Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Step 3: Shaping and Baking

The next day, or even a few hours later, the dough from the fridge will be much easier to handle.
About an hour before baking, pull the bin of dough out of the fridge, remove the lid, and dust the surface of a corner of the dough with a bit of flour. Dust your pizza peel (or cutting board, or rimless baking sheet) as well.

Make sure your hands are well floured. Reach into the bin and pull out a grapefruit-sized hunk of dough, cutting it off with the serrated knife.

GENTLY pull the outer surface of the dough around to the bottom of the ball, forming a gluten "cloak" around it. Less is more here. Don't manhandle or squeeze the dough. This should take less than 30 seconds. Don't worry about what the bottom looks like.

Place the loaf on the peel and let it sit for about an hour. It won't rise much at all, and this is normal and O.K.

Half an hour before baking, turn the oven on to 450 Fahrenheit, placing the stone on the middle rack, and the broiler pan below it.

After the loaf has rested for an hour (don't worry if it hasn't raised much), fill a cup with 1 cup of hot water from the tap and set it beside the stove. Dust the top of the loaf with a bit more flour and slash it a few times with the serrated knife.

Slide the loaf onto the stone in the over and immediately pour the cup of hot water into the broiler pan. Shut the door quickly, and set the timer for 35 minutes.

When the bread is done, thumping it on the bottom with your thumb will sound hollow, and as it cools there will be a surprisingly loud crackling sound from the crust.

If you plan on slicing the bread or eating it later, let it cool fully before doing so, but I'll bet that you won't be able to resist tearing into it immediately!

Comments

[divalea]

I just made my first loaf. It has been out of the oven less than three minutes and I am eating a piece with butter and I am in BREAD HEAVEN.

My variations: I used an airbake-type cookie sheet, and I used unbleached flour (unbleached is what I had). I did use the roasting pan and water. Decent oven spring, amazing crust top and bottom, and great crumb.

Thanks so much for his Instructable! I LOVE making bread, but didn't often because of the work involved. Now? Bread every day!

[aeray]

Glad you like it. Unbleached flour is actually what IS called for in the recipe.

[divalea]

Sorry, I meant BLEACHED. I used bleached flour. I blame my head cold for the mistake!

Anyway, I made another loaf today using a $1.50 "pizza stone" (unglazed red tile) from Home Depot. I had to handle the loaf again to get it off the sheet it was rising on, but the spring was STILL better than last night. (Do I correctly credit an "older" dough and a stone instead of cookie sheet?)

[aeray]

You are giving credit where credit is due. Make sure you flour or cornmeal the rising surface well, and try using a dough knife to gently urge the loaf off of it.

[Kaki]

I have a lot of bleached flour at home, did you just follow the recipe exactly or did you change it? I'm afraid that it might be a big difference with the whole bleached/unbleached flour thing! :P

[londobali]

First of all, thank you for a great ible!
I have the same idea about breads: daily home-baked should be the way!

Question:
When you wrote: "GENTLY pull the outer surface of the dough around to the bottom of the ball, forming a gluten "cloak" around it."
What do you mean by "pull"?
I'm guessing it's like pulling it inside-out and making all the outer surface becomes the bottom part of the ball, and the sides&upper becomes a "fresh" dough layer (which was inside the ball before this step).
Is it correct?

What's the reasoning behind this step? bear with me, i'm totally ignorant but want to learn all there is about baking breads.. :)
Is it that the (initial) outer has less gluten than the insides?

Again, thanks a bunch!

[aeray]

You are right about the motion; it is kind of like the motion you make when you are pairing up socks. The purpose of this step is to form a cohesive, even, smooth ball out of a formless wet lump of dough without over handling it. Traditionally, you would just knead it into a ball, but that would develop the gluten too much for this recipe. The less you mess around with this dough, the better.

[polkadotsy]

Loved it !! Cant believe I can make such awesome bread at home.

The only problem that I have is while slashing the bread a few time right before putting in the oven, I do not get the neat cuts. I use a serrated knife, flour it too.

[aeray]

Glad you like it. I use a knife with rounded, rather than pointy, serrations. Be very quick and decisive with the cuts, and don't worry about making them perfect. It's homemade.

