The Baking Answer Book (46 page)

5.
Sprinkle the dough with flour. Use a sharp serrated knife or a razor blade to slash an X, ½ inch deep, into the loaf. Remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Use two hands to carefully transfer the parchment, with the dough still on it, to the pot.

6.
Cover the pot with the lid and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake until the loaf is well browned, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Lift the bread, still on the parchment, from the pot and transfer it to a wire rack to cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving.

Q
Is it better to knead dough by hand or by machine?

A
Kneading dough by hand is a good way to feel how gluten develops. But hand-kneading isn’t any more effective at developing the gluten structure of dough than kneading by machine. For large batches and very wet doughs, a heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook is a godsend. Simply set the mixer to the speed recommended in your recipe and knead away, scraping down the dough hook and sides of the bowl as necessary. Don’t leave the kitchen while the dough is kneading. Even the largest KitchenAid mixer will walk across the counter while working on a stiff bread dough, and you don’t want it to tumble to the floor while you’re not looking.

If you have a bread machine, you can use it to knead your dough even if you won’t be using it to bake. Before adding your ingredients to the machine, make sure that it can accommodate your recipe.

Some bread-baking experts recommend kneading dough in a food processor. The food processor fitted with a metal blade (the plastic blade won’t be able to cut through the dough) will knead your dough in seconds, not minutes, so if you are in a hurry this is a method worth considering. But keep in mind a few caveats: The standard food processor will hold only half as much dough as a mixer can; don’t use the food processor for a recipe that calls for more than 3½ cups of flour. Mix the dough in two stages: First, pulse the ingredients two or three times until a rough dough forms; then let it stand in the work bowl for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the yeast and flour to fully
hydrate; then pulse several times until the dough is smooth and elastic and passes the windowpane test (see below).

Q
How can I tell if I’ve kneaded the dough sufficiently?

A
After you’ve kneaded your dough for as long as your recipe recommends, give your dough the “windowpane” test: Pinch off a golf ball–size piece and stretch it until it is thin enough to see through. If it tears before you can stretch it enough, continue to knead, checking every two minutes or so until it can stretch without tearing.

Q
How long should it take to rise?

A
After you knead your dough, you will set it aside to allow the yeast to proliferate. Times for this first rising range widely, depending upon what kind of yeast or preferment you have used, how warm or cool it is in your kitchen, how humid it is outside, and a host of other variables. Instead of going by the clock, learn to spot the signs of a properly fermented dough:

Wheat dough will almost double in volume (loaves made with other grains, such as rye, won’t grow as much).

The dough will spring back, not deflate, when poked with a finger.

It will be less sticky than when first mixed.

You may be able to see air bubbles underneath the surface.

After loaves are shaped, they are set aside for a final rise, called “proofing.” Most recipes will give you a ballpark estimate for how long the loaves will take to proof, but again, the same variables that affect fermentation time affect proofing. A good recipe will give you visual clues particular to the bread in question to help you decide whether it is time to bake.

Q
What will happen if I let the dough rise too long?

A
It is certainly possible to overferment and overproof your dough. This happens when the yeast exhausts its food supply and becomes weak. Dough that has been allowed to ferment or proof too long won’t rise to the height it should, and the loaves will be dense and heavy with an off flavor.

Overproofed loaves may collapse. If this happens after they go into the oven, there’s nothing you can do. If it
happens before baking, however, you can gather up the dough, reshape it, and let it proof one more time. The yeast will be reinvigorated and will inflate the air pockets in the dough again.

Beginning bakers are much more likely to underferment and underproof their dough than to overferment and overproof, due to lack of experience combined with a lack of patience. Most wheat doughs, with their strong gluten structure, can withstand a little bit of overproofing and still rise high. (Softer doughs made with lower-protein flours need to be watched more carefully, because they don’t have a strong gluten structure to rely on.) But without adequate time for the yeast to feed and produce the carbon dioxide that inflates the bread, your loaves won’t rise no matter how much gluten they have. When in doubt, give them a little longer than you think necessary and your breads will probably be airier and taller.

Q
I’ve just shaped my dough, and now I have to leave the house unexpectedly. Can I refrigerate or freeze it and bake it later?

A
Freezing unbaked bread dough is risky, because at temperatures below freezing some of the yeast may die. But many shaped loaves can be refrigerated for up to 12 hours before baking. This is a technique called retarding, and not only does it give you some flexibility with baking times, but it gives many breads a more interesting flavor because of the
build-up of flavorful acids during the long, slow fermentation. Many recipes specifically call for retarding the dough to give bread a particular character. The classic recipe for bagels comes to mind (see below).

To retard your loaves, place them on a parchmentlined baking sheet, sprinkle with flour, and drape the sheet with plastic wrap, completely covering the loaves. Then refrigerate them for up to 12 hours. A few hours before you are ready to bake, remove them from the refrigerator and let them come back to room temperature before proceeding with proofing.

Not all doughs can be refrigerated for such long periods. The acid build-up that is the result of retarding may compromise the less sturdy gluten structure of breads made with nonwheat flours such as rye. Keep such bread doughs in the refrigerator for no longer than an hour or two before proofing to ensure a healthy rise.

Q
Why are bagels parboiled before they’re baked?

A
I have no idea what the origin of this technique is, but I can tell you that boiling gives bagels their unique look. Bagel dough is retarded in the refrigerator rather than fermented on a countertop, cooling it down to well below a standard room temperature of 70°F (21°C). So parboiling the bagels before putting them in the oven brings the interior temperature of the dough up high enough so the yeast will
become active in the oven. At the same time, parboiling kills the yeast close to the surface, solidifying the crust and limiting the rise so that the bagels keep their characteristic donut shape. When you see bagels that have risen so much that they have no hole in the middle anymore, you know they weren’t parboiled as they should have been. Finally, parboiling gives bagels (and their close cousins, yeast-risen pretzels) a beautiful shine by gelatinizing the starches on the surface of the dough before the bagels go into the oven. The pregelatinized starches turn shiny and golden in the oven.

Q
Is scoring the dough before it goes into the oven purely decorative or does it serve another purpose?

A
There are bakers who have made special score marks their signatures, literally signing their identities by slashing the dough in a distinctive way. But whether they slash creatively or with a plain X, they are also doing something to control the rise of the dough as it bakes. Bread dough that contains a good amount of lively yeast is going to expand one way or another in the oven. Rather than have the dough rupture at odd or weak points, so it resembles volcanic rock, bakers slash the dough at certain points to dictate exactly where the expansion will take place, and to create a pleasing pattern or design.

SHAPING BREAD

There are reasons that most bread dough isn’t just thrown onto the baking stone in rough pieces, but is rather shaped into tidy rounds, logs, or loaves before being baked. Not only does shaping make bread more aesthetically pleasing, it is one more opportunity to build that gluten and so the dough will rise up instead of spreading all over the oven.

There are dozens of ways to shape bread dough, most of them based on the two most common shapes, the boule (a simple round) and the baguette. Learn these and you will be able to make a batard (a torpedo shape), an epi (sheaf of wheat), a fougasse (ladder), a couronne (a crown), and many others. No matter what shape you hope to achieve, try not to overwork the dough, or you risk bursting some of the air pockets necessary to make the dough rise. It is better to have an imperfectly shaped, awkward-looking baguette that rises well than an elegant one that is tough and small.