baking bread

You're thinking of the mythical "proofing box". I have read about them but never seen proof (ha ha) of their existence. Consider this approach, but my god, 85 seems way too hot, unless you're in a hurry.

I filled the bathtub about 1/3 full with HOT HOT HOT water, put the (covered) dough in the bathroom and closed the door. When I went in there to check on it, the room was indeed warmer than the rest of the apartment, the heat was nice and moist and the bread looked great.

Since I have the world's cheapest stove (no light) and we keep our apartment pretty chilly due to astronomical gas prices, this was a decent alternative. Also, everyone's bathroom has/should have a door, so the heat is confined to that room.

is there a way to save yeast from week to week in a way that makes it usable in the next loaf or ball of pizza dough?
i know yeast is cheap enough but it seems dumb to keep buying if it's a living thing that will keep reproducing itself

no? just an idea.

i want to try baking bread again. i did it a few years ago and didn't like it. it always came out too dense. does anyone recommend any books about bread?

Yeah, you can make up a biga (basically yeast, water, flour) and keep feeding it with flour/water every few days - this is the same idea as a sourdough starter. Or, you can try making pan levain by leaving a flour/water/sugar mixture out in the open for a few days to catch wild yeasts. (Read the essay about this in The Man Who Ate Everything first though.)

Beard on Bread by James Beard and The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum are my 2 go-to bread books.

thanks! i have heard of catching wild yeast but i always think...yeast, in the air, does it come off people's/animals' bodies and stuff? weird. i'm doing no-knead bread today. i'll probably go to the library tomorrow to find some books.

Yeasts are everywhere. You can just get some grapes (untreated, probably from a backyard vine or a vineyard is best) because they are natural yeast harbors and use them to make a starter.

you can just leave some flour and water out for awhile - it will catch teh yeastes no probs

k, i am planning on doing this. doesn't it catch pollution and stuff? cat hair? fuzz?

yes, put it someplace draft-free and relatively cat-hair-free if possible. Also, some wild yeasts taste bad, so be prepared for that possibility.

i've been looking at the bread bible and now i remember why i gave up on bread the first time. it's impossible? there are way too many things to worry about! i think my oven is really miscalibrated too. i don't think i can control any of the things that need to be controlled to do a good job at it.

but i am making an injera/sourdough starter so i can make fake injera. it's amazing, i just put about equal amounts flour and water in a plastic container and sealed the lid. it smells like stinky feet.

It does sound impossible, but I keep at it by reminding myself that people have been baking bread for ages and ages without any fancy business and even if it doesn't turn out perfect, it still generally tastes really really good. I hope your starter works well!

I've had reasonable success with bread lately. What I'm doing is buying those premixes that are for bread machines, but making the bread by hand and baking it in the oven. It seems the mix has some added things in the flour that help - salt and preservatives I suppose (citric acid or something?). I used to be able to buy bread preserver powder but I cant find it anymore.

I'm moving house next week and hoping I'll now have a functional oven ie one with a thermostat not set to KILL. Then more baked goods will arise!

Bread improver! Thats what its called.

there was an article in the nytimes a couple of years ago abt some (apparently) amazingly easy to bake bread, i never tried it, but if yr having trouble maybe you could give that a go???

oh yeah my dad is a huge fan of the nytimes no knead bread recipe i think. i will see if i can find it - he emailed it a while ago.

harbl, i am super impressed by your adventurousness! injera at home! wow!

i already did the no knead! it came out too moist and dense :(

i am interested in high-protein grains so i would like to find some teff (too expensive to ship or i'd just buy it on the internet) but i think i'd have to go to dc to find an ethiopian grocery store. might look for buckwheat somewhere instead.

If there's a grocery or health food store near you that carries the Bob's Red Mill brand, have them order the teff for you. I've had really good luck with all the BRM grains. Are you going to grind it yourself or are you looking for flour?

i wish i could grind it myself! someday, when i have more money and more storage space i will. so i would like flour. i keep meaning to go to the tiny store down the street to ask about ordering too. for now i have some whole wheat flour i want to use up though.

