Recipe Questions: Why do you do these things?
These questions have probably been answered various times and in various places so, if you wouldn't mind, some great links would be helpful if don't feel like explaining it all.
I am a beginning baker. I bake a ton and have been for years but I almost always follow a recipe exactly (unlike cooking where I make everything up). Now that I am learning more about different types of bread and baker's percentages, I've been experimenting with making my own recipes. So, I was wondering what effect (on taste, texture, crust, ect) these things have on bread. I've seen them all in different recipes, now I'm trying to figure which are right for my own recipes.
Thanks so much!
1. Why do you let dough rest for a bit before kneeing?
2. Why do you do multiple rises vs one rise?
3. What difference does a slow rise (in the fridge) vs normal rise (on the counter) vs quick rise (in a warm oven) make?
4. Does the order you build a dough make a difference (mix flour into liquid a little at a time, mix flour into liquid all at once, mix liquid into flour, mix everything all together, ect)?
I'm sure I have more questions but those are it for now. Thank you again. I know explaining some of the more basic points can get tedious.
On the home page of this site, on the right towards the bottom is a section called Lessons. Lesson 1 answers some of your questions, and subsequent lessons will help you to grow as a baker.
At the top of the page is a topic for book reviews. The first review says... If you are looking to buy your first artisan baking book, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice is it.
It is fine to ask questions and people on the forum are glad to help, but you will probably learn faster and have more fun with some basic research.
Good Luck.
Michael
Thanks so much. I am slowly making it through the lessons area of the site but there is so much information - some that I already know and lots that I don't so it's just a little overwhelming.
I went out and bought The Bread Baker's Apprentice today as well. It's had to know what bread books are just recipes and which are teaching without suggestions.
Thanks!
BBA is as good a book for novice bakers as you will find. You will revisit it often even after you become an accomplished baker. Bread by Jeffrey Hammelman is the standard reference book for many of the better bakers on this forum.
The Book Reviews on this site were all ( or mostly all) written by Floyd, the forum moderator, and can be relied upon for whatever purpose you are looking for in a bread book.
Michael
=== At the top of the page is a topic for book reviews. The first review says... If you are looking to buy your first artisan baking book, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice is it. ===
Personally I would suggest searching for and reading through several of the extensive book review threads that exist here on TFL. Again speaking personally, I enjoy Reinhart and TBBA but I would not recommend it as a first book (except perhaps for inspiration).
sPh
Well, it wouldn't be my first bread book - it was just one I didn't have. :)
Since you took the time to ask questions.. and I suspect you already know about the lessons - the least we can do is help to answer a few. I've read over the lessons section.. it always left me with just more questions! Besides, it makes for good conversations, if nothing else.
Multiple rises...
For me, it depends on what type of bread I'm baking.. multiple rises enhance flavor and texture, but if the bread I'm baking doesn't require that, then it's just not needed. For example, a dinner roll or sandwich bread.. I'm not sure why you'd need multiple rises. For a Baguette, where you want the texture, holes, and crispy crust.. then yes, an aging process via multi rises is called for.
Resting before kneading. I do this only when the recipe calls for it. I suppose it helps fully hydrate the dough and lets it begin to form gluten. Good question though! Some people wait to add salt to this stage. I have never found that necessary, but some swear by it.
The rise... keep in mind that generally, the slower the riser the better the flavor. Some fast rise recipes - you can really have a strong yeasty flavor. I like a dough that ferments overnight usually. I do this with almost everything I bake these days, but sometimes we simply don't plan that far ahead!
The order at which you add things - I think that depends once again on what you're making. A Brioche dough calls for kneading in of butter, a little at a time. You wouldn't get the same result if you added it at the beginning of a mix. Some, like Jason's Ciabatta bread here on this site.. just toss everything together and let it go to mix.. perfectly fine. There are some doughs that were designed specifically for certain ingredients to be added in a special order, but for the most part (especially if using instant yeast), it generally doesnt make too much of a different.
