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Quarantine Bread

209 points by andyljones 7y ago

jml7c5 7y ago
I've been taking a look at Google's search trends on occasion. The term "bread recipes" had a nice uptick after people started panic buying* flour and yeast: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bread%20recipes&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bread%20recipes&g... Though my favorite is the search trend for 'bidet': https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bidet&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bidet&geo=US *Perhaps less sensationally: "caution buying".
Lio 7y ago
FYI: a “dutch oven” as mentioned in the article is another name for a casserole dish or Bedourie oven.
- robertely 7y ago
  Not exactly. Dutch Ovens are specifically chosen for their size and for being almost universally made of cast iron. Bedourie ovens would work if cast iron, but they often aren't. What most people think of as casserole dishes are just not the right size and shape.
- KaiserPro 7y ago
  its also when you fart in bed under the sheets.
olliej 7y ago
Honestly I’ve always used this recipe: https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/easy-crusty-french-bread/ https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/easy-crusty-french-bread/ It requires minimal kneading, and the total turn around is less than a couple of hours. Of course for both recipes the problem is that they use yeast, which most houses don’t have. For many/most houses that have baking supplies they’re almost certain to have baking soda, so a soda bread presumably works better.
jvvw 7y ago
Bread flour and yeast are almost as scarce here as loo rolls!
- sneak 7y ago
  Yup; I'm hearing from government and media that food supply chains are fine, yet I can't seem to find rice or flour or yeast anywhere, for going on a week now. The people who answer phones at local stores don't seem to have any idea when more is coming in. If the supply is there, you'd think it'd be straightforward to bring in a few dozen pallets of big (10-15kg) bags of rice and flour, 1 per customer, so that people can avoid coming to the store for the next month or so and avoid infecting themselves/others whilst shopping. I'm curious what the holdup is. TFA recipe looks delicious. I wish I could try it.
  - klodolph 7y ago
    Supply is normal, demand is up. My guess is that panic buying will dry up fairly soon. Staff at the grocery store can find out when new stocks are coming in. The orders have already been placed, the trucks are already scheduled to arrive, and staff are scheduled to stock the shelves. It’s just a pain to answer questions from so many people. Stores here (NYC area) had stockouts in bread earlier in the week. The stockouts are happening less, they’re less severe, they’re not lasting as long. Your experience will depend on where you live, exactly which store you go to, and what time you go to the store. My personal experience is that some stores will stockout much sooner than others, e.g., Trader Joes, maybe because the clientele is more prone to panic buying, maybe because of differences in stocking. The catch here in NYC is that plenty of people just eat out and don’t know how to cook, don’t have food stocks, don’t have tools. Our household bakes bread anyway so we stock flour.
    - saalweachter 7y ago
      It's worth noting that, with the exception of the fresh vegetables imported from somewhere warm, all of the food you're going to eat during this crisis was grown, harvested, processed and preserved last fall, and the current supply chain is just moving it from the warehouses and granaries to your door.
bakoo 7y ago
If you have flour, and haven't had the chance before, this is the perfect time to get a sourdough starter going. And don't throw away the discard/leftover, it can be used as a base for all kinds of stuff, from pancakes to cupcakes!
- jsilence 7y ago
  Heat a some oil in the pan, roast some chopped up scallions and a little sesame seed and bake a sourdough pancake at medium heat from the discard. Delicious!
bArray 7y ago
I do a "one tin" bread process (less cleaning after) - everything gets mixed and cooked in the bread tin, with some oil added last to stop it from sticking (and adds a nice tasty crust). The process is (white or brown): 1. Fill tin half way without flour 2. Add some salt (to your taste) 3. A small layer of yeast on top (I experimented to find a few shakes of yeast is enough) 4. Pre-mix the dry mix 5. Mix with luke-warm (warm to the touch) water (keep adding water until everything is mixed) 6. Allow to rise for half hour 7. Glaze with oil to prevent sticking (all the way around) 8. Throw in an oven (from cold) at ~180 degrees 9. Wait 30-50 minutes (depending on the oven) Experiments that have worked out well: * Add a light dusting of salt to the outside * Add seeds to the outside * Bury lumps of cheese deep into the top of the bread Benefits are: * Great testing fresh bread (great having the butter melt into warm bread) * Exercises your hands quite well * Very cost effective + ingredients keep for a very long time
- fyfy18 7y ago
  > great having the butter melt into warm bread If you plan on keeping it (i.e. you don't eat it all at once) its best to leave it to cool before cutting it open. Even after it comes out the oven the dough in the middle continues to cook from the steam. If you cut into it too early the steam will be released leading to somewhat soggy bread.
01100011 7y ago
Ha! Quite timely. I have a 4 day old sourdough starter that is starting to bubble nicely. If you have the patience and the flour, skip the yeast packet and start a sourdough starter. I've made sourdough in the past, and generally swear by using a spray bottle filled with water to gelatinize the crust during baking, but the dutch oven approach seems nice. I ran across it earlier tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEHsvW2J6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEHsvW2J6M
- jspash 7y ago
  Is your starter four days old from dry/dormant? Or did you liven up a wet one? The reason I ask is my starter was purchased online and arrived as a sachet of powder. And it took at least a week if not more for it to be ready. While the thing was just beginning to activate it smelled like old socks and bad cheese with a whiff of cabbage to make things really revolting. Then one day...it smelled of bread. Even a bit buttery. And for the past six years it’s been going strong with the same mild breadth yeasty buttery smell. Anyhow what I’m saying is that 4 days seems too soon to start using in my limited experience. Apparently in the first days there are many bacteria fighting for territory and until the right ones win it’s gonna smell like death!
  - 01100011 7y ago
    4 days from the start. Just flour and water. I didn't buy anything but the flour. I mixed them up, brought it outside for a bit to catch some wild bacteria and yeasts, and I've been stirring it periodically. I put it in the oven with the light on a few times to speed things up. Every day I add a bit more flour and water. It currently smells like yogurt and is full of small bubbles. I think it should be ready to use in another 2-3 days.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    Yes, a new sourdough starter will go through several phases of strange and awful smells before it settles down to a consistent yummy sour yeastiness. Personally I'd question whether its worth even bothering with a dry powder starter, I just make mine with flour (mix of rye and wheat) and filtered water. The yeast is either present in the flour or is picked up naturally from the air.
jnellis 7y ago
I get my bread flour (which is gluten enriched) from a restaurant supply store. Seeing how restaurants are slowed now and not many folks know about these stores, it might be a good place to check out. Also, you don't need yeast if you just maintain a portion of the dough (a sourdough starter) in a small container in your refrigerator.
nrp 7y ago
