Read Use Your Loaf: How to bake bread at home and get perfect results Online
Authors: Jason Daly
Use Your Loaf: How to bake bread at home and get perfect results (7 page)
This
is a classic French bread and is rich, buttery and slightly sweet. It is a
relatively simple bread to make. The dough may be soft but is kneadable by
hand, although I would use a food processor. It is also best to chill the dough
as the butter will firm up making it much easier to handle.
Ingredients
(
makes 2 small loaves):
400g/14oz Strong white bread flour
10g/0.35oz/2tsp salt
5g/0.2oz/1tsp “quick” dried yeast
100g/3.5oz soft butter
90ml/3fl oz milk (warm)
4 eggs (beaten)
2 tbsp. caster sugar
To
glaze
:
1 beaten egg
Milk
Mix
all the ingredients in a large bowl to form a dough and knead for 5-10 minutes
until soft and silky. Shape into a round and coat with a little oil. Wipe out
the bowl and place the dough into it. Cover with cling film and leave in the
fridge to chill for at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.
Take
the chilled dough, cut into two equal portions and shape them as required. Dust
the loaves with a little flour, cover and leave to prove till almost doubled in
size. Remember that the dough was chilled so this may take up to 4 hours.
When
the dough has doubled in size, transfer to a baking tray and glaze the dough
with a beaten egg mixed with a little milk. Bake the dough in a preheated oven
at 200
0
C/400 ºF/ Gas Mark 6 and bake for 10 minutes. Then reduce the
temperature to 180
0
C/350 ºF/Gas Mark 4 and bake for another 25-30
minutes till golden brown. Remove them from the oven and leave to cool on a
wire rack .
I
do like this type of bread. It is a nice light bread with a loose crumb and big
holes, and the olive oil gives it a nice distinctive flavour. This dough takes
about 5-6 hours from start to finish so be warned, and the dough is very wet,
so if you lack confidence in kneading it would be advised to use a food
processor.
Ingredients
(
makes 6 Panini style
loaves):
750g/1lb 10oz ‘00’
flour or strong white bread flour
250g/9oz fine
semolina plus extra for coating
10g/0.35oz/1tsp “quick”
dried yeast
25g/0.9oz salt
800ml/28fl oz water
Extra virgin olive oil
Mix
all the ingredients in a large bowl to form a wet dough. You are going to be
kneading this dough in the bowl as opposed to kneading on the bench. Form your
hand into a claw and mix the dough thoroughly for about 5 minutes until it
becomes smooth. Alternatively mix in a food processor on low speed for about 5
minutes.
Cover
the dough and leave to rise as normal. Now, here is where we deviate from the
normal process. After half an hour add some olive oil (about 1 tbsp) and fold
it into the dough. This can be tricky but stick with it. Now you need to repeat
this every half hour for 3 hours! This may seem a little excessive but it
allows the gluten to form a good structure and provides elasticity to the
dough.
This
next step can get a little messy so get ready. Dust your work surface liberally
with semolina and make sure you have it to hand whilst shaping the dough. Tip
the dough out, coat with flour and cut into six pieces of roughly equal size.
Fold
the dough into a rough rectangle, then flatten it out and roll up lengthways.
Seal the seam and stretch it out so it is about four times longer than its
width. Then leave the dough to prove. Now for the other 5! This is not the
easiest process as the dough is very wet and sticky. Just try to keep the dough
coated in semolina to enable you to work it.
After
the dough has doubled in size, place the dough into a preheated oven at 250
0
C/450
o
F/Gas
Mark 9 and bake for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 200
0
C/400
o
F/Gas
Mark 6 and bake for another 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven and drizzle
with a little olive oil if you wish. Leave them to cool on a wire rack before
slicing.
This
is a classic tear and share bread. It really is simple and you can “pimp” it with
any number of herbs and flavourings. The amounts here will make 1 large
focaccia.
