Making Real Bread

My friend Heath is the best baker i know in the entire universe.  He worked for many years as a manager of Zingerman's Bakehouse (if you are from the Ann Arbor area, you know the level of quality, prestige, and overall awesomeness this entails). 

That's Heath on the right :)  He took me and my fiance here to pick up a few loaves this past March.  The three of us plus our good friends Stu and Ronnie were getting together to make grub meals and play Settlers that night.  

Heath is off living in Singapore now, but back before I started grad school, I got a day-long bread lesson from him.  It was amazing...the science behind bread-baking is just incredible.  After all, it is a chemical and physical process.

Anyway, I had lost that recipe he gave me back then, and so when i saw him this summer in Hong Kong, i asked him for that recipe again.  He recently sent me this re-worked recipe that he came up with. 

To put this into action, my experimental cooking partner, Dani, and I spent a day over the weekend to make bread. 

Here is Heath's recipe, verbatim.  My comments (from a completely inexperienced perspective) are below in purple.

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For 1 loaf weighing about 1 1/4 lbs.:

320 g flour
160 g water
200 g poolish
7 g salt
small pinch of yeast

And now to complicate things a bit:

Flour - I used a relatively strong organic All Purpose white flour (11.3% protein). To oversimplify things a little, the protein content of flour determines it's strength, since the gluten in wheat flour that gives it strength is protein. Too weak and your bread will not want to hold air. Too strong and it will be too chewy and a pain to knead. If you want to know the protein content of store bought flour, look at the nutritional information. Protein amount divided by portion amount gives you the percentage (which if the packaging has a 100g serving, is really easy). All Purpose flour is 9-12% protein. Bread flour is 12-14%. I would say 12% is just right for what I'm used to, so my strong AP was close enough. Too strong is better than too weak, so if in doubt, buy the bread flour. Just note that higher protein flour absorbs more water, so be prepared to add 3 to 10 grams of additional water.  I ended up just using Bread Flour because Heath said too strong is better than too weak.  And this one got a Gold Medal.

 
Water - room temp should work well.

Poolish - this is half flour and half water, by weight, with a pinch of yeast. (really just a pinch - one of the little packets of yeast from the store that come in sets of three can last like 10 loaves of bread). Stir this vigorously for several minutes. This will develop the gluten in the poolish so that it traps air bubble better. The poolish should sit out, covered, for about 12 hours (temperature will affect this). Poolish is at it's best when it reaches its maximum height (this is where the stirring helps). If it has grown and collapsed again, it will be a bit overripe. If the 12 hour timeline doesn't work well for you, you can refrigerate it after 10 hours, and then use it any time over the next 12 hours. Er...our poolish did not poof up a whole lot, but that is because we are baking in Indiana in the middle of December.  We just went with the flow.

Salt - I put 8 grams in my recipe, and my bread tastes a bit too salty. 7 should be better. However, my scale doesn't seem too accurate for very small amounts, so that may be the problem instead. Alternate method would be to measure out 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 tsp. Also, note that the salt will get added after the rest of the ingredients.

Yeast - once again, really just a small pinch.  He's serious about this one.  Just a little pinch is all you need. 

Temperature - a note on overall temperature - Singapore is a pretty good match for the tempuratures I'm used to baking in (80 - 85 degrees). For proofing your poolish and bread, try to find a warm spot in your kitchen that will approximate 80 degrees. Also, be prepared for things to go a bit slower. Yeah, again, middle of December in the Midwest means things are gonna go slower.  Dani had a brilliant plan--she turned the oven on low for a couple minutes, enough to get the inside nice and comfy warm, then turned the oven off and put the poolish/dough in there.

Procedures:

Mixing - Add water, yeast, and flour to your poolish. Mix together with a wooden spoon (or similar implement) until your sticky mass comes together and has mostly come off the sides of your bowl.

Plop the whole thing onto the counter (and scrape bowl). Knead by hand, vigorously, for a long time. Maybe 20 minutes. Other than perhaps starting with floured hands, don't add and flour to any of the surfaces - you don't want to dry the bread out, and anything that sticks to the counter should work it's way back into the bread if you keep kneading on the same spot. Scrape as you go if you need to. This is totally true!  You always think you're gonna end up with tons of dough stuck to the counter, but they just eventually unstuck themselves!  Smart Heath!

And see how loose the dough looks?  That's totally fine.  It toughens up a little as you work the glutens.  

Knead in the salt after 5 minutes. Alternatively, if you a have a stand mixer that has a dough hook attachment and is up to the task my guess would be something like this: Mix on slow speed for 3 minutes or so (no salt), add salt, 1 more minute, then mix 6 on medium speed.

Note the elasticity that develops as you continue kneading (which is the point of all of the work). Check this by trying to stretch a "window pane" between your fingers. The more the dough can do this, the more the gluten is developed and the closer you are to being done kneading. If the dough starts to get extra warm and rippy, it is overmixed.  Okay, here's our window pane.  

 
This was pretty good, but we kneaded it for a little longer.  In sum, i think we kneaded for a good 25 minutes.  It was a nice workout.

 
Cover in a oiled container (with plenty of room for growth) and proof for 4 hours (from when you started mixing). Proof means let it stand in a warm area and allow the yeast to get happy.

Fold the dough - Plop it on lightly floured surface, grab the bottom edge, pull it toward you, and then fold it up to the middle. Do the same thing for the top and then for the sides. This fold will help to further the gluten development. If the bread feels soft at this point consider a second fold after 1/2 hour. Otherwise, after one hour:

First shape - Plop the dough on a lightly floured surface. Fold in in half, turn 90 degrees, then fold in half again. Pick it up, shape into a ball, and seal/pinch the bottom shut. Set onto a floured surface, cover, and let proof for 45 minutes.

Second shape - for a round loaf, follow the same procedure as the first shape, starting with the nice (top) surface down. When done shaping, set in a proofing basket, or onto a surface with some cornmeal, and cover and proof for about an hour.

Baking - Preheat oven (and pizza stone and steaming pan) for a good long time (25 minutes). Set at 420. By steaming pan, he means a cast iron skillet or something of the sort that can sit in the oven and get hot. 

Score the bread, place on the pizza stone, carefully toss hot water on the steaming pan, and then shut the door quickly. We failed at scoring the bread.  I thought a sharp knife would do the trick, but next time I'm gonna use the razor blades that Heath brought me 4 years ago.  Yes, I still have them in my kitchen. 

Note - the rack the bread bakes on should as high in the oven as you think you can get away with without the bread growing into the roof. Steam rises, and you want the bread in the steam.  This is so that the outside of the loaf stays moist and can grow instead of getting "trapped" in its own crust. 

Bake 30 - 40 minutes, or however long it takes to get a nice crusty golden brown color.

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And it was glorious.  Look at this thing of beauty.

Loaf #1:

Loaf #2:

Nice and crusty on the outside, and deliciously chewy and mealy on the inside. 

Oh my goodness.  If you are a bread lover, you will instantly die upon smelling this loaf. 

And what is a better way to eat bread than dipping it in some good olive oil and pepper?

Just look at those big beautiful holes where the bubbles had been.

Heath, thank you so much for the wonderful recipe!  Next time, Dani and I are gonna experiment with different types of bread...maybe with some blocks of cheese kneaded right into it.  Oh YUM!