[BigDrig]

Well, I started reading all the comments AFTER I had the dough rising on the counter. Hopefully it isn't ruined. I'm using an Airbake pan rather than a stone (I couldn't find a stone). The things I did wrong:

1. Used table salt, and used 3tablespoons of it.

Also, I have some questions:

1. Why don't you have to give the yeast sugar? I mean I can understand it feeds on the flour anyway, but I've always been taught to proof it first.
2. Will the dough in the container continue to rise slowly over a period of time while in my fridge?
3. Is it a problem to divide this recipe?
4. Is it really better to weigh the ingredients rather than measure them with the scoop and swipe method?

Whatever happens, I'm going to continue to bake my own bread, and I'm buying the book.

I'm sure I will have more questions/comments.

[aeray]

1) Proofing yeast is an anachronism. Failure of modern yeast strains is exceedingly rare, as long as the yeast is reasonably fresh. I'm currently using yeast that is over a year old, but has been kept refrigerated.

2) Rising pretty much stops in the fridge, once the dough is cooled. It will even fall after two or three weeks, at which point it makes great pizza crust or flatbread.

3) Divide away. It is easiest to divide if you are weighing the ingredients.

4) Weighing is far more precise, and I find it to be faster. I place my container on the scale and weigh the ingredients directly into it, "tareing" the scale between ingredients.

[Splaxx]

Just made our first one and already ate half... :P awesome instruct-able and awesome recipe.

[aeray]

Thanks. Get a hold of the book (your local library should have it) there are a bunch more good ones along the same lines.

[allenrob108]

Well I pulled the container out of the frig. this morning and the dough is way way too wet! There is no way I can form a ball to make a loaf. Also when I took a spoon to the dough, after I took out the amount suggested to make a loaf, there is actual liquid in the bowl. It appears to me that the ratio of liquid is WAAAAAY off. I counted the number of cups of flour accurately, I didn't lose count and I measured the liquid accurately. I added an additional cup and a half of flour to the dough this morning hoping that will firm it up and I'll try it again tomorrow. I made a loaf this morning but I had to add at least an additional cup of flour to the small amount of dough suggested for a loaf and it still appears to me to be too wet. I'm going to bake it in about 30 minutes but I'll be surprised if it works out.

[aeray]

Yes, it is supposed to be very moist, far moister than any other bread dough I have encountered, and yes, sometimes there is a bit of liquid, and yes, it is a bit difficult, initially, to get the hang of shaping the loaves. If it doesn't work out, try the weights (posted below) from the ABin5 website.

[Phoghat]

BTW, have you ever tried this using Bread Flour? Supposed to have a higher concentration of gluten, don't ya know.

[aeray]

Bread flour won't work because this bread mostly relies on "oven spring" to rise, and dough made with bread flour is too tough to spring much.

[allenrob108]

The problem was that the dough,when I pulled it out of the bowl, looked nothing like the dough that you pulled out of your container. It would not shape at all and was just a big blob of very wet dough. I had to add a lot of flour,probably close to a cup, to my ball just to get it in a condition to be able to shape it at all. My estimate is that the recipe, in my area and under my conditions, is at least three cups of flour short. So everyone please be aware that the ratios here are VERY general and in all likelihood you will have to vary from the recommended ratio by a good amount. After adding a lot more flour to my dough ball I was able to get a baked loaf, baking it for 40 minutes, that was quite good. A mellow but very nice taste. Just don't expect to follow the directions to the letter and have everything be perfect. It is very dry where I live right now so you would think the water recommended would be perfect under such dry conditions but it was too much. So be prepared to make adjustments! Thanks for the recipe and once I get the ratio figured out, it should be something I'll use for many years.

[Kalabas]

Go by weight. The recipe calls for 65 oz. of flour. I had the exact same problem as you until I bought a scale and now it is perfect. My dough was coming out way too wet. That is because the scoop and sweep method is far too unreliable. Just go by weight and it will always be consistent.

[allenrob108]

Thanks I'll give that a try. The method described in the instructions sure as heck do not work.

[arossphoto]

Do you have to make round loafs, or could you also shape it into a traditional baguette? Thanks.

[aeray]

The baguette shape works well. Remember to shape it quickly and gently.

[arossphoto]

That's great, and I will definitely check out the book. Do you know if it's possible to freeze portions of the dough? I live alone and would be worried that I wouldn't use all the dough, and would hate to see any of it go to waste. I guess you could make smaller portions as well, but freezing some of it might be a nice option too. Cheers and thanks again.

[aeray]

The authors recommend "parbaking" individual loaves, and then freezing them. Parbaking means baking them 80-90% of the way. You can also scale the recipe and just use 3C h20, 1-1/2T salt, 1-1/2T yeast, and 6-1/2C flour.