Ingredients
For the focaccia
500g/1lb
1oz strong white bread flour
5g/0.2oz/1tsp
quick yeast (dried)
10g/0.35oz/2tsp
table salt
325ml/11fl
oz. warm water
1tbsp
olive oil
To finish
Generous
drizzle of olive oil
Coarse
sea salt
Chopped
rosemary
Combine
the flour, yeast, salt and water in a large bowl to form a soft dough, then add
the oil. This dough has a higher liquid content than normal bread dough so it
may be a little sticky and harder to knead. If you struggle you can use a food
processor with a dough hook, mixing on slow speed for about 10 minutes. I
prefer to knead by hand so tip the dough onto a floured work surface and flour
your hands and knead till smooth and silky. This takes 7-14 minutes.
When
the dough has been sufficiently kneaded, shape into a round, coat with a little
oil, cover and leave to rise till doubled in size. This will take around 40-60
minutes.
When
it has risen, tip out and place on a baking tray measuring about 35 x 25cm and
press down to fill the tray. Press the dough right into the corners, cover and
leave to rise again for about 30 minutes.
It
is also a good idea to preheat your oven now to 250
0
C/450
o
F/Gas
Mark 9. Look at your dough and when it has puffed up you can use your
fingertips (lightly floured) to poke holes over the surface of the dough. Next,
drizzle a little olive oil over the top, and sprinkle the sea salt and chopped
rosemary.
Bake
for 10 minutes at 250
0
C/450
o
F/Gas Mark 9, then reduce the
heat to 200
0
C/400
o
F/Gas Mark 6 and bake for another 10-12
minutes. When it is ready remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire
rack.
Focaccia
is best served warm. I serve mine with a small bowl of olive oil.
I
have also added sun-dried tomato to the dough and sprinkled basil over the top.
Soda bread
Soda
bread is one of the simplest breads to make as no kneading or proving is
required. It really is as simple as mixing all the ingredients together,
shaping and baking. Who said baking bread had to take a long time!
Ingredients
(
makes 2 loaves):
500g/1lb
1oz plain white or wholemeal flour
300ml/10fl
oz buttermilk, yoghurt, milk or water
10g/0.35oz/2tsp
salt
4tsp
baking powder
Before
you start it is a good idea to preheat the oven to 200
0
C/400
o
F/Gas
Mark 6. Mix all the dry ingredients together thoroughly. It is quite important
to make sure they are well mixed or you will find very salty pockets in your
finished loaf because you are not kneading the dough. Next add the liquid and
mix together to form a dough. Divide the dough into two equal portions and
shape them into a round. Press down gently to flatten them so they are about 2
inches high. Slash the top of the dough in a cross. Make the cuts nice and
deep.
Bake
in the oven for 20-25 minutes, then allow to cool on a wire rack before
slicing.
Try
adding some honey and walnuts to the mix. This is a great bread to eat with a
nice strong cheese and a fruity red wine. I have also made soda bread with
grated cheese, apple and Guinness and it is quite delicious.
As
it is so simple to make it really pays to experiment with additions and
toppings to make your soda bread unique.
Most
bread baking failures or problems are caused either by the baker or the recipe
they are following. Most ingredients are so good nowadays they rarely fail with
the possible exception of yeast.
The
first thing to aid your enquiry is to master the “windowpane test” and the
touch test.” I have already discussed these tests earlier – learn them and use
them. Obviously these tests are subjective, but as you gain more experience you
will find that you make fewer mistakes.
You put the risen loaf in the oven and baked it but it
didn’t do very much. This is usually caused by not enough leavening power in
the dough, dough that is too old or too young or too high an oven temperature.
Ø
Not enough yeast. Make sure you added the correct amount of yeast
and that the water temperature wasn’t so high that it killed the yeast. A rare
occurrence is the yeast itself is old or weak, which is most likely if you are
using fresh yeast and it is old or hasn’t been stored properly.
Ø
Too much salt. Salt controls the activity of the yeast, but too
much can really slow down the yeast or even kill it. Make sure you added the
correct amount of salt to the dough.
