoons) use the values on the left of the ingredient name in the table below. If you are using metric measurements (grams, milliliters), use the values on the right. These US quantities and metric quantities are not the same. This is intentional. Take all of your measurements from just one column.

US Quantity		Item	Metric Quantity		Comments
0.25	oz.	active dry yeast	7	g	This is one packet or 2 1/4 tsp. (11 ml)
2	oz.	water, 100–110F (38–43C)	60	g	Measure this ingredient last so it doesn't cool off before you use it.
1	lb. 4 oz.	water, 80F (27C)	610	g	This assumes all other ingredients are at room temperature.
2	lb.	bread flour	1	kg	You will get better results with this recipe if you use flour labeled "bread flour" or "best for bread" or "bread machine flour" rather than "all purpose flour."
2	oz.	granulated sugar	60	g
2	oz.	butter	60	g	You can substitute solid shortening such as Crisco.
2	oz.	non-instant dry milk	60	g	This is the inexpensive milk powder used by bakers. You should be able to find it at a food co-op or natural foods store. Or you can buy a pound or two at a bakery.
OR
1.6	oz.	instant dry milk	50	g	This is the type of milk powder sold in supermarkets. Use half of a quart (or liter) packet.
0.7	oz.	salt	21	g	Use table salt, kosher salt, canning and pickling salt (the cheapest), or sea salt. Do not use any kind of salt substitute.

Mixing

1	In a small bowl mix add the yeast to the warm water and stir to dissolve.	In this example we are using active dry yeast, which should be hydrated, according to package instructions, in this manner. Other types of yeast are handled differently. Do not add sugar to the yeast solution.
2	In the large mixing bowl, add about half the flour to the larger quantity of water and stir until the flour is wetted.	Do not continue mixing until smooth.
3	Pour in the yeast solution and stir until the yeast is well distributed.
4	Add all but about half a cup (a large handful) of the remaining flour, the sugar, butter, and milk powder. Stir until the flour is wetted and the mixture is otherwise clumpy.	Set aside the reserved flour for later. The reason for adding ingredients in this order is to ensure intimate contact between the yeast and the flour and to buffer the yeast from coming into direct contact with the fat, milk, sugar, or salt, which might interfere with fermentation and gluten development.
5	Stir in one direction only, either clockwise or counterclockwise, even if you switch hands. Use the spatula or bowl scraper to scrape down the spoon and the sides of the bowl as you work.	The dough will not yet be smooth. In fact it will be a clumpy, lumpy, sticky mess. This is normal.
6	Add the salt. Continue stirring until you cannot stir anymore.	Salt tightens up the gluten that is developing in the dough. This makes it much harder to stir, and that is why you add it last.
7	Drape a damp tea towel or a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the bowl and set a timer for 20 minutes.	This is the autolyse. This rest period allows the flour to become well hydrated. The yeast begins to multiply, and gluten begins to form.
8	While you are waiting, wash and thoroughly dry your largest bowl or a large stock pot (if you are mixing the dough in your largest bowl). Grease the inside with butter, shortening, or oil. Set aside.	Wash up the rest of the bowls you used for ingredients. Write someone a letter. Write a poem. Write a shopping list. Wait for the timer.
9	Using a small amount of the reserved flour, lightly flour your work surface. Sprinkle a bit more on the surface of the dough that is stuck to the spoon, and a pinch more around the edge of the dough in the bowl. Dust your hands lightly as well. Using a bowl scraper or spatula, scrape the dough off the spoon into the bowl. Then tip the bowl onto the work surface and scrape the dough out.	The light dusting of flour helps keep the dough from sticking to the scraper. You will get some dough on your hands and you can use the scraper to get most of that off, too. Wash off the little bit that remains and dry your hands.