For those unfamiliar with baking, the shared recipe is pretty much the standard crusty white bread recipe, and one that has a great effort/payoff ratio. One thing to note is that unlike most cooking where you can just sort of eyeball quantities and get something good, baking bread is chemistry. You really want to have an accurate kitchen scale to get the ingredient proportions correct by weight. Edit: Though if you are looking for a recipe to start with, I would recommend the Serious Eats one with quantities cut in half: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/08/simple-crusty-white-bread-recipe.html https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/08/simple-crusty-wh... Spraying on water before closing the dutch oven really does improve the results.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  baking bread is chemistry. You really want to have an accurate kitchen scale to get the ingredient proportions correct by weight. Scales are definitely a good idea, but I don’t think the general point (“don’t mess with the recipe!”) is quite as true as people make out, at least for bread baking. You can vary the yeast, salt, fat etc a fair amount and still get decent results. Getting the hydration level right (ratio between water and flour) is the key bit. Too dry (below about 60%, meaning 60:100 water:flour) and it won’t rise. Too wet and it’ll be difficult to work (70% and up is hard) and if you don’t work it properly it’ll be too weak and again won’t rise. The whole business of folding and resting is about working with higher hydration dough.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    > and if you don’t work it properly it’ll be too weak and again won’t rise. Yes, but no-knead recipes tend to be wetter and they come out okay.
    - iainmerrick 7y ago
      That’s what I meant about “folding and resting” at the end there, yeah. It does work but I find kneading just as easy and a lot faster, personally.
  - 7y ago
ridiculous_fish 7y ago
Good place to get your sourdough started (pun intended): https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code/blob/master/basics/sourdough.md https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code/blob/master/bas...
lettergram 7y ago
Personally, I’m partial to soda bread - flour, buttermilk, salt, baking soda. Easy to make, just mix and plop in pan
iainmerrick 7y ago
You do not, repeat not have to preheat anything before putting your bread dough in the oven. Starting with a cold dutch oven makes it much easier and safer to get the dough in. Just bake for an extra 20 minutes at the start. If in doubt, overcooking is better than undercooking for bread. I’ve done this myself several times and it works great. Here’s the needed citation: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/07/05/baking-in-a-cold-dutch-oven https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/07/05/baking-in-a-... Also... I think the reason why most recipes call for preheating is very interesting! It’s all about reproducing the conditions used by professional bakers. A professional will use an oven that can inject steam to keep the bread from drying out; baking in a dutch oven simulates this. And a professional baker will keep the oven on through the whole working day; preheating simulates this, so you can use the same timings. But if you’re only baking one loaf every couple of days, rather than 200 loaves a day, you don’t necessarily have to do all this stuff. To use a classic HN analogy, it’s like a startup using all the same technology and processes as Google. Some of them are a good idea (keeping steam in the oven), some of them are premature until you’re operating at a massive scale (preheating the oven).
- janekm 7y ago
  Another reason is that the time it takes for the Dutch oven to come to temperature depends on a lot of parameters (size of Dutch oven, size of oven, fan or not, power of oven) so pre-heating allows for the timings to be consistent. But I agree on the safety concerns so I will try your method on my next loaf, now is not the time to get bad burn wounds.
  - klodolph 7y ago
    My personal experience is that bread is sensitive enough to parameters that you’re going to have to “get to know” your equipment anyway end do some experimentation.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    Yes, timings will definitely vary. I timed how long my oven took to preheat with a cold dutch oven, and it was around 20 minutes, so that’s about how long I add. But I’ve found the timing is not super critical, the main thing is not to undercook. (Note that most recipes say things like “check for doneness, and bake for another 5 minutes if the loaf doesn’t sound hollow”.)
lmilcin 7y ago
A tip. When you make bread regularly (as in quarantine), reserve piece of the dough to add it to the dough the next day. This is guaranteed, absolutely the easiest way to have sourdough bread regularly without having to tinker with the starter. The dough is less hydration than typical starter, it is also already salted. This makes it more stable than typical 100% hydration starter. Also, it has the hydration and salt content of your final dough which has the fantastic property that it does not change your basic proportions regardless of how much you add it. This makes all calculations extremely easy.
- mcnamaratw 7y ago
  Agreed. The only downside is that a disagreeable sour flavor can creep into the bread if you add much of the old dough or let it rise too long. People who like 21st century vinegar-flavored bread can ignore this!
  - lmilcin 7y ago
    I typically add around 10% of starter. If you can't stand sour flavor add just 5% and let it rise quickly (higher temperature) so that bacteria does not have time to grow and accumulate lactic acid.
hannob 7y ago
It's just that for the past week I've been unable to buy yeast or flour anywhere. (And right now I'm avoiding supermarkets as much as I can.)
qubyte 7y ago
It seems like everyone in this town (Brighton, UK) realised that they were about to run out of dried yeast yesterday, and there's none to buy. This morning I took to twitter with photos of the beginnings of a sourdough starter and there are a lot of photos of folk doing the same. Mine won't work though. It's Half and half strong white flour and whole buckwheat flour. The idea is that the latter will donate yeast. Or maybe it will...
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Give it time. It takes about a week to bootstrap a starter. You need to feed it every day by giving it equal amounts fresh water & flour and discarding about half of the starter. Once you have a stable starter, it's very forgiving. I tend to use pretty much all of it and then toss some flour/water into the container it used to be in. The little starter left behind in the container mixes with the flour and water and it lives on. I keep it in the fridge when I don't need it.
- klimt 7y ago
  I had to give it 3-4 days before I got some activity. Any flour should work as long as it is unbleached. I've had good success with just Sainsbury's strong white bread flour. It has given me a fragrant peachy starter.
gniv 7y ago
I too have been making lots of bread lately (baguettes) and have a question to which I didn't find a satisfactory answer yet. Most recipes seem to suggest baking temperature of 450-470F. But there are hints that higher is better. My oven can do 550F. Is higher better? What is the temperature used in bakeries?
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Try it and see, to be honest. Home ovens are unreliably different from one to the next, and tastes vary from person to person.
- gogoincar 7y ago
  Higher isn’t necessarily better. You are balancing how long to fully bake the dough with how dry/crisp/burnt the crust becomes. Depending on hydration, presence of steam, baking surface, etc... Deck ovens (typically used for French style baguette) are usually in the 450-500 range for baguette, but have some major differences with home ovens. Even if your oven goes up to 500 or 550, actually maintaining that internal temp can be quite difficult for a home oven, which is why many home recipes suggest turning it all the way up. Best advice is to try different things with your oven, see what difference it makes!
  - gniv 7y ago
    Thanks! I will experiment. I just realized that I could also use the convection setting, which might help equalize the temp.
    - gogoincar 7y ago
      Convection is another good one to test. At least in my experience oven temps often end up lower with convection on up over 450F, because of increased exhaust (obviously depends on oven). And if you are not using a Dutch oven and maybe even if you are, it dissipates moisture much faster often leaving a duller, thinner crust and one that darkens too quickly for the bake. I have seen posts from people baking at home with convection that are really happy with it though.
jiofih 7y ago