Teeny told me ages ago (some other thread in here) about making chapatis when I was looking for things to do with whole-wheat flour. The proportions are 1 of water to 2 of flour (to start, might need more flour if the dough is too sticky), salt (like 1/2 - 1 tsp per cup of flour), a splash of oil to make the dough easier to work. Stir it all together (just use your hands if you're okay with that), knead and work the dough until it is elastic, divide into small balls and pat into thin flat rounds. Heat up a skillet over a medium flame for 10-15 minutes. Leave each round in the hot skillet until nicely browned on one side, then flip to brown the other.

i did make chapatis, with milk instead of water. they were good.

but my starter seems to have died already? i might try feeding it one more time. not sure what i did, i don't think the water was too hot or anything.

does this require a cast iron skillet? i would imagine so.

xpost to jaq

i found my dad's email. in it, he attaches the sullivan st. bakery no-knead recipe, but also this follow-up with some recipe tweaks/tips.

maybe useful?

looks good!
http://i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp95/tza/100_2855.jpg

i'll probably try it again sometime, it just annoyed me. like the entire internet says it's so great but i couldn't make it work.

dad says he altered timing - 18 hours for first rise and 2.5 hours for second, per bittman's advice. maybe that would help?

i will try this recipe. i haven't made bread in ages.

that's exactly what i did! i think the oven temp is messed up. i turned it lower than it recommended because when i made pizza it was too crispy. the moistness suggested the temp was too low, but the bottom was pretty burnt. the crust was extremely thick, too. i know it's supposed to be but this was not fun to eat.

nevermind i don't have a pot like that that is big enough

i could make mini boules but then i'm sure the baking time would be all messed up and i'm not skilled enough to adapt that.

I'm strange I guess, b/c I love kneading the dough by hand. I do mix it initially with a dough hook in my Kitchenaid, but turn it out and knead on a floured board set on the dining table to finish it.

Also - chapatis, tortillas, naan, other flat breads - I think cast iron is always best. It heats up well over a medium flame (just leave it for 10-15 minutes to heat up and even out) and it retains heat really well.

i love when you get to punch it.
(the dough, not the cast iron ow!)

i'm with jaq on the kneading: meditative and gets yr blood pumping. plus if ya do it every week like me then when you shake hands you can crush 'em with yr kneading power!

I've barely started exploring this site, but it looks like a fantastic resource. I made the Italian Bread recipe today (starting with the preferment last night) and it turned out great! The loaves lost a bit of volume as I transferred them from the work table to their cooking surface (the back of a sheet pan w/parchment), but I think that was for the best, because the degree of airiness and fluffiness inside was exactly what I'd hoped for. Brushed them with water just before putting them in the oven, and had a pan of hot water in the oven as well, and they produced a nice crust.

freshloaf looks boss, thanks wmc

Italian bread round 2 today. First loaf is out and cooling, 2nd loaf is halfway through baking. Variation: 2/3 unbleached bread flour, 1/3 whole wheat. (Last batch was all bread flour.)

My oven isn't big enough to bake both loaves at once, so the 2nd loaf gets an extra 40 minutes to rise under a damp towel.

DISASTER

I forgot the salt when I was mixing. ;_;

Texture A+++, flavor D-

maybe just put some salted butter on it?

It's barely edible that way, and completely inedible without. ugh ugh ugh this is disgusting. Amazing what a bit of salt brings.

yea that italian bread recipe is mad boss. i did it yesterday and it makes wicked sammy bread, nice crust and totally soft and chewy underneath. also will soak up tomato juices (r whateva) in yr sandwich without breaking/tearing. totally had to use more than 5c flour to make the dough tho. at the end 2 nice perky loaves, and even worked well in the regular loaf pan.

i give up on baking bread. i'll try again in 5 years :(

I love that Italian bread. I may start another batch tonight. Soft enough for sandwiches but firm enough to make great garlic toast -- it's gotta be firm/raspy enough when it comes out from under the broiler for the garlic-clove rubdown.

so what recipe should i try next from the ol' freshloaf then?

No idea! I haven't gotten past the goodness of the Italian loaf. I was going to make flatbreads for gyro-style wraps, but I stocked up on my favorite brand when I was in Atlanta last week.

Maybe that buttermilk cluster -- if not this week or next, then def. when the weather cools down and I'm making a lot of soups and stews.

ooh nice link!

the Lovely Emma B made some chestnut bread last week that was VERY VERY GOOD INDEED. it didn't rise so well at the end, but it had risen three times already so it still had a very nice and light interior.

she got the crust nice and brown and crunchy by using a spray bottle of water to mist some water into the oven as it was cooking. worked very well.