Kneading

Now you have a large, sticky mass of dough staring up at you. Dust the surface lightly and pat it all around so it is a vaguely smooth, somewhat flattened oval about 2 in. (5 cm) thick.	This is just to make it easier to handle. The longer axis of the oval should be front-to-back rather than side-to-side.
Scrape the back edge up from the surface and fold it toward you. Put the scraper down and use the heels of your hands to press down, so that you end up with about the same shape you started with. This time the longer axis of the oval will be left-to-right.	If you are working on a wooden surface or a plastic cutting surface, you can use a bench knife. This is the best choice. However, if you are working on a surface that does not withstand scratching, you can use the plastic bowl scraper. This is less effective, but it is a decent compromise.
Using the scraper to loosen the dough from the surface, turn it 90 degrees (a quarter-turn). Repeat the fold, push, turn sequence until the dough begins to become smooth and easier to handle. Try to develop a quick, rhythmic motion.	Tip: At first you will want to sprinkle a bit of flour on the surface after you scrape the dough up and turn it. As you go along, you will need to do this much less often. Soon you will not need the scraper to loosen the dough from the surface. The amount of flour you reserved when first mixing the dough should be sufficient, but it is possible that you will need just a bit more. Don't overdo it, or the dough will become too dry and stiff.
As you work, the dough should remain soft, and if you poke your finger into the dough it should still be sticky. The surface may remain a little tacky, too. That's okay. When the consistency of the dough becomes noticeably smooth and springy, do the windowpane test: Pull out a small ear from the dough, slowly and gently stretching it so that the center becomes thin. If you can pull it thin enough to see through without tearing it, the dough is thoroughly kneaded.	This is a goal you may not achieve the first time you try kneading dough. It is a standard you can aim for, though. If you knead too much, the dough will begin to tear rather than stretch. It is almost impossible to overknead by hand, so you should not encounter this condition.

Fermentation

Place the kneaded dough into the greased container. Turn the dough around and over, in order to completely grease the surface of the dough. Jab the instant-read thermometer into the dough and wait until the needle stops moving. If the temperature of the dough is around 75–80F (23–27C), it can ferment comfortably in about an hour at normal room temperature. If it is substantially cooler than that, particularly during winter months, you might want to move the dough to a slightly warm place, such as a sunny window or the inside of an oven that is turned off but has the oven light switched on. A long, slow, cool fermentation, beginning with a cooler dough and fermenting it overnight in the refrigerator, produces a better flavor, especially in lean breads. However, for this recipe that is not necessary or beneficial.

Remove the thermometer and cover the container with plastic wrap or, if you prefer, a tea towel. Plastic wrap helps keep the surface of the dough from drying out, especially in winter. You can also use the sort of plastic bowl cover, sold in supermarkets, that resembles a shower cap.

This step is called fermentation. It is the first rise of the dough. The yeast organisms digest the starch in the flour, producing carbon dioxide gas and alcohol. The carbon dioxide gas is trapped in the gluten matrix you developed in the dough as you kneaded it. The expanding trapped bubbles of gas are what causes the dough to increase in volume. The alcohol is a waste product that will suffocate the yeast if it is not dissipated. If this happens, the rising dough will collapse and become very moist and sticky. That would be a bad thing.

Fermentation is exothermic. That just means that it produced heat. The dough will be a few degrees warmer when it has risen than it was when it started, even if the room is cooler than the dough. The only reason for moving the dough to a warmer spot is if the dough starts out too cold or if the room is so cold that it draws heat away from the surface of the fermenting dough faster than the fermentation can produce heat.

WHILE YOU ARE WAITING, grease the bread pans. Grease them thoroughly, paying special attention to corners and seams. Use, in order of preference, melted lard, vegetable shortening (such as Crisco), or butter. If you are careful and good with your hands, you can use baking parchment to line the pans instead of greasing the pans.

WATCH THE DOUGH as it begins to rise. It is important to allow the fermentation to proceed to a particular stage, irrespective of the amount of time it takes. Don't watch the clock; watch the dough. Fermentation accelerates as the yeast multiply and the dough warms. Poke the dough with a finger. If the indentation springs back, the fermentation is not done. If it springs back just a tiny bit, the dough is said to be "on the young side," which is appropriate for some kinds of bread. In this case, though, we want a fully fermented—but not over-fermented—dough. When the indentation does not spring back, the fermentation is complete. This is the stage that is meant when a recipe says, "Let rise until doubled in bulk." If you let it go longer and poke it again, the dough will collapse with a beery smelling whoosh, something you want to avoid.