[Phoghat]

I've seen "parbaked" bread for sale on Fresh Direct and else where.f the full baking time is ~ 35 minutes, how much time to parbake? I feel a little like " how much wood could a woodchuck chuck"

[aeray]

90% or so... 31.5 minutes, but I haven't tried this, so proceed at your own risk.

[allenrob108]

Wow I just made a batch and was reading through this in it's entirety as I was waiting for the first rise to finish before I put it in the frig.. I didn't read all of the comments before I made the batch. I wish you would have mentioned in the instructions that if you used table salt you should half the amount of salt. I hope using the amount you suggested in table salt didn't ruin this batch. I'd hate to have over salty bread that is inedible. That would be such a waste of food. I suggest you edit this instructable to make that clear in the instructions.

[aeray]

Copied and pasted from Step 1, unedited:

"INGREDIENTS:

6C. Lukewarm Water (I use tap)
3 Tablespoons Active Dry Yeast, or four packets (I use Red Star)
3 Tablespoons Kosher or flake salt (I use Morton's)
13C. All-Purpose Unbleached Flour (I use whatever is on sale)
DON"T actually measure out the flour yet.

I actually only use about 2T. salt. Some people prefer less, and others more, but 3 T is a good starting point.'

Bold is just for this reply.

[dvdlvr]

I used this dough for pizza yesterday and it was wonderful. (Preheat oven at 240C then cook the pizza in 8-10 minutes) I made plain bread from it this morning and it was great. I always have had problems baking white bread (Would never rise properly) and this instructable solved it for me. Many thanks! The baking time seems a bit long. I have a heat circulation oven (Not sure what the correct term is) and the bread was ready in 15 minutes. Maybe my 'grapefruit size' was a bit smaller than in the instructable, but it had a wonderful crust and was very light and airy on the inside.

[aeray]

You have a convection oven, I believe, so that would speed it up. This bread is very difficult to overbake anyway because it starts out so moist. I've had good luck with pizzas cooked at 285C on the stone. The batch in this 'ible is for 8 loaves, so I try to pull out 1/8th of the dough at a go.

[blackjimmy]

I made a 2 loaf batch by scaling down; used 1 loaf's worth for bread (which turned out well) and the remainder for pizza. The dough tasted good but it was really hard to shape it into a flat pizza shape.. also I cooked it at 250C (maximum for my oven) on a terracotta dish until the top was a bit over done, but when I cut it open the inside was still really wet... any suggestions? I was worried about how wet the dough was so I used less sauce than usual and left it in longer than I usually do.. but it was still wet. It sounds like others have had good results so maybe I'm doing something wrong?

[aeray]

1) Don't let it sit out. Shape it straight out of the fridge, and use as much flour as necessary. 2) Let it "rest" for a few minutes a couple of times during the shaping. 3) Get it really thin. 1/8" to 1/4" is good. 4) Was the terracotta dish in the oven thoroughly preheated? 5) Did you remember to skip the steam step?

[fraugefahr]

The authors were very wise to let you reprint their recipe! I first got interested in the book from this instructable and gave the book to my friend for her birthday. I got all the materials and plan to bake my first loaf in the next week!

[aeray]

Great! I'm think that the authors would appreciate your feedback, an I know that I would like to see photos and feedback about your result.

[muzzz]

Made it w/ 2 cups of flour, 1 cup water, 1.5 tsp yeast and 1.5 tsp salt. The dough ended a bit loose so it wasn't easy to handle. But it turned out really well. I was quite amazed because I'm very novice when it comes to dough and breads. A bit too salty though. Great instructable.

[aeray]

It is supposed to be loose and somewhat difficult to handle. As for the salt, did you use kosher salt or regular table salt? It does make a difference. If you're going to use table salt, I would suggest reducing it by half.

[muzzz]

I will use less salt and maybe a little bit more flour next time. I suppose steam at the beginning is a crucial ingredient. How should one use the steam when making pizza with the dough?

[aeray]

When making pizza I pull out the chunk of dough, stretch it a bit, and let it rest for a few minutes (5 max). Don't let it rise. I then finish stretching it out, top it, and slip it into a 550 deg. Fahrenheit on top of the pizza stone, and omit the steam/water bit (and the pan for it). 8-10 min. later, pizza.

[aeray]

Oh, dust your hands thoroughly with flour to make it easier to handle, rather than adding flour to the dough.

[gosda]

Sorry! We Americans haven't been "trained" yet - and we like it that way.