Another nice pair of Italian loaves last night. I'm starting to figure out the technique for shaping the dough into nice tight little boules that blow up beautifully on their final rise. I'm going to do the next batch in loaf pans just for the hell of it.

yea i did the loaf pan the last 2 times, it works pretty good. gives you that friendly sandwich shape too. also just rolled out as long as i could get them and that made a nice baguette shape (with less dough, skinny) and a hearty italian loaf style shape (with more dough, fat).

i do have a question tho: why the dry milk?

over the weekend i substituted some of the water with milk and reduced the volume a little and that turned out basicly indistinguishable from the one with the dry milk. so why not just use milk? why dry milk and water? i don't understand, but this is normal when it comes to baking bread. there seems to be no standard(s) and a stupefying multitude of variations in just about every aspect of the process.

i don't understand, but this is normal when it comes to baking bread. there seems to be no standard(s) and a stupefying multitude of variations in just about every aspect of the process.

this is exactly what i hate about it. i could never figure out how to just make bread.

i want to make something like trader joe's 6 grain w/ pumpkin seeds but can't find a recipe. i'd probably screw it up anyway!

why the dry milk?

In that italian bread recipe, it calls for 1/2 c dry milk and 2 c of water - that is basically double-strength milk, so adds considerable protein (and the changes it brings to texture) not diluted to the same strength as regular liquid milk (1/2 c dry milk to 4 c water). Dry milk powder is also a humectant, so would help delay the bread getting stale.

btw, I only use dry milk any more. I get the Bob's Red Mill low-temp version that has to be whizzed up in the blender. We mix it up a quart at a time for daily drinking (w/ a spoonful of added cream to make it whole milk), but for baking I generally mix the powder in with the other dry ingredients, then add water when it says to add milk.

oooooooooooooooh.

double strength milk . . . ok.

bbut jaq, you really drink that instead of real milk? i guess it's prolly cheaper right? i dunno maybe i have a false sense of milk. never been a huge fan, just pretty much keep it around so my gurl can eat cerealz and we put it in our coffee.

thanks for the tip tho.

Yeah, we drink it - I was very surprised how good it is, but it's definitely because I use the low temperature process "non-instant" type. The normal "instant" kind, that you can just stir into water and it dissolves, tastes vile because it's run through a high temperature process that cooks it. The keys are using the low temp sort, adding some heavy cream to it, and letting it sit in the fridge overnight before drinking it straight. I use it on cereal and in tea and coffee too.

I started buying dry milk in order to make cheese and yoghurt - it's 1/4 the cost of liquid organic milk, and doesn't take up any space. It's great to be able to mix up a small batch, to not worry about running out of milk, or find out at the last minute that the carton has gone off.

First loaf I've baked in over a year due to moving, hot weather, general not-baking-moodiness:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3469/3943412968_f59afb832e.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2596/3942640175_d26da40340.jpg

looks good jaq, what do you utilize when slashing the tops? and when do you do it? i can never get that damn technique to work.

I've got a 12" slicing knife I generally keep a really sharp edge on. I slash the top right before the dough goes in the oven, so after it's risen about an inch over the top of the pan when I do a sandwich/toast loaf like this one.

bets: would this turn out really gross?
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/cgi/recipeget.cgi?id=735

Might be okay right out of the oven, but hard as a rock and nasty later.

so jaq (sorry i am so late response time) that's like a serrated knife then?

nope, just a standard blade, like this.

so for my own curiosity what is the advantage of using that knife over say a regular chef knife?

Probably the fact that it's 4" longer, so the way the blade contacts the top of the loaf is different. It's also a knife I use less, so the edge stays truer/sharper. There are these special bread dough slashing tools called lames, but I'm not much for single-purpose utensils personally.

I needed to clear out a cupboard and found some very old baking ingredients - yeast, milk powder, sugar, flour, but unfortunately no butter or even oil or any kind of fats - so I chucked them in the long languishing bread machine anyway to see what will happen...

What will happen if you try to bake bread that should have fats in it, without any whatsoever? Your predictions please. Results in five hours.

I'm ready for, even certain of, failure, but am interested to see what the hell does come out.

probably will be better than leaving out the water, as a friend did once.

I'll eat pretty much anything, so it shouldn't go to waste whatever happens.

it'll be bread of some sort. also the milk powder should help.

well ... ?

It look ok-ish. Kind of like a loaf of bread, albeit a wee balled-up one.

Going to crack it tonight and see what the inner verdict is. Not a complete disaster at least. The age of the ingredients is probably more to do with it, particularly the yeast meaning it didn't really rise, rather than the lack of a wee touch of butter.

