Regarding dough hydration: This is a highly basic and foundational bread recipe that aims for a 70% hydration starting point that is hard to go wrong with most bread protein concentrations. The dough won’t be too stiff or too wet, and it will still naturally hold its shape well during the entire cooking process. You will be inadvertently adding more water to the dough anyways while handling it throughout the recipe.
Of course, if you have access to high protein content flour, feel free to increase the hydration percentage. Essentially you want to add enough water during the kneading process that your dough doesn’t turn into a liquid.
Bulk fermentation can be slowed down in refrigerator. This way, you can start the bread making process the night before, then shape and bake the next morning. Also useful for pausing the process if you have better things to do than babysit the dough for a couple of hours. As an added plus, longer fermentation times can significantly make the bread taste better (very similar to sourdough bread).
Clean as you go. Don’t get flour or dough into your sink. Just scrape them off into the trash can. Afterwards, wash and scrub with water to remove any leftovers. If you wait too long, the dough will dry and it will be much harder to clean up.
Since this bread requires a 450°F oven, it’s also a good opportunity to season a cast iron or roast some other food items in the meantime.
Once you understand the science and purpose behind each step of the process, you will be able to comfortably make other types of bread or even freestyle your own.
Bread making isn’t complicated. Everything from the ingredients to the timing has a very wide margin of error. Ancient people have been making bread for thousands of years without even knowing the science, having no specialized equipment, living in a hostile environment, and being busy with many other survival tasks. You’d be surprised how good your bread can be once you learn to be a little hands off during the process. Even in the worst case scenario, you’ll still have something edible…beer!
Equipment
Oven: If you have a fancy oven that steams, you can enable that for the first 15 minutes of baking instead of the spray bottle / water tray method described in this recipe.
Kitchen scale: This is the only thing you can NOT substitute. For bread making in particular, always go by weight and baker’s percentage. It keeps your results consistent and reproducible. Volume is highly variable. For example, a cup of tamped and compressed flour is very different than an airy scoop of flour.
Stand mixer with hook: Makes the kneading process much easier and faster. Still very much doable by hand. Just stretch-and-fold until it feels right. Keep your hand wet with water to prevent sticking.
Banneton: Can be substituted with any large enough bowl or container. Just spritz the inside with water and powder with flour to prevent sticking to your dough ball.
Dough scrapper: Useful for shaping dough, but not necessary. Can also just use your hands (make sure you flour it well tho to prevent sticking).
Spray Bottle: Useful for spritzing water, keeping things moist, and helping add steam during the baking process. Many creative ways to substitute this if you don’t have one.
Cutting/prep board: Lots of people shape their doughs on naked kitchen counters and it seems really gross to me. Unless you’re running a bakery, you don’t need that much space to shape the dough. Shape and prep on the cutting board, and it be much easier to cleanup after you’ve finished cooking.
Razor Blade: Used for scoring the bread, but can easily be replaced with a kitchen knife.
Cast iron skillet: Great for initial oven spring while maintaining a wet dough’s shape during baking. Not necessary though, can also use a pre-heated baking tray.
Oven safe container or baking tray: This will be used to create the steam needed for optimal oven spring. If you don’t have this, you can also use a spray bottle and mist the oven every 5 minutes during the first 15 minutes of the bake to simulate a similar environment.
Ingredients
Amt
Unit
Ingredient
Baker’s %
500
g
all-purpose flour
100
350
g
lukewarm water
70
10
g
salt
2
5
g
instant yeast
1
Instructions
Mix flour, yeast, and salt together while slowly pouring in lukewarm water. Stop adding water if it gets too wet. You don’t want it to be a liquid.
Knead the dough until it is well-incorporated and “smooth”. (~10 minutes on Kitchenaid 2nd gear)
The main goal is to have all the ingredient mixed well and give the gluten development a head start. With practice, you’ll intuitively know what perfectly kneaded dough should look and feel like, but don’t sweat it. It’s better to be under-kneaded and let the fermentation and autolyse process do the rest of the heavy lifting.
Lots of people will tell you to do a window test at this point. From my experience, this is only valid for stiff doughs between 50 to 60% hydration. For wetter doughs like 70%, it will still most likely rip after kneading. Don’t fret and just keep following this recipe.
Bulk fermentation:
Cover with a plate that was spritzed with water (minimizes drying of the dough) and let the dough rise until doubled (~1 hour in warm weather, longer if cold) or nicely inflated.
Perform a window test. At this point, it should easily pass the test.
Cover and let rise until doubled again or nicely inflated.
(Optional) If the dough feels like it lacks strength, repeat the process another time.
Spray water and flour banneton to prevent sticking
Punch down dough, flour your prep board, and then transfer the dough over.
Shape dough and transfer to your well-floured banneton.
Preheat oven to 450°F with cast iron skillet and steamer (ex. baking tray filled with water) inside
Proofing: Let dough rise until 75% of doubling.
Don’t let it completely double. It will massively inflate while in the oven and it will tear (and flatten) if the dough is over-proofed. If you don’t have enough experience to know what proofed bread should look and feel like, try the poke test.
When the temperature reaches 450°F, transfer the dough to cast iron, score it and place it in the oven
Generously spray with water. This will delay the crust from forming, so you will get a taller bread.
Bake until deep golden brown (~25 to 30 min).
Remove the steam generator after the first 15 minute. This will ensure a crispy crust in the end.
After turning off the oven, leave the bread inside with the door left ajar so that it doesn’t get wet from its own moisture. That will help keep the crust crispy.
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