It’s kind of sad that the internet now is a cesspool of SEO content, even coming from technical writers. This is a “quarantine bread” recipe by someone who says it’s “the first thing I’ve ever baked” and wants to teach you. The way the recipe extends with a timetable is comical. There are way simpler, no-knead recipes you can bake in a Dutch oven that will give you even better results, written by.. bakers. Good luck out there!
- jastingo 7y ago
  > There are way simpler, no-knead recipes you can bake in a Dutch oven that will give you even better results. Care to elaborate and/or post links to recipes? I've been baking for years and have found that the recipes with longer rise times generally produce more flavorful loaves. Yes, it's more effort and takes longer, but the payoff is a more flavorful bread. That said, if there are recipes out there that require less time AND are more flavorful, I would love to hear about them.
  - mikro2nd 7y ago
    Here's one: 3 metric cups of Brown Bread Flour or Wholewheat flour, 1 sachet instant yeast (personally we have a homegrown sourdough starter, but that's a whole other topic). You can get by with a little less yeast, and with bought-in yeast I'd add about a teaspoon of sugar to get the yeast well fed. A good handful of sunflower seeds and/or pumpkin seeds if you like. I like to add about a tablespoon of linseeds. This is all optional. 1 scant teaspoon of salt. (This is not optional.) Mix all the dry ingredients, then add water to make a sloppyish dough and mix well -- you can stir it with a spoon, but not easily, and it's sticky as hell. It takes about 1.5 to 2 cups of water, but it will vary depending on the flour, how old the flour is, the weather/humidity on the day, etc. I like to dust the top of the loaf with a tablespoon or so of poppy seeds. Turn the dough into a well-greased loaf tin and bung the tin in a plastic bag. Lift the bag away from the top of the loaf otherwise the dough will stick when it rises. Warm places are good, but it's not critical, and too warm is bad. Rising time could be as short as an hour, could be as long as 3 or 4 (unusual) and depends on too many factors to enumerate here. Once you've baked a loaf or two you'll have a good idea how long it takes given your flour, yeast, weather, etc. When the dough has risen and seems ready to overflow the tin, put it into a 180C oven for 1 hour. When it comes out of the oven, immediately tip the load out of the tin and allow to cool on a rack. If the loaf won't tip easily out of the tin, you didn't grease the tin well enough. A good test of whether your loaf is 'done' is to tap the bottom with a fingertip. It should sound 'hollow' and not 'dead', but honestly, if you've never had experience with breadmaking before, you'll be hard-pressed to hear much difference. It's one of those things that comes with experience, much like the feel/consistency of dough in more complicated breads. It's very easy, takes about 5 minutes and lasts better than store-bought, but tastes so much better that shelf-life is seldom an issue. You may make a few 'flops' the first time or two you try, but they'll all be edible (nay, tasty). Keep at it. eta: I see (late) you said 'dutch oven'. Just substitute 'dutch oven' where I wrote 'tin'. I've baked many a loaf with a dutch oven (and on a fire rather than an oven) and it works every bit as well.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
You can make it with far fewer steps: 500 g flour, 400 g water straight from the cold tap(80% hydration), 8 g salt, 1 g yeast. Mix thoroughly, cover, leave for 12 hours or overnight at whatever room temperature you have. Turn out and fold over once, cover, leave to prove for two more hours. Preheat oven and pot with lid to 230 C. Drop the dough in the pot, cover cook at 230 C for 30 minutes. Take of lid, cook for another 15 minutes at 230 C. Take out and wait 30 minutes before cutting. Usually attributed to Jim Lahey, see https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread Length of time for fermentation is very non-critical and you can drop the folding and second proving without much harm.
- jkern 7y ago
  Yep this is how we've been doing it at my house too, and results are great.
fluxinflex 7y ago
A damper is previous even easier, only requiring floor, water, salt and a camp fire --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food) (depending on your location, a camp fire might be difficult ...)
jonplackett 7y ago
What am I missing that makes this ‘quarantine’ bread? Seems the same as baking non-quarantine bread, albeit with more steps. Personally I find this recipe way easier and also foolproof. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_crusty_83536 https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_crusty_83...
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Addressed in first 'graph of article.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    Clearly I’m still being really dumb. Do you just mean that the ingredients are dense compared to the output?
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      "The ingredients are cheaper[1], denser and have a longer shelf-life than the final product, and the process of turning one into the other requires much more time than effort...." "1. If you fancy living 13th-century style, 2000kcal of home-made bread is 35p of flour, salt and yeast." In a quarantine: 1. Minimising cash expense is good. Cheaper is better. 2. Storage space is limited. Denser is better. 3. Minimising exposure risk through shopping runs is good. Longer shelf-life is better. Stock up, then live off supplies for days, weeks, or months. 4. Time is abundant. Long-running tasks are not a detriment. 5. Low effort is generally good. "Quarantine bread" minimises use of resources and exposures to risk which you'll want to minimise in a quarantine, and takes advantage of the abundant time resource.
      - jonplackett 7y ago
        Yeah I get that bread is good in a quarantine - I’m making my own every few days right now - but is this any better than just making any other bread recipe. That’s all I’m saying.
eb0la 7y ago
I wonder hoy many hackers out there are making their own bread. I started baking my own yesterday after making pizza dough while the kids were wathing a movie.
- JensRex 7y ago
  I've been baking for years, because despite all the fancy cuisine that exists (and I do appreciate that too), there's nothing quite like fresh warm bread with a generous layer of butter on top. It's something special that you can't buy anywhere.
Vaskerville 7y ago
No knead bread - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU
holri 7y ago
I use a panasonic bread machine at least once every week for decades now and it works really well. There is nothing better than a fresh bread.
totalZero 7y ago
Anyone else ever marvel at the fact that one of humanity's most essential foods is basically wheat foam?
ereyes01 7y ago
I couldn't find yeast easily, but I nabbed a couple bags of unbleached flour, so I've started making a sourdough starter. An entertaining and very informative series of videos on sourdough, including recipes and some basic info: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWWSiMZBLGP2UEs8w3nQDTVY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWWSiMZBLGP2...
deleted 7y ago
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hypnotist 7y ago
Instant yeast, 1/12th teaspoon <-- how does one measure that kind of thing ? wouldn't it be easier and more accurate to use grams ?
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  Speaking from experience, 1/12th of a teaspoon of instant yeast is below 1 gram. So you need specialized equipment to measure this. But you can estimate 1/12th teaspoon fairly accurately.
- andyljones 7y ago
  It's too small to use a normal gram-accurate kitchen scale; received wisdom is that one quarter-teaspoon of instant yeast is about a gram. So a third of a gram is a twelfth of a teaspoon. Thanks for a prompt - I've now added a note in the text to this effect!
  - OJFord 7y ago
    It's a lot less yeast than I usually use, but I also only let it rise for an hour or two, not overnight, so I suppose that accounts for it. Assuming for simplicity's sake that rising & proving time is directly proportional to yeast quantity; if you had a limitless supply of both yeast and time, would you suggest less yeast and longer rise, for better bread?
    - andyljones 7y ago