Eating verdict later.

when I first started baking bread I sorta jumped ahead of myself and tried to make Broa, the Portugese corn-meal-and-flour bread - my attempt back then didn't really turn out so great, so I haven't tried it since. But that was ten years ago, and I've been cooking and baking constantly since then, so I tried it again last night, using a recipe in the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day book (which, I don't even know what the book is really about since at this point when I get a cookbook I generally just go straight to the recipes & I know enough about the making-your-oven-a-steam-oven stuff from all the Bittman business last year). Anyway.

BROA.

It is incredibly delicious.

never heard of it. love cornmeal though.

do you think you can fit baking bread into a normal weekday schedule (i.e. not having to check on it every few hours)?

maria i usually make bread on saturdays or sundays, that way i don't have to stay up late. checking it is essential at certain points, but how long between those points is generally very flexible.

dudes it's ciabatta time. i have been reading bread by hammelman. look out world.

holy cow ciabatta is good, dudes
most perfect sandwich bread to me right now

i have never made bread with holes in the crumb (except pitta bread which doesn't count)! what is the secret to this amazing trick?

Not sure -- I just follow the Italian bread recipe linked above and shazam, there are the holes. I followed a recipe for "white sandwich bread" -- no holes, smooth wonderbread texture, a good bit heavier though. Maybe it's the preferment to kickstart the fermentation -- the holey bread uses it and the white bread doesn't.

i followed recipe/process from bread by hamelman. it used a biga (stiff preferment) and i think the secret is to handle the dough as little and as gently as possible, as it is very wet. like 70% water, dudes. and hamelman does this thing during fermentation (what most people think of as rising) where you fold the dough instead of merely punching it down. then after 3 hours of fermentation, you cut the dough into appropriately sized pieces and let em proof again and bake it. no kneading, no shaping. in fact i have plowed through hamelman's book without once seeing the word knead anywhere. needless to say i was surprised by the lack of mentioning kneading as i had thought it was a central skill of baking bread.

I know enough about the making-your-oven-a-steam-oven stuff from all the Bittman business last year). Anyway.

BROA.

It is incredibly delicious.

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Saturday, December 12, 2009 4:37 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

dude what technique(s) do you utilize for steam production john? or can you link to the "bittman business last year" you refer to above?

I have only recently learned the word is "proof" – when I worked at a donut shop, everyone talked about letting the dough "perf."

The owner told me "to let the dough perf 'til it feels like a fat lady's ass."

proof=rising=fermentation
lol about fat ladies asses

haha yeah that's amazing!

It was not maybe the most useful advice in a lot of ways, the main one being I'd never had my hands on a fat anyone's ass. So I'd poke at the dough intermittently and every time my mind would ask, 'Ass? Ass?'

that made me lol at work and my coworker asked what i was laughing at

hahaha. if you poke a fat lady's ass does the hole stay there for a few seconds?

"every time my mind would ask, 'Ass? Ass?'"
lol
mine too!

Baking today...

I swear, sometimes dealine with a batch of dough on the board is like being confronted by a four-pound booger.

turn that booger into a fat lady's ass!

wow 2nd attempt at ciabatta is doper than the first. got much better steam with a bunch of rocks in the pan i was throwing the water in, and noticeable increase in oven spring.

hey guys i want to make a sourdough culture. has anybody done this before? i did a ctrl f on this thread to find 'sourdough' but it seems nobody specifically spells out how to make one of these . . .
i found this and they suggest freshly milled flour. i have whole wheat flour, but i put it in the freezer and i don't know if that fucks up the yeasts that are supposed to be on the grains or what. i have read what hamelman wrote about it in his book but he uses whole rye and rye flours which i don't have. also i have tried just using flour and water left open at rm tmp for a while and that made something that took forever to proof. lemme know yr experience plz

I successfully made starter using wine grapes (yeasts live happily on the skins), but it wasn't especially sour. I keep yeast in the freezer, so would suspect that having your flour in there wouldn't do it any harm.

There's another bread thread in here somewhere, maybe that has more info.

Here is the other bread thread: The bread thread!

i dunno nobody specifies they process of creating a sourdough culture from scratch on that thread as far as i can see from a scan, i am sure i will figure something out tho. and bet yr bread crust i will post what i did

No, just Casuistry, Matt, and me but none posted details. Jeffrey Steingarten has an essay about how he did it with wild yeasts - lots of failures.

ive never made it but in the st john book they have a recipe, he uses rhubarb for the starter

ok dudes i took a scant cup of (KAF) whole wheat flour and a half cup of water and mixed it up in a mason jar. i am following rose levy beranbaum's 'the bread bible' process which says that this mixture should sit for 48 hours at 65 deg-F, which my studio in the back room of my flat which we don't heat is around that temp. I wonder why it has to be so cool . . .
apparently the culture will not do much until day 5

last night i grabbed the mason jar with the "sourdough culture" in it and was happy to see bubbles and expansion. i did as rose levy beranbaum instructs and removed about half of it to the rubbish bin, then dumped in a scant 1/2 cup of regular unbleached flour and 1/4 cup of water, and stirred it in. this morning it had already doubled in volume. I guess this is working . . .

