Day 41: Baking Bread

Dear Student,

There are few smells that remind me of peaceful happy days more than the smell of freshly baked bread…

In supermarkets these days, we see a stunning list of ingredients on baked-good packages, designed to preserve it and reduce the cost of manufacture. The best breads, though, have only a couple of ingredients (plus maybe some herbs and spices)—and nothing bought in a supermarket can compare to the taste and nutrition they provide.

And it’s one of the most fundamental building blocks of a diet anywhere in the world… so let’s learn how to make it for ourselves.

Baking Bread

Leavened bread is made using a leavening agent (usually yeast or baking soda). This is the type of bread you are probably most familiar with—the “fluffy” kind.

Unleavened breads (like tortillas, naan, lavosh, and communion wafers) do not use leavening agents. They do not rise and come out of the oven just as flat as they went in.

Home bread making machines are a marvel. You can get one easily, and some do every part of the bread-making process. All you do is put in the ingredients and it does the rest. Cheaper version require you to do some mixing.

Making bread this way saves effort and time, and will encourage you to make all your bread at home from healthy ingredients. 

Raising Agents 

Yeast is the most commonly used leavening agent in bread making. It’s a microorganism present nearly everywhere on Earth, and certain strains (like baker’s yeast) have been isolated and used since at least the time of the Egyptian pharaohs.

Yeast’s actions are inhibited by salt and sugar in the recipe. The addition of sugars and salts both enhance flavors and control the speed at which the bread rises. Yeasts digest the sugars to produce gases (carbon dioxide) and alcohol, which evaporates off during baking.

If the dough is correctly kneaded, the strains of gluten in the flour stick together and make a sticky, elastic mass that is capable of capturing and holding the expanding Co2 in the dough in the form of gas bubbles. These expanding bubbles are what cause the bread to rise; they give bread its delicious fluffy texture. Once the bread is correctly baked, these bubble chambers harden and the bread sets.

Yeasts generally come in two forms in the store:

• Active dry yeast must be mixed with warm water (not over 95°F, which would kill it) and a little sugar to get the fermentation process going.
• Instant yeasts can be mixed in dry, added to the flour with the other ingredients.

With a little practice, you can keep your yeasts from a previous baking session in the fridge for up to two weeks or freeze it for longer storage.

Bread’s history is inexorably linked to the brewing of beers, and yeasts for beer-making can often be used interchangeably in bread-making.

Baking soda can be used instead of yeast as your leavening agent and makes a delicious soda bread (which I’ll give you my family recipe for later in this class).

Sour dough breads use the natural yeasts in the air in your kitchen and don’t require any other raising agent.

Flour And Gluten Content

Gluten strands capture the gasses released by your raising agent—without gluten, bread can’t rise. Certain flours are higher in gluten than others.

Some recipes require all-purpose flour (high in gluten) in order to rise. Without the additional yeasts, you’d be left with a heavy, unrisen bread instead of the fluffy result you expected.

Flour Types

• All-purpose white flour is the most commonly used flour in Western cultures today. It has enough gluten for all recipes.
• Whole wheat flour is a heavier, less-processed flour. It is full of fiber and other nutrients that are removed from white flour during refinement, but it generally has less gluten than white flour. A mixture of two parts whole wheat flour and one part white flour will result in a lighter bread than if whole wheat is used alone.
• Rye flour is a delicious flour that is similarly low in gluten and has to be mixed with white flour if you want a light bread (the same ratio will work).
• Barley flour is also tasty, but likewise needs the two-to-one mix with white for light bread.

Always use unbleached flours if you can, as they provide more nutrition and provide for a better texture in your bread.

Recipes

Here are some basic bread recipes to get you started…

Simple White Bread

Makes one loaf.  

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 package dry yeast
• 1 1/4 cups warm water (100°F to 110°F),
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• Cooking spray or oil to grease the baking pan
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preparation

1. Dissolve sugar and yeast in 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl, let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife.
3. Add 1 cup warm water, flour, and salt to yeast mixture; stir until a soft dough forms.
4. Turn out onto a floured surface. Knead dough until smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes).
5. Place the dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray or oil the pan with oil and a brush.
6. Cover and let rise in a warm place (~85°F) for 45 minutes or until it has doubled in size.
7. Uncover dough, and punch the dough down to deflate the bread mix.
8. Re-cover and let rise another 30 minutes.
9. Uncover dough; punch dough down again.
10. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
11. Roll into a 14×7” rectangle on a floured surface. Roll up tightly, starting with a short edge, pressing firmly to eliminate air pockets; pinch seam and ends to seal.
12. Place roll, seam side down, in an 8×4” loaf pan coated with cooking spray.
13. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
14. Preheat oven to 425°F.
15. Uncover dough, gently brush with egg, and bake for 12 minutes.
16. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F (do not remove bread from oven), bake an additional 15 minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
17. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack.
    

Whole Wheat Bread

Makes two loaves.

• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast or 1 package
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons oil
  3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon salt

1. Pour the water into the bowl and add the yeast. Mix and leave sit for 3 minutes.
2. Stir in the milk, honey, and oil.
3. Add two cups of all-purpose flour and the salt, mix.
4. Add 3/4 cup of the all-purpose and all the whole wheat flour. Mix well until a rough dough is formed.
5. Let stand for 20 minutes.
6. Sprinkle your counter with1/2 the remaining white flour to prevent sticking and knead the dough for 8 to 9 minutes. (If you have a cake mixer use the hook attachment.) The dough is kneaded when it is smooth, feels slightly sticky, and forms a ball that holds its shape.
7. Pour a little oil into a clean mixing bowl to coat the inside.
8. Roll the dough ball in the bowl until oil has coated its surface.
9. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm spot until nearly doubled in size, about 60 to 90 mins.
10. Divide the dough in two on the counter with a knife and reshape them into two balls.
11. Let the balls sit for 15 minutes to recover.
12. Grease inside of two 8×4” loaf pans or coat them with oil.
13. Pat each dough ball into a loaf tin, let sit to re-rise for 30 mins.
14. Heat the oven to 425°F.
15. Put them in the oven and turn down the heat to 375°F, bake for 30 to 40 minutes.
16. Remove the loaves from the pans. Finished loaves have a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.
17. Set aside to cool.

Irish Soda Bread

Makes one loaf.  

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 egg, beaten

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°F and grease a 9×5” baking pan.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda.
3. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture.
4. Mix until moistened and stir in butter.
5. Knead for 30 seconds.
6. Pour into prepared pan and cut an X into the top of the loaf.
7. Bake for 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean.
8. Set aside to cool.
9. Wrap in foil for several hours or overnight for best flavor.