      Lord, I'm not really qualified; I've only been baking for a few weeks. My justification for writing this was more that I thought I could put it in a style that a new audience would be receptive to, rather than any perceived expertise on my own part. That said, received wisdom is that loooong, slow ferments give more flavourful loaves. That's usually achieved with tiny amounts of yeast and time in the fridge. But please, go ask the experts over on /r/breadit, you'll get a much more reliable answer there.
- mantap 7y ago
  All yeast is different so you'll have to do some trial and error regardless. In general, too much yeast is better than not enough yeast. The most important thing is that you have a consistent way of measuring yeast amounts, whether by weight or volume. And always buy the exact same yeast.
kozikow 7y ago
I just use a bread maker. Pour in a measured amount of 6 ingredients - it takes 2-3 mins max. Press a button and have a loaf of bread ready in 3-4 hours. You can even set it in the evening with a delay and have a freshly baked bread the minute when you wake up - I did it for the last couple of days.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  Some (most?) also have a dough setting. They’ll mix, knead, and let the dough rise (warmed, usually) for you, and notify you when they’re done. You can get about 80-90% of the way to the results of a fully manual process by doing that, then baking, especially if you’re making a fairly plain loaf. The bake is where bread machines fall short (in my experience) so doing just that part in the oven bridges most of the gap. Easy clean up, low effort, good results.
fulafel 7y ago
White wheat flour is not that good for you, but of course it's an easy starting point. Try some healthier receipes next time if you start with this.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
“nothing fancier than a dutch oven” .. lol I can’t afford to live in an apartment with a large enough stove to accommodate any kind of standard dutch oven. That’s as an L6 engineering manager at a large profitable tech company. Even with high salary and equity, I am entirely priced out of apartments with “normal” kitchen space or appliances.
- deleted 7y ago
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- kasey_junk 7y ago
  My only oven is a https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/ovens/bov900.html https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/ovens/bov900.html It fits a 5 qt Lodge Dutch Oven just fine. It actually works better for baking than a full sized oven because it’s easier to keep a consistent temp.
dpau 7y ago
I highly recommend just reading the book "Flour Water Salt Yeast", which is where this recipe comes from: https://kensartisan.com/flour-water-salt-yeast https://kensartisan.com/flour-water-salt-yeast
seiferteric 7y ago
Be warned that high temperatures can crack the enamel off of enamel coated dutch ovens. Found this out the hard way... Now I only use that one for bread. Best to use a un-coated one for bread if you have one.
scjody 7y ago
I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I've been using this method on and off for years with great results. In fact I'm just finishing off eating a few slices from a loaf that just came out of the oven now! The idea is that you pre-make dough in batches and refrigerate. Then on baking day (every 2-3 days for me) you shape a loaf and bake it. All the baking day tasks add up to less than 5 minutes spread over a couple of hours, and the prep is really quick too! The basic recipe is the best starting point: https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/ https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-br...
- showerst 7y ago
  Seconding this! The recipe is also really forgiving compared to many others.
Tade0 7y ago
I used to do "bread" (just 20 minutes of growing in a warm place instead of leaving it overnight). The result was, well, not amazing, but it served its purpose: https://wringing.it/chleb.jpg https://wringing.it/chleb.jpg Best thing about home-baked bread is that you can control the ingredients, especially the amount of salt and the obvious lack of preservatives. Some recommendations: -For 260g add a flat teaspoon of sugar - yeast loves sugar, but only to a certain extent. -Instead of sprinkling the yeast, mix it with warm water and pour whilst squishing - you'll get a more even distribution. Also "yeast bombs" taste bad so you don't want that. My experience is that the end result depends greatly on the amount of squish you apply. If you play an instrument like a guitar you should have enough grip force to aerate the dough nicely.
- cyphar 7y ago
  Sugar is not needed at all for bread baking. This is sadly a common myth. The yeast used in bread making cannot digest complex carbohydrates. Sugar does serve a purpose in bread (flavour and colour -- sugars love to brown when heated) but it's not in any way a required ingredient. If you don't want your bread to be sweetened, don't add it.
  - Tade0 7y ago
    The yeast used in bread making cannot digest complex carbohydrates. Citation needed. I mean, I should've mentioned that I use brewer's yeast, but nevertheless.
    - cyphar 7y ago
      Yeah, after looking it up I don't think that explanation was right. However, I would argue the conclusion is correct though -- sugar is not a required ingredient for bread dough. The more correct explanation is that the primary source of sugar for yeast in bread dough is the starches in the flour -- adding a teaspoon of sugar won't impact the fermentation process enough to make any noticeable difference. I've tried baking doughs both ways and there really isn't any appreciable difference. Yeah, the bread with sugar tastes and browns better, but it doesn't rise any better. You also don't need to "bloom" your yeast (though it does help to do because it lets you check whether the yeast is alive or not). For other types of fermentation you do need some kind of sugar (ginger beer, Kombucha, etc). Beer also has sugar but it's in the form of boiled malts (which release a lot of sugar into the water).
socksy 7y ago
Hey OP, great loaf, and great idea to bullet point the instructions. Kinda funny how the comments here differ in tone from /r/breadit so much :) I hope it's ok if I give some unsolicited feedback: One thing I've been trying out lately which has massively improved my loaves is diverging a bit from the Forkish recipes (which I'm sure are great when done properly, but I think there's a few things you can do to make it easier). You can see at the top middle of your crumbshot that there's a big gap, where it kind of fell down a bit. This is because at the point of cooking the dough didn't have quite enough strength. There's a number of ways you can increase the strength, but I've found that folding is pretty useless IME with the flour that I've had. I've had some success with just 2-3 folds when I switched to a higher gluten flour (or just added some vital wheat gluten to my flour mix)... but I've found that a better strengthening technique before I do the folds has radically improved the strength of the gluten strands. My favourite way is the Rubaud method (check out https://youtu.be/zgz0oAhgwyg?t=72 https://youtu.be/zgz0oAhgwyg?t=72) directly after the pincer and fold step, for about 5 minutes, followed by a few minutes break, then another 5 minutes. After that, you can leave off the later folds completely, or still do them to try and eek out the last bit of ovenspring. Additionally, you can see that the loaf spread out a bit on baking. This is usually an issue of the shaping, which I had troubles with for soooo long after starting with FWSY. I found that this started to really improve when I added dough strength, but when I was starting out I was trying to duplicate what Forkish was doing and kept on failing. I think that https://youtu.be/ww78_SfGyQE?t=181 https://youtu.be/ww78_SfGyQE?t=181 is a much easier tutorial to follow — but of course, if the dough doesn't have the strength then it'll continue to be difficult. Anyway, happy baking. Best of luck finding good flours (and try out adding some wholemeal and rye to the mix stealing from the pain de campagne recipe, may be easier to find than plain white)!
- andyljones 7y ago
  Thanks very much! Yeah, I realised after Loaf #1 my folding technique needed to improve, and being a bit more energetic with the folds has given much better results (today's loaf! https://i.imgur.com/2WQYvcT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/2WQYvcT.jpg). I'd never heard of the Rubaud method though, I'll try that out tomorrow!
  - 7y ago

