I Can Do Bread all By Myself

Before I fell hard for cooking—and fall I did, for everything from coulis to fish fumet (both made regular appearances on my favorite show, Great Chefs, Great Cities)—I was into baking.

Particularly bread baking. Ask my sister—I made her babysit my sourdough starter once.

“Feed it with flour and water twice a day,” I instructed. “You need to feed it often to maintain its metabolism.” I was that older sister.

The starter—a water-flour amalgamation colonized with natural yeasts—was all the leavening I needed to bake bread. I found this fact amazing. It certainly contributed to kick-starting my series of baking sessions in the late 1990s.

Most college sophomores have several things on their mind. Exams, sure. But also friends and parties. I had bread on the brain. Like the starter, the addiction needed constant feeding. I would wake up early to knead dough, banging it against the counter in loud thumps. In my singular mission, I would forget that other people might be trying to sleep. My cousin, whose makeshift bedroom was the loft above the kitchen, finally asked if I could stop with the early-morning basketball dribbling. Yes, I was that roommate, too.

But in the end, I could conjure a fine round of dough into something that nearly everyone in the pre-Gluten Free era loved: warm bread.

The experiments went on for months. I employed a spray bottle to mist the oven, mimicking the kind of steam produced in commercial ovens. I put a pizza stone on the bottom of the oven. I wielded a pizza peel like a pro. I took a class.

Eventually, like all crushes, my interests shifted. I grew tired of the starter, the cleanup. Since I could buy  better bread at the grocery store—the Bay Area is truly flush with artisan bakers—my hard-earned efforts were beginning to feel futile unless I had the funds to install a brick or deck oven (I did not). After months of leaving a trail of dried bits of dough wedged between the kitchen tiles, I ditched the starter and spent a year in England learning how to cut loose. Released from starter tyranny, my mom and sister breathed sighs of relief.

It’s been more than a decade, but recently I tentatively have fallen back into bread.Part of it is need. Chicago has a few outlets for good bread, but they aren’t nearly as available at the local grocery store as they are in California. After spending good money on one too many disappointing loaves (underbaked rounds, overproofed rolls, BINOs–baguettes in name only) I started to think I could do just as well, if not better, at home. And save money. I also acquired starter, a strand that was made ages ago, I’m told, from Paul Virant’s mom.

There have been significant changes in bread baking, too. Since my baking sessions, the baker community has shared with us some breakthroughs, like no-knead bread. It turns out that time, not counter-pounding, develops gluten just fine.

Still, I was nervous. Would I have lost the feel for the dough, the way it’s supposed to spring back gently when ready to bake? After baking, would the bread sound right—hollow when thumped at the base? Would it have a web of delicious, irregular crumbs? Would it be any good at all?

I returned to one of my favorite bread books: Artisan Baking Across America, by Maggie Glezer (Artisan, 2000). This book has more details about bread than most people need, but it also has beautiful photographs of artisan bakers, bakeries, and mills from around the country. I was looking for a type of bread similar to the one I used to make—a simple round bread that used starter for leavening.

I chose a rustic country French bread from Essential, an artisan bakery in Seattle that was one of the bakeries highlighted in Artisan Baking. I liked the sound of the recipe: it was relaxed, so time would do most of the work. But it did take time; 8-12 hours for the levain (the prefermented dough that contained the starter) to rise, another few hours to mix the dough and let it ferment (the first rise), and a proofing stage (the second rise).

But I was also willing to test the limits of the recipe, refrigerating the dough in between its various stages so I could also get on with the rest of my life. This time around, I would make the dough work for me.

Part 1: Levain

First, I made the levain, which would be the leavening agent for the bread. Artisan Baking has several great break-out sections, and one of my favorites is “In Praise of Preferments.” Preferments have a number of names, from poolish and sponge to biga and  levain, and they can be made with commercial yeast or with sourdough starter. But they all serve a similar purpose: to leaven the dough gently and strengthen its structure (which makes it easier to shape) while lending a gentle fermented tang to the bread.

Using a digital scale, I weighed out 30 grams of sourdough starter, 95 grams of lukewarm water, and 150 grams of bread flour. I mixed these ingredients together until they formed a tight ball of dough. Then I covered the dough and let it sit on the counter overnight.

Part 2: Mixing and Fermenting

The next morning, I weighed out more bread flour (300 grams) as well as all-purpose flour (300 grams), whole-wheat flour (55 grams), rye flour (15 grams), and wheat germ (20 grams). I also added water (450 grams). I mixed these ingredients briefly into a shaggy mess, then covered the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it rest for a half-hour. (Bakers call this autolyse, or resting.) After the flour and water had hydrated, the shaggy mass had also softened. I added the levain made the night before and 16 grams of salt. In a stand mixer placed as far from the edge of the counter as possible (it does rock), I mixed the dough on low speed for about 5 minutes until it was smooth and firm (this isn’t a very wet dough). Then I put it in a lightly greased bowl 3 times the size of the dough, covered it with plastic, and set it aside for 1 hour.

After an hour, I “turned” the dough, or, more accurately, I folded the sides down and covered it again. Then I let it sit on the counter until it had increased in size by about a third. This is the fermentation stage, also called the first rise. For this bread, it takes between 3 to 5 hours, though I’ve also put the mass of dough in the refrigerator overnight at this stage and had good results shaping and proofing the next day.

Part 3: Shaping and Proofing

I poured the dough onto the counter and divided it into two even pieces. The easiest shape I know how to make is a boule, a round loaf. With my hands cupped moving in a clockwise direction, I used the edges of my palm to push the dough into a round. The friction from hands and  the counter eventually coaxed the dough into a taut ball. Since I couldn’t bake them for several more hours, I put the balls of dough on a lightly oiled baking sheet, covered them with plastic wrap (lightly sprayed with non-stick spray so it wouldn’t adhere to the dough), and refrigerated the rounds overnight.

Before baking, I let the bread temper to room temperature for about two hours. Usually when you proof dough in a ball shape, you need to set it in a basket that allows it to take the shape of the basket. I had completely forgotten that step, but I wasn’t deterred by the two rather flat disks of dough. They would be rustic.

I also made other concessions. I no longer had a pizza stone handy, so I heated up a heavy-duty roasting pan in the oven at 400˚F. The roasting pan could only fit one round of dough at a time, so I baked in stages–not an ideal way to go, but also not something that will bring total destruction to the final product. I wanted to add a little steam to the oven, so I poured some water on the roasting pan and let it evaporate. (Warning: this is not a good thing for the pan– a cheap one will warp with the addition of water. I took my chances)

To prepare the first round of dough, I docked the top, slicing it with a simple, inelegant crisscross. I slid the dough on a dusted baking sheet, then slipped it into the oven onto the preheated roasting pan. I baked it at 400˚F for 20 minutes, turned the dough around, and baked it for another 30 minutes until it formed a deep golden-brown crust and was cooked through.

And then…. I let it cool while working on the second round of dough. Just like roasted meat, bread continues to cook when out of the oven, and bakers scold amateurs like me for digging in too early. After all that time, I could temper my hunger for another 30 minutes. But right after 30 minutes was up, I cut off a slice and slathered it with butter. The bread was, well, good. Perfect? No, but hearty and chewy, not overly dense. Terrific with eggs for breakfast or as a sandwich for lunch. Even the crust, which is so hard to get right at home, wasn’t half bad. For the record, the first loaf was more successful than the second, but both were enjoyed. Meanwhile, the loaf of store-bought bread remains untouched in the freezer.

With that assessment, I decided that this sourdough starter and I might have a future together.

Tagged as: California, inspiration, recipettes, weights and measures