Punching down

Punching down is not at all what it sounds like. This is not the point at which you work out your displaced agression. That comes later.

Gently push the middle of the dough down to form a large indentation. Now grab the rim of the crater and pull it up, away from the bowl, and toward the center. Repeat two or three times, working around the edge. What you are trying to do is give the alcohol and gases a way to escape and turn the dough essentially inside out. This also helps distribute the yeast evenly (it has been multiplying faster in the warmer reaches of the dough than in the cooler, so it is no longer distributed evenly).

Because this is a hand-mixed dough and we want to give as much help as possible to gluten and flavor development, we are going to allow for a second fermentation period. This will be shorter than the first, because the dough is warmer and there are already a lot more yeast organisms. If the first rise took an hour, the second rise should take about two-thirds of that, or forty minutes. Cover the dough again, preheat the oven to 400F (200C), catch up with your neighbors, and come back before the dough over-ferments.

Scaling and rounding

Test the dough again as before. If it is ready, do not punch it down. Instead, tip it out onto a lightly floured work surface and lightly dust the top with flour, just enough to handle it easily.

Before you put the bowl or pot in the sink, put it on the scale and zero the scale. Briefly put the dough back in to determine the weight of the dough. Then tip the dough back out. Divide the total weight of the dough by three. This should give you a weight of a little over a pound or a little over half a kilogram.

Using the bench scraper or a sharp knife, cut the dough into thirds. Weigh each piece and add or subtract small pieces of dough until you have the desired weight. The three pieces do not need to be exactly the same, but if the pans are all the same size, then you want to make the loaves the same weight, too. The word scaling is bakers' jargon for weighing. You scaled ingredients before, and now you have scaled the dough.

What have you just done? You've cut through all those sheets and strands of gluten at least a couple of times. Then you've pinched off or pasted on a few thumb-size pieces with short strand of gluten. These three blobs of dough are not going to make very attractive loaves. To solve that problem, the next thing to do is called "rounding" or "rounding up."

This is the easy way, not the fast or professional way, to round up, but it will produce the desired results (see the Techniques section for a better way): Pick up one piece of dough and turn it over so that any small lumps of dough are on the bottom. Hold the dough so that your thumbs are on top, next to each other, and your fingers are beneath the dough. One hand will remain stationary, supporting the dough as the other hand stretches and turns it. So, with one hand, stretch the dough out and down, and tuck the edge back up under the bottom center. Turn the dough a bit and repeat. Continue until you have a ball of dough that is tight and smooth on top, with all the folds and creases on the bottom. This should only take 10–15 seconds. Place the rounded up ball, seam-side down, on the lightly dusted work surface. Repeat with the other two pieces of dough. Cover the three balls of dough with a dry tea towel so the surface does not dry out.

Resting and moulding

Check the oven temperature. The oven thermometer should show the desired temperature, regardless of what the oven dial says. Make any needed adjustment. The longer the oven preheats, the better a job of baking it will do. This is because the walls of the oven, rather than just the air inside the oven, need to be at the desired temperature in order to provide even heating throughout the bake.

After the balls of dough have rested for about 10 minutes, they should have softened up so you can stretch them easily. Shaping the dough into loaves (or rolls or any sort of finished product) is called moulding. You are ready to mould the loaves.

This is the part where you get to work out your displaced anger. Think of your boss. Think of your ex. Think of your neighbor's barking dog. Whatever.

With your hand extending away from you, palm down, pick up one ball of dough, thumb underneath, fingers on top. With your arm straight, swing the dough up behind your head (think of a tennis serve), and slam the dough down on the work surface. This should make enough noise that a person two rooms away would come in to see that you are all right. The dough should now be a flattened oval stretching away from you. It should be intact, not ripped. If it is ripped, maybe you were a little too angry. Or maybe you didn't knead enough. If the dough breaks short, which means that the gluten did not form tough, stretchy sheets and strands but instead the dough fractures easily into rough pieces, that suggests underdeveloped gluten. (The short in "breaks short," "shortening," and "shortbread" refers to the fact that coating particles of flour with fat physically interferes with gluten development.)