209 points by andyljones 7y ago

I've been taking a look at Google's search trends on occasion. The term "bread recipes" had a nice uptick after people started panic buying* flour and yeast: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bread%20recipes&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bread%20recipes&g... Though my favorite is the search trend for 'bidet': https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bidet&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=bidet&geo=US *Perhaps less sensationally: "caution buying".

Lio 7y ago

FYI: a “dutch oven” as mentioned in the article is another name for a casserole dish or Bedourie oven.

robertely 7y ago
Not exactly. Dutch Ovens are specifically chosen for their size and for being almost universally made of cast iron. Bedourie ovens would work if cast iron, but they often aren't. What most people think of as casserole dishes are just not the right size and shape.
KaiserPro 7y ago
its also when you fart in bed under the sheets.

olliej 7y ago

Honestly I’ve always used this recipe: https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/easy-crusty-french-bread/ https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/easy-crusty-french-bread/ It requires minimal kneading, and the total turn around is less than a couple of hours. Of course for both recipes the problem is that they use yeast, which most houses don’t have. For many/most houses that have baking supplies they’re almost certain to have baking soda, so a soda bread presumably works better.

jvvw 7y ago

Bread flour and yeast are almost as scarce here as loo rolls!

sneak 7y ago
Yup; I'm hearing from government and media that food supply chains are fine, yet I can't seem to find rice or flour or yeast anywhere, for going on a week now. The people who answer phones at local stores don't seem to have any idea when more is coming in. If the supply is there, you'd think it'd be straightforward to bring in a few dozen pallets of big (10-15kg) bags of rice and flour, 1 per customer, so that people can avoid coming to the store for the next month or so and avoid infecting themselves/others whilst shopping. I'm curious what the holdup is. TFA recipe looks delicious. I wish I could try it.
- klodolph 7y ago
  Supply is normal, demand is up. My guess is that panic buying will dry up fairly soon. Staff at the grocery store can find out when new stocks are coming in. The orders have already been placed, the trucks are already scheduled to arrive, and staff are scheduled to stock the shelves. It’s just a pain to answer questions from so many people. Stores here (NYC area) had stockouts in bread earlier in the week. The stockouts are happening less, they’re less severe, they’re not lasting as long. Your experience will depend on where you live, exactly which store you go to, and what time you go to the store. My personal experience is that some stores will stockout much sooner than others, e.g., Trader Joes, maybe because the clientele is more prone to panic buying, maybe because of differences in stocking. The catch here in NYC is that plenty of people just eat out and don’t know how to cook, don’t have food stocks, don’t have tools. Our household bakes bread anyway so we stock flour.
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    It's worth noting that, with the exception of the fresh vegetables imported from somewhere warm, all of the food you're going to eat during this crisis was grown, harvested, processed and preserved last fall, and the current supply chain is just moving it from the warehouses and granaries to your door.

bakoo 7y ago

If you have flour, and haven't had the chance before, this is the perfect time to get a sourdough starter going. And don't throw away the discard/leftover, it can be used as a base for all kinds of stuff, from pancakes to cupcakes!

jsilence 7y ago
Heat a some oil in the pan, roast some chopped up scallions and a little sesame seed and bake a sourdough pancake at medium heat from the discard. Delicious!

bArray 7y ago

I do a "one tin" bread process (less cleaning after) - everything gets mixed and cooked in the bread tin, with some oil added last to stop it from sticking (and adds a nice tasty crust). The process is (white or brown): 1. Fill tin half way without flour 2. Add some salt (to your taste) 3. A small layer of yeast on top (I experimented to find a few shakes of yeast is enough) 4. Pre-mix the dry mix 5. Mix with luke-warm (warm to the touch) water (keep adding water until everything is mixed) 6. Allow to rise for half hour 7. Glaze with oil to prevent sticking (all the way around) 8. Throw in an oven (from cold) at ~180 degrees 9. Wait 30-50 minutes (depending on the oven) Experiments that have worked out well: * Add a light dusting of salt to the outside * Add seeds to the outside * Bury lumps of cheese deep into the top of the bread Benefits are: * Great testing fresh bread (great having the butter melt into warm bread) * Exercises your hands quite well * Very cost effective + ingredients keep for a very long time

fyfy18 7y ago
> great having the butter melt into warm bread If you plan on keeping it (i.e. you don't eat it all at once) its best to leave it to cool before cutting it open. Even after it comes out the oven the dough in the middle continues to cook from the steam. If you cut into it too early the steam will be released leading to somewhat soggy bread.

01100011 7y ago

Ha! Quite timely. I have a 4 day old sourdough starter that is starting to bubble nicely. If you have the patience and the flour, skip the yeast packet and start a sourdough starter. I've made sourdough in the past, and generally swear by using a spray bottle filled with water to gelatinize the crust during baking, but the dutch oven approach seems nice. I ran across it earlier tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEHsvW2J6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEHsvW2J6M

jspash 7y ago
Is your starter four days old from dry/dormant? Or did you liven up a wet one? The reason I ask is my starter was purchased online and arrived as a sachet of powder. And it took at least a week if not more for it to be ready. While the thing was just beginning to activate it smelled like old socks and bad cheese with a whiff of cabbage to make things really revolting. Then one day...it smelled of bread. Even a bit buttery. And for the past six years it’s been going strong with the same mild breadth yeasty buttery smell. Anyhow what I’m saying is that 4 days seems too soon to start using in my limited experience. Apparently in the first days there are many bacteria fighting for territory and until the right ones win it’s gonna smell like death!
- 01100011 7y ago
  4 days from the start. Just flour and water. I didn't buy anything but the flour. I mixed them up, brought it outside for a bit to catch some wild bacteria and yeasts, and I've been stirring it periodically. I put it in the oven with the light on a few times to speed things up. Every day I add a bit more flour and water. It currently smells like yogurt and is full of small bubbles. I think it should be ready to use in another 2-3 days.
- Reason077 7y ago
  Yes, a new sourdough starter will go through several phases of strange and awful smells before it settles down to a consistent yummy sour yeastiness. Personally I'd question whether its worth even bothering with a dry powder starter, I just make mine with flour (mix of rye and wheat) and filtered water. The yeast is either present in the flour or is picked up naturally from the air.

jnellis 7y ago

I get my bread flour (which is gluten enriched) from a restaurant supply store. Seeing how restaurants are slowed now and not many folks know about these stores, it might be a good place to check out. Also, you don't need yeast if you just maintain a portion of the dough (a sourdough starter) in a small container in your refrigerator.

nrp 7y ago

For those unfamiliar with baking, the shared recipe is pretty much the standard crusty white bread recipe, and one that has a great effort/payoff ratio. One thing to note is that unlike most cooking where you can just sort of eyeball quantities and get something good, baking bread is chemistry. You really want to have an accurate kitchen scale to get the ingredient proportions correct by weight. Edit: Though if you are looking for a recipe to start with, I would recommend the Serious Eats one with quantities cut in half: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/08/simple-crusty-white-bread-recipe.html https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/08/simple-crusty-wh... Spraying on water before closing the dutch oven really does improve the results.

