March Recipe: Let's Bake Bread

I borrowed a book from the library titled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. You'll see from the Amazon reviews that it's a very popular book.

 

Living in Paris and having fresh bread available all day every day spoiled me. Living in London is almost the opposite (in many ways beyond bread), and I think it's very hard to find good bread. There are places, sure, but they, like most things in London, are a journey. Nothing is close in London. So, I'm trying to bake more of my own bread to see if that's one thing I can recreate from Paris (macaroons are next). 

This book has a ton of bread recipes, but I haven't gotten past the master recipe. Let's start there.

The Master Recipe: Boule

Makes four 1-pound loaves.

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tablespoons granulated yeast
1 1/2 Tablespoons kosher or other salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour (I use bread flour b/c that's what I have)
Flour or cornmeal for dusting

1. Warm the water slightly: It should feel like your body temperature, or around 100 degrees. Cold water is okay too, it will take the dough longer to rise.

2. Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl, or, preferably in a reasonable, lidded (not airtight) plastic food container or bucket. Don't worry about having the yeast all dissolve. I use a plastic mixing bowl and cover it with a dinner plate.

3. Mix in the flour - kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once, measuring it with dry-ingredient measuring cups. If you have a food processor with a dough attachment, use it. I use a wooden spoon because I don't have a food processor with a dough attachment. You're finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches.

4. Allow to rise. Cover with a lid (not airtight!). Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse, aprox. 2 hours. Longer rising times, up to 5 hours will not harm the result. Then refrigerate the dough for at least three hours, and preferably overnight. 

5. Don't knead the dough, cloak it. Sprinkle the refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1 lb. (grapefruit size) piece of dough. Add a little flour to prevent sticking. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will work itself out. This step shouldn't take you longer than 60 seconds.

6. Rest the loaf for a total of 40 minutes on a counter or cutting board.

7. After 20 minutes of rising, preheat your oven to 450 degrees F and put your baking stone or sheet tray in the oven.

8. After 20 more minutes (for a total of 40 minutes rising and 20 minutes pre-heating) slash the bread across the top in an x pattern.

9. Bake with steam. Move the dough onto your Silpat or pizza stone and quickly move it into the oven. Pour about 1 cup of warm tap water into a broiler tray. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Allow to cool before slicing.

10. Store the remaining dough in your refrigerator for up to 14 days. Bake the remaining loaves when you have time.