Ø
Under proofing or too short a final rise. This can cause a loaf
to fail because the yeast hasn’t produced enough carbon dioxide to fill the
tiny pockets that the dough has developed. Did it pass the touch test?
Ø
Over proofing or too long a final rise time. If you leave the
dough for too long, the yeast will run out of steam and the gluten will lose
its ability to support the loaf. This result in a loaf that fails to rise
properly. Do the touch test. Don’t let the dough rise to more than twice its
original size.
Ø
The temperature where you left the dough to rise was too low.
Dough needs a reasonably warm temperature during final rise. If your dough has
to rise in a cooler place, make sure to do the touch test. Most dough will rise
in cooler surroundings; it will just take longer.
Ø
The loaves were put in tins that were too large for them. Most
tins should be half full when the dough is put in them to rise.
Ø
Oven temperature too high. The yeast undergoes a burst of
activity during the first 10 minutes of baking, increasing the production of
carbon dioxide, which is then trapped by the gluten mesh, producing a good oven
spring. If the temperature is too high, this period will be shorter, which
reduces the time that the yeast is active, thus reducing the amount of carbon
dioxide. This is a long way of saying that the yeast dies before it can produce
enough carbon dioxide to produce the desired oven spring!
At first glance, most people wouldn’t consider this a
fault. However, if the dough has too much oven spring, it can alter the texture
of the crumb.
Ø
Dough baked before it had finished proving. The yeast should’ve
been allowed to finish most of its work before the dough is baked. If it is
still very active when the loaf is put in the oven, the resulting super
activity will cause a massive oven spring. Do the touch test.
Ø
Not enough salt added. Most recipes use a salt content around 2%
of the weight of the flour. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but it is so
widely used that you should note when the proportions are different. Since salt
controls yeast activity, if there isn’t enough salt, then the yeast can become
over-active and the loaf will expand more than it should.
Ø
Loaves too large for the pans. Make sure the loaves fill the pans
properly. At the extreme, this fault will result in a loaf that cascades down
the side of the pan and onto the baking surface although this is uncommon.
My loaf spread out and hasn’t risen well
This is a tricky
one but you can notice this at the end of final rise and take remedial action
then.
Ø
One cause of this is under kneading the dough. The dough doesn’t
develop the gluten mesh that it needs to support the gas-trapping cells. Since
the framework isn’t there, the cells can’t do their job and the dough just
spreads out. You can take the dough and knead it a bit more. Leave it to rise
again, giving it a shortened final rise time. This will normally work.
Ø
Another cause is over-proving, giving the dough too long a final
rise. The dough structure begins to break down so the dough just spreads out.
With over-proved dough, you can try to rectify as before by a brief knead and a
shortened final rise time. Wet dough is prone to this flaw, since the gluten
structure is fairly delicate and easily deflated. Here the fault may be a
combination of under-kneading and over-proving. You may find that no matter
what you do, some wet dough just don’t work for you as freestanding loaves. If
that is the case, you should bake your dough in a loaf tin.
The
most common cause of a dark crust is baking too long, which also result in a
thick crust. Some types of bread require a dark crust and some people like a
darker crust, so please ensure that what you have is a fault and not the
desired crust colour.
Ø
Baking too long. Make sure you bake your loaf for the correct
time.
Ø
Oven temperature too high. Check the temperature before you bake
your bread
Ø
Too much sugar in the recipe. The sugar caramelises and causes
the crust to darken very quickly.
Ø
If you check your bread when it is halfway baked and the top is
getting too dark, you can slow the colouring by putting a sheet of foil over
the loaf.
Instead
of a dark crust you wind up with a rather anaemic looking loaf.
Ø
Oven temperature too low. As in the oven temperature too high
above, check the oven temperature before you start baking can prevent this.
Ø
The dough is too old. If the dough is too old, the Maillard
Reaction won’t run its course and the necessary browning won’t take place on
the crust. Make sure you ferment and rise the proper amount of time and do the
windowpane and touch tests. You can get dough that acts as if it’s too old by
letting the dough rise in a very warm place, which will accelerate the dough activity
enough to make it seem as if it is very old.
