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Few truly experience the joy of baking damn good bread at home. Even fewer attempt the coveted sourdough. The entire process seems so intimidating and complicated to the uninitiated.
The following are very common questions and valid concerns that beginner bread bakers seem to get hung up on.
Tradional?
Baking bread has been a long time tradition in my family. My mum grew up eating home-made bread and bread products, and so did I. With all of the new hyper-processed whipped (not leavened) breads, I have slowly been switching my family over to a variety of slow, real foods. Sourdough has become a staple food in my house. It is rare indeed to not have a loaf sitting on my cutting board waiting for someone to hack off a slice for a nice healthful snack.
The following are very common questions and valid concerns that beginner bread bakers seem to get hung up on.
- What do I add, when do I add it, how much of it do I add, WHY do I add that?
- What is the dough supposed to look like, what is the dough supposed to feel like? How firm should it be?
- How do I know when the gluten is developed enough?
- What the heck is the difference between unbleached bread flour, and bleached all-purpose flour? Does it really make a difference?
- Do I really have to knead the dough for THAT long? It is so tiring. (The quick answer is, it depends on your dough)
- Do I really need a stand mixer? (no of course not. enough said)
Tradional?
Baking bread has been a long time tradition in my family. My mum grew up eating home-made bread and bread products, and so did I. With all of the new hyper-processed whipped (not leavened) breads, I have slowly been switching my family over to a variety of slow, real foods. Sourdough has become a staple food in my house. It is rare indeed to not have a loaf sitting on my cutting board waiting for someone to hack off a slice for a nice healthful snack.
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Signing UpStep 1Equipment
I like to keep my bread baking simple, consistent, and easy. In my opinion, if you have the following equipment you will be setup for success.
THESE are my favorite ones. They are nearly indestructible, dishwasher safe, approved for a commercial kitchen, a good deal, and ridiculously easy to clean. Big enough to brine a turkey, small enough to fit in my cupboard.
A bench knife is a fantastic tool. It allows you to simply and quickly divide dough. It also doubles as a bench scraper, an ingredient picker upper (you don't drag your knife along your chopping board do you?) a garlic masher, a dough stretcher and a ruler. Don't cut your dough with a good knife as the gluten strands are tough on the edge. I use THIS one. Sturdy like an oxe, cheap, easy to keep clean and useful.
A bowl scraper. Bowl scrapes are used to scrape ingredients off of the walls of your bowls and back into your dough. They make clean up a breeze, because you scrape all the bits off the wall of your bowl back into your dough. This minimizes the amount of cleaning and scrubbing dried goop off the side of your bowls. In addition, if you get all your flour and water into your dough, you will get more consistent results and use less flour. If you are really cheap, and can't afford the $0.75 for this tool...use an old starbucks card. Works almost as well as the real thing. I got THIS one for 75 cents on sale at a local kitchen store. These are really fantastic for scraping down batters and cake doughs. Just get one okay?
Wooden spoons...enough said. They don't wreck your mixing bowls, they are sturdy and double as a tool for disciplining unruly children (I am joking of course).
If you buy only one thing from my list of equipment, get a kitchen scale. Nothing will improve your baking more than a kitchen scale. Flour and water should be weighed by mass and not volume. Different flours pack down differently, they contain different moisture levels and grain size. 1 tsp of kosher salt is not the same as 1 tsp of table salt. 10g of table salt is the same as 10g of kosher salt. Nothing will improve the consistency and quality of your baking more than a scale. Seriously. I use my scale to make coffee, bake bread, portion dough, and many many other things.
Pizza stones are great for a couple of reasons;
Onward!
- A good mixing bowl (I like the cambro 3 and 5 qt round containers found on amazon)
- A bench knife (keep it simple and sturdy. $10 or less should do it)
- Bowl scraper. The best $0.75 I ever spent.
- A set of sturdy wooden spoons. $2-$20
- A simple digital kitchen scale, weighs up to 5 kg in 1g increments. $5-$150. I bought a nice looking scale for $20 from my local supermarket. Don't bother with the expensive ones, they break just as quickly. I'd rather have a $20 paper weight than a $150 one. My only ask is that it measures within 1g accuracy. For 99.9% of baking jobs, this is plenty accurate.
- One or Two pizza stones. (One for the bottom of the oven, and optionally one for the top.)
- An oven thermometer
THESE are my favorite ones. They are nearly indestructible, dishwasher safe, approved for a commercial kitchen, a good deal, and ridiculously easy to clean. Big enough to brine a turkey, small enough to fit in my cupboard.
A bench knife is a fantastic tool. It allows you to simply and quickly divide dough. It also doubles as a bench scraper, an ingredient picker upper (you don't drag your knife along your chopping board do you?) a garlic masher, a dough stretcher and a ruler. Don't cut your dough with a good knife as the gluten strands are tough on the edge. I use THIS one. Sturdy like an oxe, cheap, easy to keep clean and useful.
A bowl scraper. Bowl scrapes are used to scrape ingredients off of the walls of your bowls and back into your dough. They make clean up a breeze, because you scrape all the bits off the wall of your bowl back into your dough. This minimizes the amount of cleaning and scrubbing dried goop off the side of your bowls. In addition, if you get all your flour and water into your dough, you will get more consistent results and use less flour. If you are really cheap, and can't afford the $0.75 for this tool...use an old starbucks card. Works almost as well as the real thing. I got THIS one for 75 cents on sale at a local kitchen store. These are really fantastic for scraping down batters and cake doughs. Just get one okay?
Wooden spoons...enough said. They don't wreck your mixing bowls, they are sturdy and double as a tool for disciplining unruly children (I am joking of course).
If you buy only one thing from my list of equipment, get a kitchen scale. Nothing will improve your baking more than a kitchen scale. Flour and water should be weighed by mass and not volume. Different flours pack down differently, they contain different moisture levels and grain size. 1 tsp of kosher salt is not the same as 1 tsp of table salt. 10g of table salt is the same as 10g of kosher salt. Nothing will improve the consistency and quality of your baking more than a scale. Seriously. I use my scale to make coffee, bake bread, portion dough, and many many other things.
Pizza stones are great for a couple of reasons;
- They improve your bottom crust quality by sucking moisture out of your dough.
- The increase the thermal stability of an oven dramatically. If you don't have a pizza stone in your oven, the temperature can swing upwards of 80 degrees every time you open your oven door. A pizza stone acts like a heat battery. It sucks up heat, and when the ambient temperature drops below the temperature of the stone (when you open the door) it releases heat. This means you have more consistent and even heat throughout your oven. Less hotspots, more good spots. I use one on the bottom and one on the top. This mimicks the effects of a wood brick oven.
Onward!
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It was also the first eukaryotic organism to have its entire genome sequenced! Its a winner!
Tim