iainmerrick 7y ago
baking bread is chemistry. You really want to have an accurate kitchen scale to get the ingredient proportions correct by weight. Scales are definitely a good idea, but I don’t think the general point (“don’t mess with the recipe!”) is quite as true as people make out, at least for bread baking. You can vary the yeast, salt, fat etc a fair amount and still get decent results. Getting the hydration level right (ratio between water and flour) is the key bit. Too dry (below about 60%, meaning 60:100 water:flour) and it won’t rise. Too wet and it’ll be difficult to work (70% and up is hard) and if you don’t work it properly it’ll be too weak and again won’t rise. The whole business of folding and resting is about working with higher hydration dough.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > and if you don’t work it properly it’ll be too weak and again won’t rise. Yes, but no-knead recipes tend to be wetter and they come out okay.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    That’s what I meant about “folding and resting” at the end there, yeah. It does work but I find kneading just as easy and a lot faster, personally.
- 7y ago

ridiculous_fish 7y ago

Good place to get your sourdough started (pun intended): https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code/blob/master/basics/sourdough.md https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code/blob/master/bas...

lettergram 7y ago

Personally, I’m partial to soda bread - flour, buttermilk, salt, baking soda. Easy to make, just mix and plop in pan

iainmerrick 7y ago

You do not, repeat not have to preheat anything before putting your bread dough in the oven. Starting with a cold dutch oven makes it much easier and safer to get the dough in. Just bake for an extra 20 minutes at the start. If in doubt, overcooking is better than undercooking for bread. I’ve done this myself several times and it works great. Here’s the needed citation: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/07/05/baking-in-a-cold-dutch-oven https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/07/05/baking-in-a-... Also... I think the reason why most recipes call for preheating is very interesting! It’s all about reproducing the conditions used by professional bakers. A professional will use an oven that can inject steam to keep the bread from drying out; baking in a dutch oven simulates this. And a professional baker will keep the oven on through the whole working day; preheating simulates this, so you can use the same timings. But if you’re only baking one loaf every couple of days, rather than 200 loaves a day, you don’t necessarily have to do all this stuff. To use a classic HN analogy, it’s like a startup using all the same technology and processes as Google. Some of them are a good idea (keeping steam in the oven), some of them are premature until you’re operating at a massive scale (preheating the oven).

janekm 7y ago
Another reason is that the time it takes for the Dutch oven to come to temperature depends on a lot of parameters (size of Dutch oven, size of oven, fan or not, power of oven) so pre-heating allows for the timings to be consistent. But I agree on the safety concerns so I will try your method on my next loaf, now is not the time to get bad burn wounds.
- klodolph 7y ago
  My personal experience is that bread is sensitive enough to parameters that you’re going to have to “get to know” your equipment anyway end do some experimentation.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  Yes, timings will definitely vary. I timed how long my oven took to preheat with a cold dutch oven, and it was around 20 minutes, so that’s about how long I add. But I’ve found the timing is not super critical, the main thing is not to undercook. (Note that most recipes say things like “check for doneness, and bake for another 5 minutes if the loaf doesn’t sound hollow”.)

lmilcin 7y ago

A tip. When you make bread regularly (as in quarantine), reserve piece of the dough to add it to the dough the next day. This is guaranteed, absolutely the easiest way to have sourdough bread regularly without having to tinker with the starter. The dough is less hydration than typical starter, it is also already salted. This makes it more stable than typical 100% hydration starter. Also, it has the hydration and salt content of your final dough which has the fantastic property that it does not change your basic proportions regardless of how much you add it. This makes all calculations extremely easy.

mcnamaratw 7y ago
Agreed. The only downside is that a disagreeable sour flavor can creep into the bread if you add much of the old dough or let it rise too long. People who like 21st century vinegar-flavored bread can ignore this!
- lmilcin 7y ago
  I typically add around 10% of starter. If you can't stand sour flavor add just 5% and let it rise quickly (higher temperature) so that bacteria does not have time to grow and accumulate lactic acid.

hannob 7y ago

It's just that for the past week I've been unable to buy yeast or flour anywhere. (And right now I'm avoiding supermarkets as much as I can.)

qubyte 7y ago

It seems like everyone in this town (Brighton, UK) realised that they were about to run out of dried yeast yesterday, and there's none to buy. This morning I took to twitter with photos of the beginnings of a sourdough starter and there are a lot of photos of folk doing the same. Mine won't work though. It's Half and half strong white flour and whole buckwheat flour. The idea is that the latter will donate yeast. Or maybe it will...

jillesvangurp 7y ago
Give it time. It takes about a week to bootstrap a starter. You need to feed it every day by giving it equal amounts fresh water & flour and discarding about half of the starter. Once you have a stable starter, it's very forgiving. I tend to use pretty much all of it and then toss some flour/water into the container it used to be in. The little starter left behind in the container mixes with the flour and water and it lives on. I keep it in the fridge when I don't need it.
klimt 7y ago
I had to give it 3-4 days before I got some activity. Any flour should work as long as it is unbleached. I've had good success with just Sainsbury's strong white bread flour. It has given me a fragrant peachy starter.

gniv 7y ago

I too have been making lots of bread lately (baguettes) and have a question to which I didn't find a satisfactory answer yet. Most recipes seem to suggest baking temperature of 450-470F. But there are hints that higher is better. My oven can do 550F. Is higher better? What is the temperature used in bakeries?

scrollaway 7y ago
Try it and see, to be honest. Home ovens are unreliably different from one to the next, and tastes vary from person to person.
gogoincar 7y ago
Higher isn’t necessarily better. You are balancing how long to fully bake the dough with how dry/crisp/burnt the crust becomes. Depending on hydration, presence of steam, baking surface, etc... Deck ovens (typically used for French style baguette) are usually in the 450-500 range for baguette, but have some major differences with home ovens. Even if your oven goes up to 500 or 550, actually maintaining that internal temp can be quite difficult for a home oven, which is why many home recipes suggest turning it all the way up. Best advice is to try different things with your oven, see what difference it makes!
- gniv 7y ago
  Thanks! I will experiment. I just realized that I could also use the convection setting, which might help equalize the temp.
  - gogoincar 7y ago
    Convection is another good one to test. At least in my experience oven temps often end up lower with convection on up over 450F, because of increased exhaust (obviously depends on oven). And if you are not using a Dutch oven and maybe even if you are, it dissipates moisture much faster often leaving a duller, thinner crust and one that darkens too quickly for the bake. I have seen posts from people baking at home with convection that are really happy with it though.

jiofih 7y ago

It’s kind of sad that the internet now is a cesspool of SEO content, even coming from technical writers. This is a “quarantine bread” recipe by someone who says it’s “the first thing I’ve ever baked” and wants to teach you. The way the recipe extends with a timetable is comical. There are way simpler, no-knead recipes you can bake in a Dutch oven that will give you even better results, written by.. bakers. Good luck out there!