Exciting! Does it smell yeasty? does it taste sour but not bitter?

i don't know jaq it kinda smelled like wheat mixed with cedar or something last night. and this morning i did not have the expansion that occurred the previous day. also yesterday when i fed it, there was a bit of water that had come out of the solution just sitting in the bottom, which i didn't think too much about and mixed back in. but this morning there was a bit of water just sitting on top. however it smelled nicely sour as i would imagine sourdough starter is *supposed* to smell.

the freshloaf says, "It is not unusual for the mixture to get very bubbly around Day 3 or 4 and then go completely flat and appear dead."

i think that may be what is happening to mine.

also what's cooking america says,
"What is Hooch?

As your starter sits or goes quiet in the refrigerator, the mixture separates and a layer of liquid will form on the top. This liquid contains about 12% to 14% alcohol. Hooch is the alcoholic byproduct of the fermentation process. The hooch will have a brownish color. NOTE: The alcohol dissipates during the baking process, Stir that liquid back into the starter before using. Hooch builds up in your starter, especially when being stored in the refrigerator.. You can either pour it off or stir it back in. If your sourdough starter is on the dry side, just mix the hooch back in. If your starter is already too moist, pour it down the drain.

Important: If your sourdough starter or hooch starts looking pinkish or orange color, throw it away and start over as this means that something bad or nasty has started growing in your starter."

Pinkish color is a bad thing when you do other fermented things, like sauerkraut. I think it's some kind of bacteria. I've noticed that watery separation when I've let a biga sit for a few days - never realized it could be alcoholic!

prolly gonna do it like a shot before i feed it tonight!

so the hooch had disappeared into the "mothership" so i couldn't drink it :(
here she is ladies and gentlemen, my 'starter' which some dudes refer to as 'the mother culture':
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0002.jpg?t=1264785043
by extension i guess the loaves could be referred to as daughters

Will you be baking this weekend with it?

sunday is the day to make bread lately for me

this bread is not so sour, but i am not sure i made it correctly as i didn't have a scale until today but
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0005.jpg?t=1265081572

That is some handsome bread. How did it taste?

Those are really beautiful loaves!

Nice pair.

i was not able to correctly identify how much of the levain i put in there and b/c of this the loaves are at best subtly sour. i had a sandwich yesterday with salami and mustard and thought the bread tasted like normal bread. then last night i had a slice by itself and still could barely taste any acidity. however my proof times were right in the range which makes me happy about my mother culture. the crumb on the batard is a bit tighter than i would like, but it's soft and not too chewy. i guess i will update again once i cut into the boule.

yeah i tried that starter thing and got the fizz and bad smell but it just died after that, even though i followed the instructions

what starter you tried?

flour and water in a jar

i guess you might be able do it with regular flour, but most of the stuff i have read calls for 'whole' forms of ground grains; either wheat or preferably rye (organic even). them yeasts be on the outsides of them grainz, yo.

i dunno i got yeast from the air, it was obvious from the smell and bubbliness but it died after the second feeding. i think i just have bad luck with bread in general.

"During milling, however, up to 95% of the microbial population may be
removed with the feed fractions (6). When counts are compared (Table I) in flour
and in wheat from which the flour was milled, the bacterial population in most
flours was about one-tenth that in wheat. This indicates that modern flour
milling operations are efficient in reducing the number of bacteria."
from here

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/th_DSC_0016.jpg
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/th_DSC_0057.jpg

er
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0016.jpg?t=1268494677
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0058.jpg?t=1268494736
listening to rndy nwmn now

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0057.jpg?t=1268494877
the one on the left is made from the afformentioned muffin recipe

had a dismal failure this week. forgot to feed my sourdough culture the day before baking and fed it like 3hours before use. this did not work at all. also was trying to maintain it at less than 100% hydration which i think compounded the effect of not letting time go by after the feeding. the loaf i didn't throw away looks sad and limp and tastes like a bagel for some reason. gah! lesson learned damnit

shoulda made soda bread

DAMN those are beautiful loaves! Your house must smell amazing.

