by Marc Vetri
Sir Galahad is a professional flour only available through food-service and bakery distributors. However, it is nearly identical to King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, which is available in almost every grocery store. When I don’t have Sir Galahad, I use K. A.’s Unbleached All-Purpose. That’s the flour we recommend for all the baking recipes in this book. If you use another brand, look for flour milled from hard red winter wheat that has 11 to 12 percent protein. King Arthur Sir Galahad has 11.4 percent protein. K. A.’s Unbleached All-Purpose has 11.7 percent protein. You could also use White Lily Bread Flour, another hard wheat flour with a similar protein content (11.7 percent). But be careful with other bread flours: some can have up to 13 percent protein, which will produce a denser loaf. Look for a bread flour with no more than 12 percent protein.
For very sturdy breads, I sometimes use durum flour. Durum is the hardest variety of wheat and has more protein than other varieties. When milled, durum flour has a pale yellow cast, while hard red winter wheats, if unbleached, are usually off-white in color. Durum is also where semolina comes from. The bright yellow endosperm of durum wheat (just under the seed coat) is coarsely ground into semolina, the key to great extruded pasta.
MEASURING
Technique in bread making is all about precision. In cooking, you’ll hear me say, “a pinch of this, a pinch of that.” Not in bread making. It needs to be exact. That’s why I include both volume and weight measurements in all of the recipes in this chapter. For the most accuracy, use the weight measurements. Volumes change from brand to brand and day to day, depending on factors like humidity and how compacted the flour or yeast is. But weights always remain constant. Buy a decent gram scale (see Sources) and measure everything on it—especially the flour. If you measure by volume instead of weight, spoon the flour into the measuring cup, then level it off with something flat like a table knife.
YEAST
This magical microorganism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been responsible for puffing up yeast breads for centuries. It feeds on sugars in the dough and gives off carbon dioxide, which makes its way into air pockets in the dough and inflates them when heated, raising the dough. I always use fresh yeast. It just seems to produce better results. In grocery stores, you’ll find it in small cakes wrapped in foil, usually in the refrigerated dairy case. Supermarket brands of fresh yeast have a texture somewhere between stiff Play-Doh and a rubber eraser. It works fine, but remember: it’s a living organism and is perishable. You must use fresh yeast within a week or two. If you bake bread often, I encourage you to use fresh yeast for the best-tasting breads and pizzas. If you don’t bake as much, you can use active dry yeast or instant yeast. I have included measurements for both fresh and instant yeast in the recipes, but here are the equivalents: 2 tablespoons (18 g) fresh cake yeast equals about 2¼ teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast or active dry yeast. When measuring fresh yeast by volume, measure packed (the way it comes when you buy it), then crumbled to mix evenly with the other ingredients. When measuring instant yeast or active dry yeast, level off the tablespoon with the flat edge of a table knife.
WATER
Most bread recipes call for warm water to help activate the yeast, but I almost always use cold water. Keep in mind that mixing bread dough creates friction. If you knead in a stand mixer, which I always do, the paddle bangs the dough against the sides of the bowl, creating heat and activating the yeast. I like to knead dough in the mixer for at least 10 minutes—often more—which is plenty of time for the yeast to wake up and smell the coffee. Whenever I use warm water, the yeast wakes up too early, and the bread rises too fast. Then it ends up overrising and flattening out when I put it in the oven. I find that cold water keeps the dough cool enough throughout the mixing that the dough can rise gradually and continue to rise high in the oven. The only time I use warm water is when making a bread starter, which isn’t kneaded but simply mixed up in a bowl. In that case, warm water (about 100 to 110°F) helps activate the yeast.
SALT
Salt can kill yeast. Understanding this is essential. If you put salt into bread dough before the yeast becomes incorporated and starts to activate, you may as well throw out the dough. This is why I mix the dough without salt first. It allows the yeast to get mixed in and start feeding on the flour. Then you add the salt and mix again. Now the yeast is spread throughout the dough, and the salt can’t dehydrate it as easily, which can ruin the dough.