jastingo 7y ago
> There are way simpler, no-knead recipes you can bake in a Dutch oven that will give you even better results. Care to elaborate and/or post links to recipes? I've been baking for years and have found that the recipes with longer rise times generally produce more flavorful loaves. Yes, it's more effort and takes longer, but the payoff is a more flavorful bread. That said, if there are recipes out there that require less time AND are more flavorful, I would love to hear about them.
- mikro2nd 7y ago
  Here's one: 3 metric cups of Brown Bread Flour or Wholewheat flour, 1 sachet instant yeast (personally we have a homegrown sourdough starter, but that's a whole other topic). You can get by with a little less yeast, and with bought-in yeast I'd add about a teaspoon of sugar to get the yeast well fed. A good handful of sunflower seeds and/or pumpkin seeds if you like. I like to add about a tablespoon of linseeds. This is all optional. 1 scant teaspoon of salt. (This is not optional.) Mix all the dry ingredients, then add water to make a sloppyish dough and mix well -- you can stir it with a spoon, but not easily, and it's sticky as hell. It takes about 1.5 to 2 cups of water, but it will vary depending on the flour, how old the flour is, the weather/humidity on the day, etc. I like to dust the top of the loaf with a tablespoon or so of poppy seeds. Turn the dough into a well-greased loaf tin and bung the tin in a plastic bag. Lift the bag away from the top of the loaf otherwise the dough will stick when it rises. Warm places are good, but it's not critical, and too warm is bad. Rising time could be as short as an hour, could be as long as 3 or 4 (unusual) and depends on too many factors to enumerate here. Once you've baked a loaf or two you'll have a good idea how long it takes given your flour, yeast, weather, etc. When the dough has risen and seems ready to overflow the tin, put it into a 180C oven for 1 hour. When it comes out of the oven, immediately tip the load out of the tin and allow to cool on a rack. If the loaf won't tip easily out of the tin, you didn't grease the tin well enough. A good test of whether your loaf is 'done' is to tap the bottom with a fingertip. It should sound 'hollow' and not 'dead', but honestly, if you've never had experience with breadmaking before, you'll be hard-pressed to hear much difference. It's one of those things that comes with experience, much like the feel/consistency of dough in more complicated breads. It's very easy, takes about 5 minutes and lasts better than store-bought, but tastes so much better that shelf-life is seldom an issue. You may make a few 'flops' the first time or two you try, but they'll all be edible (nay, tasty). Keep at it. eta: I see (late) you said 'dutch oven'. Just substitute 'dutch oven' where I wrote 'tin'. I've baked many a loaf with a dutch oven (and on a fire rather than an oven) and it works every bit as well.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

You can make it with far fewer steps: 500 g flour, 400 g water straight from the cold tap(80% hydration), 8 g salt, 1 g yeast. Mix thoroughly, cover, leave for 12 hours or overnight at whatever room temperature you have. Turn out and fold over once, cover, leave to prove for two more hours. Preheat oven and pot with lid to 230 C. Drop the dough in the pot, cover cook at 230 C for 30 minutes. Take of lid, cook for another 15 minutes at 230 C. Take out and wait 30 minutes before cutting. Usually attributed to Jim Lahey, see https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread Length of time for fermentation is very non-critical and you can drop the folding and second proving without much harm.

jkern 7y ago
Yep this is how we've been doing it at my house too, and results are great.

fluxinflex 7y ago

A damper is previous even easier, only requiring floor, water, salt and a camp fire --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food) (depending on your location, a camp fire might be difficult ...)

jonplackett 7y ago

What am I missing that makes this ‘quarantine’ bread? Seems the same as baking non-quarantine bread, albeit with more steps. Personally I find this recipe way easier and also foolproof. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_crusty_83536 https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_crusty_83...

dredmorbius 7y ago
Addressed in first 'graph of article.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  Clearly I’m still being really dumb. Do you just mean that the ingredients are dense compared to the output?
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    "The ingredients are cheaper[1], denser and have a longer shelf-life than the final product, and the process of turning one into the other requires much more time than effort...." "1. If you fancy living 13th-century style, 2000kcal of home-made bread is 35p of flour, salt and yeast." In a quarantine: 1. Minimising cash expense is good. Cheaper is better. 2. Storage space is limited. Denser is better. 3. Minimising exposure risk through shopping runs is good. Longer shelf-life is better. Stock up, then live off supplies for days, weeks, or months. 4. Time is abundant. Long-running tasks are not a detriment. 5. Low effort is generally good. "Quarantine bread" minimises use of resources and exposures to risk which you'll want to minimise in a quarantine, and takes advantage of the abundant time resource.
    - jonplackett 7y ago
      Yeah I get that bread is good in a quarantine - I’m making my own every few days right now - but is this any better than just making any other bread recipe. That’s all I’m saying.

eb0la 7y ago

I wonder hoy many hackers out there are making their own bread. I started baking my own yesterday after making pizza dough while the kids were wathing a movie.

JensRex 7y ago
I've been baking for years, because despite all the fancy cuisine that exists (and I do appreciate that too), there's nothing quite like fresh warm bread with a generous layer of butter on top. It's something special that you can't buy anywhere.

Vaskerville 7y ago

No knead bread - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU

holri 7y ago

I use a panasonic bread machine at least once every week for decades now and it works really well. There is nothing better than a fresh bread.

totalZero 7y ago

Anyone else ever marvel at the fact that one of humanity's most essential foods is basically wheat foam?

ereyes01 7y ago

I couldn't find yeast easily, but I nabbed a couple bags of unbleached flour, so I've started making a sourdough starter. An entertaining and very informative series of videos on sourdough, including recipes and some basic info: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWWSiMZBLGP2UEs8w3nQDTVY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWWSiMZBLGP2...

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hypnotist 7y ago

Instant yeast, 1/12th teaspoon <-- how does one measure that kind of thing ? wouldn't it be easier and more accurate to use grams ?

