chad
10th February 2015, 04:31 PM
okay, 1 year late, but whatever. hopefully this gave you extra time to get all your stuff ready. i will be bitching at you and lecturing you in this post, because i want your recipe to turn out really well, not becasue i am an asshole. so just listen to me. as mentioned before, you will need the following:
1 bag white flour. WHITE not some blend or mix. bleached or unbleached, it doesn't matter.
1 box of vital wheat gluten. i use this one, but it doesn't matter what kind:
http://www.bobsredmill.com/vital-wheat-gluten.html
orange rind
some olive oil
a bottle of carbonated water. doesn't matter what kind. don't get anything with flavor added, etc. just regular, plain carbonated water. pretend you are in france.
some sugar, 1/4 a cup or so.
2 eggs
some yeast. i normally don't use yeast, but i'm too lazy to make this thread a 10 day epic with growing a starter, so go buy some yeast. it has to be from a jar, not in packets. i use red star. don't buy anything that says "fast rising."
sea salt. you don't have to add salt, so you can skip this part if you want, but it inhibits mold growth. that's all it's in there for.
a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven. this absolutely won't work without one, so go buy one if you don't already own one. here is one you can get in a week:
http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-L8DOL3-P...8808031&sr=1-2
a water spray bottle from the dollar store. one of those little mister sprayer things.
a razor blade.
lastly, your oven needs to be able to go to 450 degrees.
okay, so now you have all of that stuff. i will give you options. you can either follow dough recipe 1 or dough recipe 2. #1 will make crusty rustic bread. #2 will make french brioche. all breads are basically variations of these 2 dough recipes. crusty rustic is like the stuff you'd tear apart and eat with cheese, brioche is more of a sweet, desert type bread. the crusty will have big air pockets in it, the brioche will be denser with no air pockets. once you master these 2 dough recipes, you can move on to dumping things in the dough like olives, garlic, cheese, fruit, whatever.
before i tell you how to make the dough, let me caution you to not be making this like you think you should, otherwise it won't turn out. do it like i tell you, no matter how counter intuitive to how you've always made bread it sounds. especially when it comes to kneading.
okay, first we have to make the poolish. take a small bowl and put maybe 1/2 cup of room temperature NOT WARM water in it. put in a pinch of sugar, barely any. put in 2 tablespoons or so of the yeast. mix it up and let it sit on the counter while you dump the following in to your mixer (pick a dough):
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7267&stc=1
dough recipe #1 rustic crusty bread
3 cups flour WHITE not any sort of blend
1 teaspoon salt (inhibits mold)
5 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
dough recipe #2 brioche
3 cups flour
5 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup or so olive oil
1/2 cup or so of sugar
if you want it to be "real france" put in a tablespoon or so of finely grated orange rind
okay, you have all of that stuff in your mixer, dump in the poolish and get ready to mix.
the next step is the most important step of bread making. it is why your bread never turns out like the bread you buy at those artisan places. it's called hydration.
people have been taught that you make bread "dough." you don't. you make bread batter. recipes that tell you to add this much water "in measurements" suck. you can't do it like that, you have to just keep adding water until you get to the perfect hydration point. i can't explain how to do this exactly, it's something you learn as a baker; you have to experience it. you'll get better at it every time you try, and one day it will just click.
if you picked dough #1 you'll be using room temperature NOT WARM carbonated water. if you picked #2 use room temperature NOT WARM tapwater. carbonation makes the air pockets in dough #1. you can do it without carbonated water, but then it take like 14 hours and i don't have that long, so just use carbonated water. it's useless in dough #2 because the eggs and oil make brioche too dense to really have much of an effect. room temperature water makes the fermentation proceed slowly. we want slow.
okay, so start adding in water while you mix. you want this to be somewhere in between muffin batter and dough when you are finished. when you pick the dough up, it should run down and break apart, not be solid like a piece of traditional dough. it should stick to your hands so badly that it takes 5 minutes to scrub your hands and get it off. it should be completely messy. you'll be like "wtf is this, i can't ever bake this," but trust me. here's a picture of me holding it and what my hands look like after taking it out of the mixer:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7268&stc=1
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7269&stc=1
if you mess this step up and make solid dough like grandma did, your recipe will fail. bakers make dough with 75% or more hydration. the dough has to be really wet to get correct fermentation and correct loaf spring during baking. make it wet. if it's not a huge mess, you did it wrong.
okay, so now we need to ferment it. put it in an oiled bowl, put a cover on it (i use an old enamelware roasting pan with fitting lid, has to be covered, humidity). now, we need to put it in our proofing box. boil a pot of water. once boiled, put the boiling pan of water in to a cold oven. put your oiled pan in the oven with the pot of water, close door, and wait 40 minutes. take the lid off & it will look like this after 40 minutes:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7270&stc=1
now, we need to turn it. DO NOT BE KNEADING IT, BE TURNING IT. take one edge of the dough and pull it, and turn it over on to the top. do this 2 or 3 times, not 15. if you knead it, it will suck. form it back in to a ball and put it in the oiled pan. cover it. re-boil the water, and put it all back in to the oven. this time, wait an hour.