For baking, I usually use fine sea salt. I use kosher salt for most other cooking, but the two are drastically different. If you measure by weight, the weights will always be the same. But if you measure by tablespoons, as most Americans do, the measurements can vary quite a bit. For instance, 10 grams of fine sea salt measures about 1¾ teaspoons, but 10 grams of Morton’s kosher salt measures a little over 2½ teaspoons, and 10 grams of Diamond Crystal kosher salt measures about 3½ teaspoons. That’s twice as much as fine sea salt. Now you see why bakers weigh everything!
To keep it straight, I’ve included both weights and volumes for salt in the baking recipes. When I call for kosher salt, measurements were taken using Diamond Crystal kosher.
STARTER
If you make a lot of bread and pizza, it makes sense to keep some starter on hand. It kick-starts the rising and gives bread and pizza crust a better texture. Starter also makes great yeast-raised waffles (my kids love them on Sundays!). To this day, I use a natural starter that I got going from wild yeasts back in 2001. It breathes life into most of my breads. What makes natural starter different from other starters is that no commercial yeast is actually stirred into the mixture. Natural starter begins with nothing but flour, water, and sugar or another sweetener (see the Natural Honey Starter for an example). The sugar attracts wild yeasts from the air and gives the yeasts something to feed on. As the yeasts grow, they give off carbon dioxide and puff up the starter with hundreds of air pockets.
To make a more contemporary starter, mix together flour, commercial yeast, and water in a big container and let it sit out overnight to ferment (see a few different ratios of these basic ingredients). After a day or so, the yeast will feed on the flour and the starter will bubble up and grow. When it puffs up with air pockets and smells nice and yeasty, it’s ready to use. This is the type of starter I use for most of my breads, like Rustic Loaf and Ciabatta. But natural starter made from wild yeasts has a sour edge that I like better in breads like Parmesan Bread and Fig and Chestnut Bread.
Remember that yeast is a living organism. To keep a bread starter alive, you have to feed the yeast now and then. That just means you scoop out some of the starter and replace it with new flour and warm water. The temperature matters because warm environments help microorganisms like yeast grow. Cold water doesn’t work as well here. That’s why if you leave your starter out at room temperature, the warm temperature will cause it to grow faster and you’ll need to feed it three times a day. Refrigerating the starter slows down the growth so you only need to feed it every other week. It’s easier to chill the starter, but you do sacrifice some aroma in the finished bread that way. Either way, to feed it, remove half the starter (bake with it, give it away, or trash it) and replace what you removed with a 50-50 mixture of flour and warm water. If you refrigerate your starter, let it warm up at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking with it. And if you forget to feed your starter for several weeks, know that it may die (shame on you!). But it will usually come back if you feed it at room temperature once a day for a few days. You can tell it has come back if it smells alive, yeasty, a little sweet, and a little sour, and has lots of bubbles. If your starter looks flat or smells really funky, it’s probably dead. Just toss it out and start a new one.
MIXING AND KNEADING
I always mix bread in a stand mixer. It makes it so much easier. Just keep in mind that you can’t make the batch too big, or it will slow down the mixer and the dough won’t mix right. The dough should take up only 25 to 35 percent of the mixer bowl. If you are serious about bread, you can
buy a larger mixer. Anvil (Vollrath) makes a great 10-quart mixer that is perfect for the advanced home baker. Otherwise, the best you can do is a 5- or 6-quart KitchenAid. The recipes in this book were tested on a 6-quart KitchenAid, which works great as long as you don’t overload it. Mix and knead in two batches if necessary.
