Two things happened today: the first being that early this morning, following an evening of quiet encouragement, Skookum caught the mouse that's been plaguing us for the last few days. (I say "the" mouse, though there may well be more than one.) I'd spent much of last evening and night poking quietly into closets and under appliances with a flashlight, and chirruping at Skooks, who got the idea right quick. Sure enough, she homed in on the little bugger just as soon as I'd got to bed, and that was that. I found the corpse on the rug in the bedroom where she left it, and immediately promoted her to Best Pet.
The other thing is that I pulled out the bread flour and yeast I'd gotten last week, and Julia Child's french bread recipe from The Way To Cook, and made the best loaf of bread I've ever done in my life. Store-bought bread is so lifeless, and even the local artisan bakers have their faults; I forget what causes air pockets, I think overmixing, but on top of that all their breads seem to have a sourdough base. Which is fine if you want sourdough, but I don't, much.
This one came out with an even, light, slightly chewy texture, and a just-right crust. I am setting down what I did, since I'm going to want to do it again:
(There are pictures in the book, which is nice but not essential. You don't want to look at pictures, you want to look at what you're doing, and think about what you want it to become.)
This is a base recipe; you can make baquettes, round loaves, pan loaves and rolls from this. I made a single oval loaf, as being the simplest and involving the least handling of dough after it has risen.
- 1 package dry active yeast
- 1/3 cup tepid water in a 2-cup measure
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- 3½ cups bread flour (aka, 1 pound)
- 1 tablespoon rye or whole wheat flour
- 2¼ teaspoons salt
- 1 cup cold water
The tepid water is for the yeast; it should feel warm to your hand, or arm if your hands are normally cool. If you need to watch the salt in your diet, you can probably cut that to 1¼ teaspoons. As this was a first try for me in some years, I stuck to the list as given.
You'll need two bowls: one for mixing and one for rising. For the latter, I used a clay salad/serving bowl. You'll also need a pastry knife. Julia uses a food processor for mixing, if you want to go that route, be my guest. However, I think Julia had people to clean up after her, for one, and for another that hand-mixing works better. I am much less likely to screw up working with my hands, and honestly, there's not a lot to the mixing. It just isn't worth hauling out the food processor and messing about with pulsing or whatever for so many minutes and so on.
In the oven, you'll want to have a pizza (baking) stone and, if you have a gas oven, an iron skillet for doing the steam. This is not a job for your best skillet. If you don't have an iron skillet available, use something that will hold heat and won't crack when water's poured into it, and won't get in the way of the bread. If you have an electric oven, apparently you just toss the water onto the floor of the oven.
If you don't have a stone, you can get by with a baking pan. A stone is tons better, though. With a baking pan you'll really want to watch your bottom crust to see it doesn't cook way faster than the rest of the loaf. And it may be more liable to sticking. I dunno; I have a stone.
You'll also want a couple of pastry cloths and some clingfilm. I don't have pastry cloths; I have several tea towels, though. They're just thin cotton, about a couple feet to a side, and totally ace for all kinds of kitchen tasks.
Because this is rad and edgy baking we're doing, you will need a razor blade. Or a really, really sharp knife. If you use an exacto blade, remember they are packed in oil and must be cleaned thoroughly.
Last, you'll want an oven thermometer, for testing the inside temp of the loaf. It needs to get to 200°F (93°C). At that point, for good or ill it is done.
First Things First
Find your towels, stone and skillet, and leave them where they are. Heat oven to lowest setting. Set rising bowl in oven to warm. You will be setting the dough in the warm oven to rise, so you don't want it to actually get hot, just welcoming.
Set by a small amount of spare flour, as well as a spare shot of water. Get out a kneading board. It will look just like a cutting board. Sprinkle a bit of the spare flour over it; that's what makes a cutting board transform into a kneading board.
Proof the yeast: mix the sugar into the tepid water. Add yeast, stir a bit. Set it on the stove; the stove is warmer than your counter. Measure out flour & salt into mixing bowl.
Turn off the oven. Compose soul in patience for about three more minutes.
The yeast mix should produce a nice head of foam. If it does not, either the water was outside the temperature range or the yeast is dead. Toss that mix, wash the cup, and try again with a new packet of yeast. There is no point in mixing dead yeast into your dough; that's the reason you proof it.
Okay, so you have a good batch now. Add the cup of cold water to the yeast mix and give it another stir. Pour slowly and steadily into the mixing bowl, while mixing as best you can with the pastry knife. You'll need to clear the knife several times; don't get anxious, just keep at it.
About the time you've poured in all the yeast water you'll find that the pastry knife is no longer up to the challenge. Clear it a last time and then finish mixing by hand. If you think you need a touch more water or flour, add from your spares. Sparingly.
You're done with this part when you don't have measurable amounts of flour still dry at the bottom of the bowl and the dough is holding together pretty well. Let it sit a few minutes. This is a good time to clean dough from your hands. Pro tip: rub off as much as you can before you go for soap and water.
You want to let the dough rest a bit here so that the flour and water particles continue to mix on their own terms.
