Bread

Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast

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Bread, Food, Recipes, Reviews
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Loaf fail!

What could go wrong in a recipe with just four ingredients–flour, water, salt and yeast? When it comes to making bread, it turns out, a lot. In addition to the some recent, notable bread disasters, such as the one above, I felt that I had also fallen into a lazy rut, baking loaves that were edible but uninspiring.

On a recent Little Free Library perambulation, I stumbled on Portland, Oregon baker Ken Forkish’s Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, published during the heady artisan baking uprising of the early teens. I had seen this book at the library but never bothered to check it out. With a few free days of house sitting for friends, I decided to dive into Forkish’s recipes.

The book is divided into four parts: recipes that use commercial yeast, recipes that use a sourdough starter (or levain), pizza and a section on doughs that combine sourdough starter and commercial yeast. I’ve never tried this heretical combination and I decided to give a go.

I was blown away by the results. You get the same sourdough tang and long shelf life (due to the preservative effects of the acidic culture) combined with a more open crumb structure due to the extra power of the commercial yeast. It also idiot-proofs the proofing since just a small amount of added commercial yeast (a 1/4 teaspoon in Forkish’s recipes) gives you a greater chance of success, even on the cold day.

I really like Forkish’s clear instructions in this book, especially his suggested baking schedules which involve feeding the starter in the morning, mixing the dough in the late afternoon, shaping the loaves in the early evening and proofing the dough in the refrigerator overnight. This schedule is more likely to fit into a normal day, though it can, of course, be modified.

The book owes a debt to Chad Roberston’s methods including baking the loaves in cast iron pots. Unlike Robertson, though, Forkish’s recipes are easier to follow and intended for a home baker. In addition to the heretical commercial yeast/levain dialectic, Forkish also skips the slashing step allowing the loaves to, in effect, slash themselves in the baking process.

Now all I want to do is bake bread instead of make dinner.

Our Daily Bread: Sonora Sesame Za’atar Bread

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Bread, Food

In an effort to take off some pandemic pudge and eat more healthy we’ve been baking our own 100% whole wheat breads. The King’s Roost and a Mock Mill make this easy and convenient but you can also get decent whole wheat flour from Central Milling and King Arthur. On my last trip to the King’s Roost I accidentally bought a bag of Sonora wheat, a white whole wheat originally brought to the Sonora desert in the 17th century. It has a light yellow color and makes a delicious bread. Sonora wheat tastes great plain but, inspired by Josey Baker’s book, I’ve been adding additional ingredients for some variety. This week I added some sesame seeds and one of my favorite spices, za’atar.

Sonora Sesame Za’atar Bread
The night before mixing your dough create a pre-ferment:

56 g Sonora wheat (or any whole wheat)
67 g water
10 g sourdough starter

In a separate container soak 90 g of toasted sesame seeds in water.

In the morning mix together:

509 g Sonora wheat (or any whole wheat)
403 g 80º F water
13 g sea salt
pre-ferment
sesame seeds
3 T za’atar

1. Mix the dough until all signs of dry flour disappear. While you’re mixing the dough heat a mason jar of water in your microwave. Place your mixed dough in the microwave to proof for a few hours. Stretch and fold the dough a few times every hour to shape into a rough loaf.

2. Once the bulk fermentation is sufficient, shape into a log and place in a greased bread pan (I use this one with Pam baking spray). Use a spatula to make some diagonal indentations and sprinkle the top of the loaf with some more za’atar.

3. Reheat your water and put the baking pan in the microwave to proof for an hour or two. When the dough is getting close to the top of the pan pre-heat your oven to 475º F.

4. Bake with the lid on for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and bake until the loaf is golden to chestnut brown, likely another 10 to 15 minutes.

Use Your Microwave as Dough Proofing Box

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Bread, Fermentation, Food
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I don’t now why it took me so many years to realize that our kitchen temperature is too low for proofing bread. Most of the year here, except for the hotter months, our interior temps are in the 70sF (20sC). Bread wants to ferment in the 80sF (upper 20sC). Professional bakers either have a hot kitchen or proofing boxes to maintain this higher temperature.

If you’ve got a microwave you’ve got a proofing box. Just heat a mason jar filled with water for a few minutes and stick your dough in for both the bulk fermentation and proofing. If you don’t have a microwave you could heat some water on a stove and put it and your dough in a cooler. If you want to get really fancy you could use a seed propagation heating mat in a cooler. I don’t have a mat so I’ve been using the microwave and it works great.

There are reasons you might want to cool dough and prolong fermentation, either to develop flavor and/or to put off your baking time to a more convenient hour. Your proofing box and refrigerator thus become, to use an old person metaphor, like the fast forward and pause buttons on a VCR.

Concluding note
I’ve gotten back into bread baking after a pause, specifically making whole wheat breads. If you’d like to try baking yourself, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I highly recommend the Josey Baker Bread book. Why? It’s to the point, beginner friendly, has a lot of whole grain recipes, and is the book most likely to help you develop a regular bread baking habit.

Keep a Rye Starter!

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Bread, Fermentation, Food
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I took a pizza class at Josey Baker Bread in San Francisco this month and picked up a great tip from the instructor, JB pizza baker Caitlin (sorry did not get a last name!). She told us the bakery keeps a rye starter. This has two advantages: rye is more active so your starter will have a higher likelihood of success and you’ll always be ready to make a rye loaf. If you want a white or whole wheat dough all you have to do is add white or whole wheat flour and a spoonful of your rye starter.

I keep a small amount, like three tablespoons of starter on hand that I feed every day. When I want to make bread I do a build overnight and the next day I’ll have the quantity I need to bake a loaf or make pizza dough. This week I switched my starter over to rye using the small amount Caitlin gave us. I’m baking a loaf today and it’s rising like crazy.

As to the pizza we made in the class it was probably the best I’ve ever had. It’s a quirky pie: the secret is a dark, almost burnt crust brushed with garlic olive oil and sprinkled with Maldon salt. They keep the toppings simple as not to distract from the cracker-like sourdough crust. They have a pizza night at the bakery every Monday from 5 to 8 in case you don’t want to roll your own.