Use your fingers to stretch and flatten the dough into a rough rectangle as wide as your bread pan is long. Fold the near edge back past the center. Fold the back edge forward to overlap the that. Now roll tightly from the back and use the heel of one hand to WHACK the seam. The seam must be thoroughly sealed. Remember the anger. If you have a lot of trouble getting the seam to seal, that suggests that you have worked far too much flour into the dough, something to keep in mind for next time. Meanwhile, pinch the seam with your fingers.

Roll the loaf back and forth a few times under light pressure if necessary so that it is uniform in thickness (end-to-end) and the length of the loaf pan. Place the loaf seam side down into the pan.

Proofing

When the dough rises in bulk, the step is called fermentation. When moulded dough rises, the step is called the proof stage (the resting period after rounding up is sometimes called intermediate proof).

At this stage, the loaves should be kept warm and moist. A temperature of up to about 105F (40C) is usual in commercial bakeries but is not easily attained at home. A temperature of about 80F (27C) is easier to manage and will result in slower proofing but richer flavor. In either case, a humid environment (90–100% relative humidity) helps keep the surface of the dough from drying out and causing cracked and discolored areas on the crust. One way to provide a good environment for proofing is to inflate a large plastic bag (a clear food storage bag is recommended) or use a large insulated cooler. In either case, place the pans of bread in the container and also a bowl, measuring cup, or pitcher of hot water to act as a source of warmth and moisture. Remember that the bread will rise above the tops of the pans, so ensure that there is room for it to do so. You can also use a plastic bowl cover (the one that resembles a shower cap), but you do have to inflate it, and there is no way to add moisture under the hood if you do so.

The warmer the space where the bread proofs, the less time it will take. Again, as with fermentation, watch the dough, not the clock. The bread is ready to go in the oven when it is well risen, jiggles when shaken gently, and does not spring back when you gently make a small dimple with your fingertip in the side of the loaf.

Baking

Gently put the bread into the oven. You should arrange the pans on a middle shelf in such a way that there is good air circulation around and between them. For this simple sandwich bread there is no need to wash the bread before baking. See the Technique section for a discussion of washing and docking methods.

Bake for about 20–25 minutes. Do not open the oven door until after 20 minutes (a little less if you are using a convection oven, however). If you have an oven light, use that to check the color of the bread rather than opening the door.

There are a few different tests for doneness. The first thing to look for is the color of the crust. If that is satisfactory, touch the side of the loaf just above the edge of the pan. If this is soft, the bread needs to bake a bit more. If it is firm, the bread may be done. If you are unsure, poke your instant-read thermometer into an inconspicuous place on the side of the loaf. The internal temperature should be about 195F (91C). Finally, when you tip a loaf out onto a potholder and tap the bottom, it should sound hollow and the bottom crust should be well colored. You do not need to do all of these tests for every loaf, but you should become familiar with the interrelationships among them, so that you can judge doneness quickly by eye and by touch, without having to do the more elaborate tests.

Cooling and slicing

Cool the bread on a wire rack in a draft-free area. The bread is still cooking while it is cooling. Despite the temptation to do so, don't cut the bread until it is thoroughly cool, as the texture will be unsatisfactory and the remainder of the loaf will stale more quickly. If you want to eat warm bread, reheat it.

Use a sharp serrated knife, preferably one sold specifically as a bread knife, to cut slices of the desired thickness. With a little practice you will be able to control the knife to produce a straight, uniform slice. Developing this skill, rather than relying on a guide or a gizmo of some sort, will stand you in good stead at dinner parties.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

To learn good technique, you should make the same recipe repeatedly until you have mastered it and can consistently produce bread that people accept from you with genuine enthusiasm. You can practice using this recipe or you can apply what you have learned here to the repetition of a different recipe that you like better. The key, though, is that you can best gain understanding of the bread making process by working with a single recipe. After you have mastered that, you will be in a much better position to try a variety of other breads, including entirely different types of bread made with different methods.

As you learn to evaluate the outcome of your attempts (see Judging the finished product in the Techniques section, the Troubleshooting guide section will help you zero in on specific aspects of your technique that you can improve.