at the end of an hour, turn it again, 2 or 3 times max, no kneading. be careful at this point, you'll see big air bubbles forming and it will feel billowly. reboil the water, put it all back in, (covered) wait another hour. here's what it will look like:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7271&stc=1
this time, do not put it back in the oven. sit it someplace warma and not drafty. cover it. set your oven to 450 degrees. after half an hour, put the dutch oven, including the lid, in the oven. wait another half hour.
okay, so now the final hour is up, the oven is at 450, and you have a hot as shit cast iron pan & lid in the oven. do this next part fast. safely, but fast.
take the dutch oven out. take the big pillowy dough ball (yeah, we never punched it down, it's a big airy thing), and put it in the dutch oven. no oil or anything to coat the sides, just put it in the dry pan. take a razor blade and slit either a big "x" on the top, or some other design. if you skip this step, it will not get pan spring and it will suck. slashes more to the side instead of the top work better, but whatever.
now for the second most important part. what they never tell you about commercial bakeries or artisan shops is that they all have special ovens with water jets in them. the jets spray water throughout the cooking process to keep the hydration level up. we'll do it the poor man's way instead of buying a $20,000 oven.
take the little water spray bottle and mist the shit out of the top of the loaf. spray a whole bunch on there, and then immediately put the lid on. now, the loaf will steam the whole time it cooks, just like a loaf would in a commercial bakery.
put it in the oven and bake it for 40 minutes. don't take the lid off to check on it. if you take the lid off, you will ruin it, and it will suck. don't take the lid off.
after 40 minutes you can take the lid off. at this point you have two options: take it out and it on a rack to cool, or continue cooking it with the lid off to burnish it further. it's a personal choice. if you keep baking it, it'll get crustier. personally, i like it burnished because quite frankly, it looks better. monitor it very closely, because it will go from done to burn edin less than 30 seconds when it reaches burnishing point. when ready, use a spoon or something to get it out. it'll be hot as shit, so wear gloves. tap the bottom of it. a fully formed loaf should sound hollow when tapped.
so now it's done, and you want to try it. don't. leave it sit until completely cooled, or you will ruin the air pocket formation. the air pockets are still soft at this point, and if you cut it warm, they'll collapse. will power. DON'T BE CUTTING IT OPEN UNTIL IT'S COMPLETELY COOLED. now, listen to it. you'll hear it cracking and snapping. bakers call this bread song. it's cool.
as you can see, this isn't hard, but the secret is water, water, water and no kneading it.
post some pictures as you do this, i'd love to see what you make. keep trying, it'll probably take you several attempts to master it. nobody does the water right the first time. you'll get the hang of it.
1 bag white flour. WHITE not some blend or mix. bleached or unbleached, it doesn't matter.
1 box of vital wheat gluten. i use this one, but it doesn't matter what kind:
http://www.bobsredmill.com/vital-wheat-gluten.html
orange rind
some olive oil
a bottle of carbonated water. doesn't matter what kind. don't get anything with flavor added, etc. just regular, plain carbonated water. pretend you are in france.
some sugar, 1/4 a cup or so.
2 eggs
some yeast. i normally don't use yeast, but i'm too lazy to make this thread a 10 day epic with growing a starter, so go buy some yeast. it has to be from a jar, not in packets. i use red star. don't buy anything that says "fast rising."
sea salt. you don't have to add salt, so you can skip this part if you want, but it inhibits mold growth. that's all it's in there for.
a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven. this absolutely won't work without one, so go buy one if you don't already own one. here is one you can get in a week:
http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-L8DOL3-P...8808031&sr=1-2
a water spray bottle from the dollar store. one of those little mister sprayer things.
a razor blade.
lastly, your oven needs to be able to go to 450 degrees.
okay, so now you have all of that stuff. i will give you options. you can either follow dough recipe 1 or dough recipe 2. #1 will make crusty rustic bread. #2 will make french brioche. all breads are basically variations of these 2 dough recipes. crusty rustic is like the stuff you'd tear apart and eat with cheese, brioche is more of a sweet, desert type bread. the crusty will have big air pockets in it, the brioche will be denser with no air pockets. once you master these 2 dough recipes, you can move on to dumping things in the dough like olives, garlic, cheese, fruit, whatever.
before i tell you how to make the dough, let me caution you to not be making this like you think you should, otherwise it won't turn out. do it like i tell you, no matter how counter intuitive to how you've always made bread it sounds. especially when it comes to kneading.
okay, first we have to make the poolish. take a small bowl and put maybe 1/2 cup of room temperature NOT WARM water in it. put in a pinch of sugar, barely any. put in 2 tablespoons or so of the yeast. mix it up and let it sit on the counter while you dump the following in to your mixer (pick a dough):
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7267&stc=1
dough recipe #1 rustic crusty bread
3 cups flour WHITE not any sort of blend
1 teaspoon salt (inhibits mold)
5 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
dough recipe #2 brioche
3 cups flour
5 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup or so olive oil
1/2 cup or so of sugar
if you want it to be "real france" put in a tablespoon or so of finely grated orange rind
okay, you have all of that stuff in your mixer, dump in the poolish and get ready to mix.