I would most always follow a recipe specifically especially when baking. Baking is as much of a science as it is an art form or a culinary passion. So, if your salt kills your yeast or you have lumpy dough.. it could be that you didn't follow the directions.
There is also a great search function here.. you can usually find whatever you're looking for if you have future questions. There are hundreds of blogs and discussions here from A-Z.
Good luck and enjoy your baking. This is an exciting time!
Yeah, the lessons section definitely has a ton of information. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my post.
I like to let dough rise overnight in the fridge as well - good to know that it can enhance the flavor.
I do follow directions, but I love to create as well. I could do recipe after recipe and still not find exactly what I'm looking for (or my husband or my kids, ect) so knowing the science behind it all allows me to start branching out and experimenting. And you never know - my next experiment could be amazing and I'd share it with all of you! ;)
Don't overlook the suggestion from MichaelH for adding BBA (http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292728500&sr=8-1) to your library. It is, IMO, a "must have", especially for the new baker.
I picked it up today! It's hard to tell which books are going to be all about the recipes or all about the learning so thanks for the suggestion!
Hi,
When I started making my melon pan - essentially a brioche covered in pastry dough - I looked a bit into this. I got most of my ideas out of Bertinet's books Dough and Crust, and Peter Reinhardt's Bread Baker's Apprentice.
My findings:
Salt: attracts water and dreaws it away from gluten formation and hydration of yeast and flour. If you need a good gluten development, add salt halfway through kneading. (Bertinet recomments this for sourdoughs)
Sugar (for sweet doughs): Draws a way a lot of water. Again, if you want good gluten development, add sugar later. (The dough gets really messy at this stage but comes together quickly...)
Fat: This is an interesting one. Fat encapsulates the proteins. Added early it somewhat inhibits gluten formation and you get a more even, cake-like texture. Added late it encapsulates the gluten sheets, and you get that flakey texture, like in brioche.
Best Wishes,
Juergen
Bertinet's books are on my wishlist, as was Reinhardt's. But, after several recommendations here, I picked up the later today.
Great findings. One of the staple breads in our house are my biscuits. My husband must have sat through dozens and dozens of biscuits while I was developing my recipe (perhaps this is why he is now on a diet). So I find it interesting that the flakey texture is accomplished by adding fats late in the mixing as i cut my butter into the flour and then add liquids... now that I think about it though, croissants add butter last and biscuits are definitely more on the cake side of things than flakey like croissants are...
More to consider! But thank you. I love learning new things which enable me to further my baking/cooking.
Bertinet uses an advanced technique - slap and fold. Definitely can be intimidating unless you're used to kneading, but his brioche dough for cinnamon rolls is well worth all the work. I would recommend not only Reinhardt's BBA book, but also Bread: A Bakers Book of Techniques and recipes.
Above all, don't get too caught up in all this technique and science. You really can just relax and enjoy the process.. it really doesn't have to be rocket science. Most of all, if you too caught up in it, you can lose confidence when some things don't turn out just perfectly.
I've seen lots of users here come and go and I wonder if they just took on too much.. too fast. I've been baking for as long as I can remember.. sometimes simpler is just better.
Hi,
I am fairly new to this site and not quite sure what techniques are "advanced" or "difficult", I am learning with every loaf I bake.
After I got Bertinet's Dough I watched his movie on my commute from Brighton to London and back - about 10 times.
This was enough for me to get the hang of his folding technique and boost my production and waistline ;-)
Just to mention - the movie shows him making Baguettes from start to finish, the "working the dough" stage is not cut short!
I hear you. Sometimes it's nice to just follow a good simple recipe - that's how I feel about those no-knead artisan breads or quick breads - heck, even a good pancake! But, trying to create my own recipes means I really need to understand why certain things are added or done. Plus, I am one of those people who really enjoys knowing the history/origin of anything I am involved in.
It's funny because I was raised by a chef and a scientist, an interesting combo but, when it came to baking, it created a lot of discussion. Looking back, baking was very limited in our home, I imagine because there was little agreement.
Just going to add my endorsement for Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Bakers Apprentice. There is a reason why they recommend it as your first. It's not just recipes, it explains why things work and how they work. Great book, and with TFL to help with great answers like you get above, you are well on your way to understanding!