First Kneading
Turn dough out onto kneading board. Knead it. If you've never done this before, allow me to congratulate you on your audacity for even trying this recipe with so little baking experience. No, I'm serious. You rock.
Kneading is just another way of mixing things. With dough, it has the added effect of waking up the yeast and helping the gluten in the flour to form. And it is deeply satisfying emotionally. Think about giving someone a massage. Okay, not so much with the dough, but that's the general idea. You push down with the heel of one hand, and at the same time fold the pushed-down part of the dough back into the centre. Then flip it over and do it again. Do this for a minute or so; Julia says 30 times. What you want to end up with is a ball of dough that doesn't stick to your hands, and which is "smooth and elastic". You'll know it when you feel it.
First Rise
Pull your rising bowl out of the oven, and set the ball of dough in it. Julia says you do not need to slick it up with oil or butter, something about making a proper seat from which the dough should rise. Whatever. I had trouble with the dough sticking to the bowl on first rise, but not subsequently. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set it back in the oven. Turn the light on, to help it stay warm.
The dough needs to increase by 1½ times its original size. About an hour or so for first rise.
At this point you can clean up your mixing bowl, measuring cups, pastry knife. Leave out the kneading board and the spare flour. Wash your hands, set the timer and go do something else.
Deflating And Second Rise
First rise is a tenuous and sensitive thing, and deflates easily. Blowing past all the tacky jokes and metaphors, scatter a bit of flour onto the kneading board and turn the dough back out on it.
Form the dough into a rectangular shape, then fold the ends into the centre and push down a bit. It's sort of like kneading, except you don't want to get into it at this stage. Do that again. You're done doing that now.
Return the dough to the rising bowl, smooth side up, and replace the clingfilm. Put the bowl back in the oven. What you want it to do now is nearly triple in size, and the point of punching it down and working it a bit is to wake the yeast up again, give it something new to play with.
Set the timer for 80 minutes, and go do something else. You might want to check the dough in an hour, because the important part is that it triples, not that you've left it sit for the right number of minutes.
Get out a clean tea towel, and scatter a bit of flour on it.
Final Rise
Take out the bowl. Make sure your working oven rack is at mid-level, and that your skillet rack (if needed) is at lowest level. Put the stone into the oven on the working rack, and skillet on lowest rack. Turn oven on to lowest setting to kick up the welcoming warmth again.
If you are jonesing to make baquettes or rolls or anything other than a single country loaf, you are on your own. The rest of this assumes you want a single large loaf.
Turn dough out onto kneading board. I'm not sure how to describe what you do next, except to say that you want to handle it. Gently. Pick it up and work it ever so lightly so that you form the loaf shape with the motion of your hands, rotating it and stroking always down and to the centre. Do this about a dozen times round.
Turn the oven off.
Flip the dough over on the board, and where you see seams, pinch them together. Lay it (pinched side up) inside the floured tea towel, then slide it (towel and all) onto the stone in the oven. Set the timer for another 60 to 80 minutes. Check in an hour; again it should triple.
Baking
Home stretch! Ooch the towelled dough off the stone and onto your kneading board. Preheat the oven to 450°F. While it's heating, gently unwrap the dough and flip it so the smooth side is up. You'll notice, if all has gone well, that the surface is just a bit dry; this is good. Get out your razorblade and hold it so that it is nearly parallel to the surface, and score the surface of your loaf in whatever pattern pleases you so long as it is not too elaborate. What you're doing here is making openings in the surface gluten so that the inner part can expand out as the loaf bakes. So you don't want to cut into the loaf straight down, just cut so as to lift the surface away from the body.
Make sure you have about half a cup of water ready. Get a grip and wait for your oven to heat. It will take however long it takes, possibly 7 to 10 minutes, it's your oven, not mine. When it's hot, slide the loaf from the kneading board onto the stone. Pull out the rack with the skillet, and pour the water into it. Push the rack back in place, close the oven, and set the timer for 20 minutes.
In about 15 minutes, you'll want to do a quick check to be sure the bottom of the loaf isn't cooking too quickly. With the skillet in there, it shouldn't, but if you've an electric oven and so aren't using a skillet, and your bottom crust is darkening too quickly, you can shove in an oven pan on that lower rack.
When the timer goes, take the skillet out and reset for another 10 to 15 minutes. At this point you're just watching to be sure the crust doesn't burn. If it seems to be cooking too quickly, drop the oven temp to 400°F.
The loaf is done when its internal temperature is 200°F, and it feels 'light' when you move it around. If you don't have a thermometer for directly checking the temperature, you will have to go by feel. It's harder, but you know what? You've been handling bread all your life. You can do this.
If you think it needs more time still, drop the oven temp to 375°F and keep a steady watch on it.
It Is Done!
Your kneading board is now a cutting board again. Let the bread loaf rest on it for another 10 to 15 minutes. You can tuck a towel around it if you want. When you can't wait any longer, cut a slice out of it and enjoy! Butter optional. No, I'm serious - butter totally optional. This is a damned nice loaf of bread.
rehashing my day and tapping my heels to Charlie from the album "The Boy Bands Have Won" by Chumbawamba