Ø
The dough crust dried out during rising. In effect, there isn’t
enough moisture in the crust to activate the Maillard Reaction, so the crust
stays pale.
Ø
Lack of steam in the oven during the first few minutes of baking.
Steam, keeps the exterior of the loaf damp, which allows good expansion, but it
also helps the Maillard Reaction, to proceed properly.
There’s a
gap between the crust and the loaf
This is also called the “flying crust.”
Ø
The primary cause is that the dough was allowed to rise too long
in a very dry environment: The dough rises properly during the first part of
the rise but when the rise goes on too long, the crumb begins to settle back a
bit as the dough is getting weak. However, since the crust has been allowed to
dry out a little, it can’t fall back with the interior, so it stays high and
dry. When the loaf is finally baked, the crumb doesn’t rise up to meet the
crust, and the tunnel stays.
Ø
The final rise period was too short. This is a very rare
occurrence, but it can happen. Just ensure you leave to rise for the proper
time and do the touch test.
You will quite often find this fault in the same loaf that
you find a “flying crust” or a very pale crust.
Ø
The final rise time
was too long. Since we know that an over-risen loaf will not brown properly,
the temptation is to let the loaf bake a bit longer in hopes that the crust
will finally brown.
Ø
Oven temperature too high. If the oven temperature is too high,
your loaf can literally burn up as the Maillard Reaction runs to completion and
the loaf continues to brown. What was a pleasing brown can become almost
charcoal.
Ø
Too little sugar. If your dough is supposed to have sugar and you
forgot it, the loaf won’t brown properly. So in your efforts to get a nice
brown crust, you bake too long, which can thicken the crust.
Many
people wouldn’t consider this a fault, since many people want large holes in
their bread! However, as with most things, there is a place for large holes in
bread and a place where they are a fault.
Ø
The most usual cause is over-proving. If you look at properly
made bread you’ll notice that the texture of the loaf changes a bit from top to
bottom. There are larger holes in the crumb toward the top and smaller holes in
the crumb toward the bottom. This difference is caused by the weight of the
dough squeezing the holes near the bottom while the holes near the top have
little pressing down on them. A tunnel crust is an extreme example of this,
although it’s caused by a somewhat different condition. When the dough is
allowed to rise for too long, the difference becomes more pronounced. The way
to stop this is to allow the proper time for your final rise. If you suspect
you have a problem at the end of final rise, you can invert the loaves either a
few minutes before the end of final rise or as you put them in the oven. This
will make the large holes appear on the bottom and the smaller holes appear
near the top. They will quite often nearly equalise as the loaf bakes,
especially if you give the dough a few minutes to recover before baking them.
Ø
Over-proving can also occur if the temperature is too high in the
area where the dough is rising. Make sure that the combination of time and
temperature is correct.
My bread has a sour flavour or a strong yeasty odour
There are several
possible causes to this unusual problem.
Ø
The dough has risen too much. Try to stop the rising when the
dough has doubled in size.
Ø
The bread hasn’t been baked for long enough. An 800g loaf needs
to be baked for 35-40 minutes and should sound hollow when tapped on the
bottom.
Ø
The oven temperature was too high so bread rose too quickly. This
is quite unusual in a domestic oven as they normally only have a temperature
range up to 220
0
C.
Ø
Not kneading enough. Do not forget the windowpane and touch test!
There are only two real reasons for
this problem and they are easily avoided:
Ø
The bread hasn’t been baked for long enough. This is the most
obvious reason. Remember an 800g loaf needs to be baked for 35-40 minutes and
should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Ø
The bread was sliced while still hot. When your bread comes out
of the oven it is full of steam and still cooking. You need to give it time to
finish cooking and release this steam slowly. If you slice it straight from the
oven, the steam rapidly disperses leaving a doughy texture. The exceptions are
rolls which you can eat straight away, but try to tear them open instead of
slicing.