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
Speaking from experience, 1/12th of a teaspoon of instant yeast is below 1 gram. So you need specialized equipment to measure this. But you can estimate 1/12th teaspoon fairly accurately.
andyljones 7y ago
It's too small to use a normal gram-accurate kitchen scale; received wisdom is that one quarter-teaspoon of instant yeast is about a gram. So a third of a gram is a twelfth of a teaspoon. Thanks for a prompt - I've now added a note in the text to this effect!
- OJFord 7y ago
  It's a lot less yeast than I usually use, but I also only let it rise for an hour or two, not overnight, so I suppose that accounts for it. Assuming for simplicity's sake that rising & proving time is directly proportional to yeast quantity; if you had a limitless supply of both yeast and time, would you suggest less yeast and longer rise, for better bread?
  - andyljones 7y ago
    Lord, I'm not really qualified; I've only been baking for a few weeks. My justification for writing this was more that I thought I could put it in a style that a new audience would be receptive to, rather than any perceived expertise on my own part. That said, received wisdom is that loooong, slow ferments give more flavourful loaves. That's usually achieved with tiny amounts of yeast and time in the fridge. But please, go ask the experts over on /r/breadit, you'll get a much more reliable answer there.
mantap 7y ago
All yeast is different so you'll have to do some trial and error regardless. In general, too much yeast is better than not enough yeast. The most important thing is that you have a consistent way of measuring yeast amounts, whether by weight or volume. And always buy the exact same yeast.

kozikow 7y ago

I just use a bread maker. Pour in a measured amount of 6 ingredients - it takes 2-3 mins max. Press a button and have a loaf of bread ready in 3-4 hours. You can even set it in the evening with a delay and have a freshly baked bread the minute when you wake up - I did it for the last couple of days.

karatestomp 7y ago
Some (most?) also have a dough setting. They’ll mix, knead, and let the dough rise (warmed, usually) for you, and notify you when they’re done. You can get about 80-90% of the way to the results of a fully manual process by doing that, then baking, especially if you’re making a fairly plain loaf. The bake is where bread machines fall short (in my experience) so doing just that part in the oven bridges most of the gap. Easy clean up, low effort, good results.

fulafel 7y ago

White wheat flour is not that good for you, but of course it's an easy starting point. Try some healthier receipes next time if you start with this.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

“nothing fancier than a dutch oven” .. lol I can’t afford to live in an apartment with a large enough stove to accommodate any kind of standard dutch oven. That’s as an L6 engineering manager at a large profitable tech company. Even with high salary and equity, I am entirely priced out of apartments with “normal” kitchen space or appliances.

deleted 7y ago
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kasey_junk 7y ago
My only oven is a https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/ovens/bov900.html https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/ovens/bov900.html It fits a 5 qt Lodge Dutch Oven just fine. It actually works better for baking than a full sized oven because it’s easier to keep a consistent temp.

dpau 7y ago

I highly recommend just reading the book "Flour Water Salt Yeast", which is where this recipe comes from: https://kensartisan.com/flour-water-salt-yeast https://kensartisan.com/flour-water-salt-yeast

seiferteric 7y ago

Be warned that high temperatures can crack the enamel off of enamel coated dutch ovens. Found this out the hard way... Now I only use that one for bread. Best to use a un-coated one for bread if you have one.

scjody 7y ago

I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I've been using this method on and off for years with great results. In fact I'm just finishing off eating a few slices from a loaf that just came out of the oven now! The idea is that you pre-make dough in batches and refrigerate. Then on baking day (every 2-3 days for me) you shape a loaf and bake it. All the baking day tasks add up to less than 5 minutes spread over a couple of hours, and the prep is really quick too! The basic recipe is the best starting point: https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/ https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-br...

showerst 7y ago
Seconding this! The recipe is also really forgiving compared to many others.

Tade0 7y ago

I used to do "bread" (just 20 minutes of growing in a warm place instead of leaving it overnight). The result was, well, not amazing, but it served its purpose: https://wringing.it/chleb.jpg https://wringing.it/chleb.jpg Best thing about home-baked bread is that you can control the ingredients, especially the amount of salt and the obvious lack of preservatives. Some recommendations: -For 260g add a flat teaspoon of sugar - yeast loves sugar, but only to a certain extent. -Instead of sprinkling the yeast, mix it with warm water and pour whilst squishing - you'll get a more even distribution. Also "yeast bombs" taste bad so you don't want that. My experience is that the end result depends greatly on the amount of squish you apply. If you play an instrument like a guitar you should have enough grip force to aerate the dough nicely.

cyphar 7y ago
Sugar is not needed at all for bread baking. This is sadly a common myth. The yeast used in bread making cannot digest complex carbohydrates. Sugar does serve a purpose in bread (flavour and colour -- sugars love to brown when heated) but it's not in any way a required ingredient. If you don't want your bread to be sweetened, don't add it.
- Tade0 7y ago
  The yeast used in bread making cannot digest complex carbohydrates. Citation needed. I mean, I should've mentioned that I use brewer's yeast, but nevertheless.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    Yeah, after looking it up I don't think that explanation was right. However, I would argue the conclusion is correct though -- sugar is not a required ingredient for bread dough. The more correct explanation is that the primary source of sugar for yeast in bread dough is the starches in the flour -- adding a teaspoon of sugar won't impact the fermentation process enough to make any noticeable difference. I've tried baking doughs both ways and there really isn't any appreciable difference. Yeah, the bread with sugar tastes and browns better, but it doesn't rise any better. You also don't need to "bloom" your yeast (though it does help to do because it lets you check whether the yeast is alive or not). For other types of fermentation you do need some kind of sugar (ginger beer, Kombucha, etc). Beer also has sugar but it's in the form of boiled malts (which release a lot of sugar into the water).

socksy 7y ago

Hey OP, great loaf, and great idea to bullet point the instructions. Kinda funny how the comments here differ in tone from /r/breadit so much :) I hope it's ok if I give some unsolicited feedback: One thing I've been trying out lately which has massively improved my loaves is diverging a bit from the Forkish recipes (which I'm sure are great when done properly, but I think there's a few things you can do to make it easier). You can see at the top middle of your crumbshot that there's a big gap, where it kind of fell down a bit. This is because at the point of cooking the dough didn't have quite enough strength. There's a number of ways you can increase the strength, but I've found that folding is pretty useless IME with the flour that I've had. I've had some success with just 2-3 folds when I switched to a higher gluten flour (or just added some vital wheat gluten to my flour mix)... but I've found that a better strengthening technique before I do the folds has radically improved the strength of the gluten strands. My favourite way is the Rubaud method (check out https://youtu.be/zgz0oAhgwyg?t=72 https://youtu.be/zgz0oAhgwyg?t=72) directly after the pincer and fold step, for about 5 minutes, followed by a few minutes break, then another 5 minutes. After that, you can leave off the later folds completely, or still do them to try and eek out the last bit of ovenspring. Additionally, you can see that the loaf spread out a bit on baking. This is usually an issue of the shaping, which I had troubles with for soooo long after starting with FWSY. I found that this started to really improve when I added dough strength, but when I was starting out I was trying to duplicate what Forkish was doing and kept on failing. I think that https://youtu.be/ww78_SfGyQE?t=181 https://youtu.be/ww78_SfGyQE?t=181 is a much easier tutorial to follow — but of course, if the dough doesn't have the strength then it'll continue to be difficult. Anyway, happy baking. Best of luck finding good flours (and try out adding some wholemeal and rye to the mix stealing from the pain de campagne recipe, may be easier to find than plain white)!

andyljones 7y ago
Thanks very much! Yeah, I realised after Loaf #1 my folding technique needed to improve, and being a bit more energetic with the folds has given much better results (today's loaf! https://i.imgur.com/2WQYvcT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/2WQYvcT.jpg). I'd never heard of the Rubaud method though, I'll try that out tomorrow!
- 7y ago