the next step is the most important step of bread making. it is why your bread never turns out like the bread you buy at those artisan places. it's called hydration.
people have been taught that you make bread "dough." you don't. you make bread batter. recipes that tell you to add this much water "in measurements" suck. you can't do it like that, you have to just keep adding water until you get to the perfect hydration point. i can't explain how to do this exactly, it's something you learn as a baker; you have to experience it. you'll get better at it every time you try, and one day it will just click.
if you picked dough #1 you'll be using room temperature NOT WARM carbonated water. if you picked #2 use room temperature NOT WARM tapwater. carbonation makes the air pockets in dough #1. you can do it without carbonated water, but then it take like 14 hours and i don't have that long, so just use carbonated water. it's useless in dough #2 because the eggs and oil make brioche too dense to really have much of an effect. room temperature water makes the fermentation proceed slowly. we want slow.
okay, so start adding in water while you mix. you want this to be somewhere in between muffin batter and dough when you are finished. when you pick the dough up, it should run down and break apart, not be solid like a piece of traditional dough. it should stick to your hands so badly that it takes 5 minutes to scrub your hands and get it off. it should be completely messy. you'll be like "wtf is this, i can't ever bake this," but trust me. here's a picture of me holding it and what my hands look like after taking it out of the mixer:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7268&stc=1
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7269&stc=1
if you mess this step up and make solid dough like grandma did, your recipe will fail. bakers make dough with 75% or more hydration. the dough has to be really wet to get correct fermentation and correct loaf spring during baking. make it wet. if it's not a huge mess, you did it wrong.
okay, so now we need to ferment it. put it in an oiled bowl, put a cover on it (i use an old enamelware roasting pan with fitting lid, has to be covered, humidity). now, we need to put it in our proofing box. boil a pot of water. once boiled, put the boiling pan of water in to a cold oven. put your oiled pan in the oven with the pot of water, close door, and wait 40 minutes. take the lid off & it will look like this after 40 minutes:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7270&stc=1
now, we need to turn it. DO NOT BE KNEADING IT, BE TURNING IT. take one edge of the dough and pull it, and turn it over on to the top. do this 2 or 3 times, not 15. if you knead it, it will suck. form it back in to a ball and put it in the oiled pan. cover it. re-boil the water, and put it all back in to the oven. this time, wait an hour.
at the end of an hour, turn it again, 2 or 3 times max, no kneading. be careful at this point, you'll see big air bubbles forming and it will feel billowly. reboil the water, put it all back in, (covered) wait another hour. here's what it will look like:
http://gold-silver.us/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=7271&stc=1
this time, do not put it back in the oven. sit it someplace warma and not drafty. cover it. set your oven to 450 degrees. after half an hour, put the dutch oven, including the lid, in the oven. wait another half hour.
okay, so now the final hour is up, the oven is at 450, and you have a hot as shit cast iron pan & lid in the oven. do this next part fast. safely, but fast.
take the dutch oven out. take the big pillowy dough ball (yeah, we never punched it down, it's a big airy thing), and put it in the dutch oven. no oil or anything to coat the sides, just put it in the dry pan. take a razor blade and slit either a big "x" on the top, or some other design. if you skip this step, it will not get pan spring and it will suck. slashes more to the side instead of the top work better, but whatever.
now for the second most important part. what they never tell you about commercial bakeries or artisan shops is that they all have special ovens with water jets in them. the jets spray water throughout the cooking process to keep the hydration level up. we'll do it the poor man's way instead of buying a $20,000 oven.
take the little water spray bottle and mist the shit out of the top of the loaf. spray a whole bunch on there, and then immediately put the lid on. now, the loaf will steam the whole time it cooks, just like a loaf would in a commercial bakery.
put it in the oven and bake it for 40 minutes. don't take the lid off to check on it. if you take the lid off, you will ruin it, and it will suck. don't take the lid off.
after 40 minutes you can take the lid off. at this point you have two options: take it out and it on a rack to cool, or continue cooking it with the lid off to burnish it further. it's a personal choice. if you keep baking it, it'll get crustier. personally, i like it burnished because quite frankly, it looks better. monitor it very closely, because it will go from done to burn edin less than 30 seconds when it reaches burnishing point. when ready, use a spoon or something to get it out. it'll be hot as shit, so wear gloves. tap the bottom of it. a fully formed loaf should sound hollow when tapped.
so now it's done, and you want to try it. don't. leave it sit until completely cooled, or you will ruin the air pocket formation. the air pockets are still soft at this point, and if you cut it warm, they'll collapse. will power. DON'T BE CUTTING IT OPEN UNTIL IT'S COMPLETELY COOLED. now, listen to it. you'll hear it cracking and snapping. bakers call this bread song. it's cool.
as you can see, this isn't hard, but the secret is water, water, water and no kneading it.
post some pictures as you do this, i'd love to see what you make. keep trying, it'll probably take you several attempts to master it. nobody does the water right the first time. you'll get the hang of it.