A couple of years ago a received the gift of Jim Lahey's book, "My Bread; The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method". AHA! No work, no knead sounds just right! I threw out my bread machine (hated those square loaves of bread anyway) and trusted that 1/4 tsp yeast, salt, flour, and water was really all it would take to make a loaf of bread like the photos in this book. I was disillusioned fairly quickly about it really being all that simple. You still have to know/develop a "feel" for the dough, have to learn to quickly form and transfer a very wet dough into an extremely hot dutch oven in an extremely hot stove, and be willing to always have some dough sitting around on a counter top for several days, aging to perfection before being baked. I tried, it was ok, but I didn't stick with it.
Last year my husband got me a really good stand mixer, so that I could mix and knead bread dough more easily than the painful, tedious hand-mixing I was trying to do. This was a step in the right direction, and some of my experiments turned out quite well. The problem was that most of my bread recipe books were from my days with a bread machine, so had to be adapted to being mixed and kneaded by the stand mixer, risen and punched down by hand, formed, given a second rise, and baked, all with guessing at ideal times and temperatures since the recipes assumed my now non-existant machine was doing all this for me. As you might imagine, this too was a rather short-lived experiment.
We still yearned for really outstanding fresh bread. This dream was made more intense through having friends who bake really great bread, and who recently built an outdoor bread oven to be able to make an even more perfect loaf. Between that and losing my argument of "lack of time" due to my recent retirement, I once again renewed my vow to learn to make GREAT bread.
Santa brought me encouragement by way of the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day; The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking". There we go! The answer to my prayers! Even I can do 5 minutes a day for the reward of great bread! I read the book cover to cover, pulled together the ingredients, made my first batch of dough (enough for 4 loaves), refrigerated it and started pulling out enough for one small boule a day (great way to have fresh bread daily). OK, but not good. Crumb (interior of the loaf) was too dense and wet, and there was minimal rise, though crust was pretty and taste was acceptable.
Being a researcher by former career and natural inclination, I found that the authors also have a web site with lots of useful FAQs and the ability to contact them with questions (Yay! - REALLY good move!). So....I learned that: 1) while I was using all-purpose flour, mine was bleached, they base their core recipe on UNbleached all-purpose flour, which affects the rise and the crumb and 2) my oven is off-kilter, so while I set it to the required temperature it was actually almost 50 degrees cooler. OK, now we're cooking! My kind husband offered to go to the store to get me unbleached all-purpose flour and I made another batch of basic dough. The difference in the rise of the dough was like night and day! Remarkable! I could hardly contain it in the large storage container that before was only 3/4 full of risen dough. Terrific! Off to the races! Formed and baked the first loaf from this batch of dough using a separate oven thermometer to ensure the oven reached the correct baking temperature. What!?!? The dough rise was still not good; while the first rise was outstanding, the second rise - the one that gives the bread its finished shape - was a dud, so the loaf was rather flat, if a pretty golden color with better crumb texture. Back to the FAQs, back to the book, back to various other baking web sites that talk about the factors that affect dough rise. Discovery: I'm using quick-rise dry yeast (what I always used for the bread machine) but the recommendation for THIS recipe is for active rise yeast. Apparently, the former does all it's rising in the first rise leaving little energy for the second rise, while the latter has enough energy for two rises. Poor hubby volunteers to return to the store for more yeast and more flour - I take him up on it. It's a good thing that this experiment is one that is light on the pocket-book although somewhat time-greedy.
I think I've learned that bread baking is more of an art than a science, but that you have to make sure you've learned the science behind it before expecting to experience really excellent results. It also takes more than 5 minutes a day, no matter HOW you calculate the time! I leave you with a photo of today's experiments, in the hopes that in a few days I'll be able to post:"Eureka! - I've got it! I can produce a GREAT loaf of home-baked bread!" And THEN begin the experiments with whole-grain breads....
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