One day I will bake challah. One day. Probably not soon.

thanks quincie

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0226.jpg?t=1275887520
8% bran to help the digestion, 12% whole wheat sourdough

is there any way to measure the hydration of my sourdough starter? i've been feeding it (and using amounts of it) for a couple of months now, but my flour-to-water ratio has been roughly 1:1 (but ROUGHLY), and i'm wondering what hydration it is, as a number of the bread websites i've been checking lately have been varying the hydration percentages for different loaves...

Weigh an amount of it, then dry it out in the oven and weigh it again. The missing weight once it's dry is the water.

jaq as usual otm. also i reckon if you mean 1:1 you talkin volume, and in this situation i would guestimate 125-150% hydration which is to say for every gram of flour theys a gram and a quarter to a gram and a half water. ime it matters very little what hydration one maintains they starter at, just keep the bakers math on point

thanks both!

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0110.jpg?t=1278865044
anton levain

big lols

I don't belong here but I got a jones to make bread. After research decided chapatis would be easiest to start with. Disaster ensues. My kitchen is covered with flour and so am I. The "breads" looked great stuck to the rolling pin I bought for this occasion but I could not get them off it looking so great. Followed a recipe, WTF. F*ck a bread, so frustrating. I will go back to my NN roots which doesn't include it. Want A+ tasty food homemade. Mad respect for all you eminent bakers, jdc A+. I will continue to admire your skillz. Thanks for showing your pro results and getting the cooking proletariat inspired to try even a little. Baking ambassador.

Odd that this thread gets bumped just minutes after I finished making a loaf of bread for the first time. It actually turned out really well.

I followed this recipe FWIW: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Bread-without-a-bread-machine/

if we're sharing recipes... this is wonderful, idiot-proof white bread (http://www.danlepard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2593) and a recipe i wish i'd started with when i started making bread, as it is a great, easy loaf, with great results. and these rolls (http://www.danlepard.com/recipes/2010/07/2851/semolina-bbq-buns/) are a little trickier, but so delicious...

Followed the same recipe as before, with better results this time (and cut a fancy X in the center :D)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs156.ash2/41117_419188966537_687686537_4961523_2906430_n.jpg

I let it proof for an hour, then kneaded it again and let it come back to size on the pan, and later brushed on some olive oil for the last five minutes — the crust turned a lovely brown and is deliciously crispy. :)

!

for the easiest bread in the world, do soda bread

http://www.howdidyoumakethat.com/content/marnas-soda-bread

agree soda bread is mad easy and good to do

I made this buttermilk cluster as two loaves instead of a pan of rolls -- very nice, fine-textured crumb, better for sandwiches than the italian loaves I'd been making. And like all homemade bread, it makes great toast.

for my chi-town peeps i am involved in teaching bread classes as part of http://www.sourflour.org/chicago/

How important is putting bread dough into a preheated oven? I use the oven as a proofing chamber because the kitchen stays pretty cold and the pilot light keeps the oven warm but not too hot. When it's time to bake, could I just turn on the oven without taking the dough out? I'm proofing it in the dutch oven that it bakes in.

there's a discussion her
ehttp://community.kingarthurflour.com/content/starting-cold-oven

i think it ultimately depends on if the dutch oven is ceramic or cast iron --- it seems that a cold oven is suggested for ceramic receptacles/baking stones etc so that they don't crack, but if yr using cast-iron or enamelled cast-iron, you wouldn't need to do that & it may change how the bread turns out?

it's been years since I made bread from scratch, so idk

It's enameled cast iron. It's rising very well in the oven, and I don't want to accidentally de-gas the dough with the impact of moving it around a couple of times, especially into a colder environment, so I'm going to try just turning the oven on. Thanks for that link!

It depends a lot on the dough - for most, you want a hot oven so the steam/gas in the dough can puff it up before the crust forms too much. A slower oven dries out the dough more during the rising/crust forming stages, again for most.

My last couple of bakes have been absolutely beautiful. Letting the preferment sit overnight was not working -- cutting back to four hours tops meant it was still very active and raring to go when I mixed the dough. Finally getting the hang of the Kitchenaid mixer. For this last batch, I had new silicone loaf pans. Got a huge oven bounce.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/aprilbread3.jpg

Gorgeous!

Thanks! I'm learning that little things can mean so much -- barely warming the oiled bowl that the dough rises in, and making a slightly wetter dough. But not exhausting the preferment has been the most important lesson.