Joanne
Thank you! I ran out and bought the book today after all these glowing recommendations. I had it on my wishlist but decided it just couldn't wait!
An autolyse is simply time for the water to be absorbed into the flour, it helps when it comes time to knead the dough. It can be anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, and there is much speculation as to whether to add the yeast or not. I add it, but only wait 30 minutes before starting my kneading.
The dough needs to rest at different stages to prevent damage to the gluten that you have taken so much time to develop. During shaping is the most common time to allow rests for this purpose. When your dough feels like it is fighting the shaping you are doing, try letting it rest for ten minutes covered and then try again. It can make a big difference.
As for more than one rise, someone said it perfectly the other day, most enriched doughs really don't need a lot of extra rises to pull the flavor out of the wheat. Like dinner rolls that are made with white flour, butter, eggs, milk etc, they get more of their flavor from the things that are added. It's the lean doughs that require long fermentation, to draw the good flavors from them. They rely on the wheat for their flavor, and in the case of sourdough the bacteria that cause it to be sour.
Joanne
I'll have to do more reading about autolyse. It's a new concept for me.
I think I'm understanding resting time now. I really liked the muscle/human body analogy above. Does resting time have anything to do with dough temperature though?
Good rule of thumb for rises as well: lean breads need extra rise time. I'll put that in my notebook.
Thanks so much!
It's an exciting time, but it can also be frustrating.. so take your time. Start with EASY recipes and techniques. Buy a scale! I can't count how many new bakers started out with all their book reading, only to take on the baguette as their first loaf - then quit in frustration!
Baking isn't really rocket science, although many might argue that. To me, if you don't have passion for it and a wee bit of natural ability, no amount of book reading will get you the "perfect loaf". It is your passion that will drive you, your expertise comes from experience. I teach alot of new bakers how to get started and the one thing I tell them is to RELAX and HAVE FUN.. above all, don't make this more difficult than it is. As much as I enjoy this site, TFL is not a site I recommend to brand new bakers because it is easily intimidating. The good thing is there are alot of friendly, helpful people to ask.
And even after all my years of baking, I'm reminded all the time that there is more to learn.. that's half the fun. I am still waiting for that perfect loaf! :)
There are some awesome baking blogs too.. one of my favs is A Year In Bread www.ayearinbread.com They haven't been active since summer, but there are tons of great recipes and ideas there.. and they have great photos and easy to understand instructions.
Thanks. I know my questions might seem beginner-ish, or maybe it's because I didn't own Reinhart's book but I've actually been baking for a long time. :) It's just that now I am experimenting more than I used to. The science of baking is what excites me. I love learning more and trying new techniques. Sure, I might have a few doorstops that come from the oven but every time I bake I get one step closer to that perfect loaf (actually, for my family currently I am in search of the perfect pretzel). Thanks so much for your input.
What would you recommend? I am going through the BBA right now, and I find it awesome, but I am always looking for my next good book. Would love to hear what you think are the top books.... sigh, just what I need are more books for my over crowded bookcases! :)
Joanne
I would recommend...
that you start baking! BBA has some fantastic breads in there.. alot of fun to make them. I like Jeff Hamelman's books.. they are a bit more advanced though. At least I find them to be - but they are good.
You know, I actually recommend that you bake some online recipes. I find that there are so, so many online (like on TFL) that buying a book for the recipes is sort-of unnecessary. That being said, I am a complete book addict - not just bread books but all sorts of books. So, go to the book store and start looking. For me, what sells a book is great pictures! And I love finding books that are a little bit out of the norm - like The Little House Cookbook - there are some great rustic breads in there, plus my daughter loves it.
Here's a list of books I recommend, Jo_Jo_. Some are actually bread making books. ;.]
http://www.flournwater.com/food_020.htm
If you like to review books by author these authors are, IMO, among some of the best out there.
Jeffrey Hamelman
Peter Reinhart
Rose Levy Beranbaum
Daniel T. DiMuzio
Richard Bertinet