Of course, if you don’t have a stand mixer, you can knead the dough by hand on a lightly floured board. For most yeast breads, what you’re looking for is a smooth, satiny texture. It usually takes a few more minutes to achieve this texture with hand-kneading than with mixer-kneading. But even when I’m mixer-kneading, I take the dough out and knead by hand a little to make sure the texture is right. The process requires some trial and error, because of all the variables like temperature, humidity, flour quality, yeast activity, and how dense you want the texture of the bread to be. Baking good bread isn’t as simple as following a formula. You have to find out what works best for you, which is part of the fun of getting all floury in the first place.
PROOFING AND SHAPING
Proofing is the process of “proving” that the yeast is still alive and active. This typically happens when you set aside the dough and it bubbles up and rises. But if you use active dry yeast, which comes in large dry granules, you have to dissolve the yeast with water and a little sugar first. Dissolve about ½ teaspoon sugar in ½ cup of water from the recipe, then sprinkle the active dry yeast on top and let it sit for 5 minutes. If the yeast starts to bubble and grow, it’s alive. If it doesn’t, the yeast is proven dead. Check the expiration date of your yeast and try to use the freshest yeast possible. I usually crumble fresh yeast and mix it right into the flour and water in the mixing bowl. You can do the same thing with instant yeast, which dissolves faster than active dry yeast and doesn’t need to be mixed with water first. As long as the fresh or instant yeast hasn’t reached its expiration date, it should be active. I recommend using instant yeast such as SAF or Red Star.
To raise the dough, also called “proofing,” professional bakers use temperature-controlled proofing boxes. These boxes are precise and constant because flavor develops in the bread dough as it gradually rises over a period of hours. If the temperature gets too hot, the yeast gets so active that the dough rises too rapidly and it doesn’t have time to develop flavor. At home, just get creative. Most home bakers put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm spot, about 90°F. The spot could be a gas oven with the pilot light on, or on a hot day, it could be outside. Some modern ovens have a proofing mode that sets a perfect temperature inside your oven. Either way, the temperature should be consistent and warm enough for the yeast to become active but not so hot that the heat overactivates the yeast or kills it (avoid going above 110°F). Even if it’s a little cooler, it’s okay. It’ll just take a little longer for the dough to fully rise.
Once it’s risen, you can shape the dough into nearly any shape you like, from large round or oval loaves to individual square or triangular rolls. Most of my recipes call for simple round or oval loaves, but feel free to experiment with shapes. Just be gentle when shaping the risen dough. You allow dough to rest and rise because you are creating air pockets. If you throw the dough around, you are going to flatten out all your hard work.
BAKING AND STEAMING
Brick-oven breads and pizzas are the best. The bricks stay incredibly hot, throwing the heat back onto the bread and absorbing some moisture to create a thick crust. The next best thing is a baking stone. That’s what I use in my oven at home. Pick up a large stone about the size of your oven rack. You have to get it pretty hot, so preheat the stone in the oven for at least 30 minutes before putting bread dough on it. If you have convection, turn it on when baking pizza. It will blow hot air onto the top of the pizza to give you that charred and bubbly crust on top. If you don’t have convection, you can heat a second stone on an upper rack above the stone you’re baking on. The second stone will radiate heat down over the top of the pizza and help bubble up the crust.
For yeast breads, I like to add a blast of steam at the beginning of baking. The steam forms a layer of water on the dough that slows down the formation of the crust, allowing the dough to expand more and rise higher. Sugars on the surface of the dough also dissolve into the water, and when the water evaporates, the sugars melt and brown, creating a dark, delicious crust.
Some home ovens have a steaming option. If yours does, steam the bread for the first 20 minutes of baking. If not, the easiest way to get the steaming effect is to spritz the dough all over with water when it goes into the oven. Then spritz it again after about 10 minutes of baking. Another good method is to preheat a cast-iron pan in the oven. When the dough goes in, pour a cup of water into the hot pan and immediately close the door. After 15 to 20 minutes, take out the pan to stop the steaming so the dough can begin to dry out on the surface and develop a thick, browned crust.
As I said earlier, bread-baking is incredibly adaptable, which is why so many people around the world do it so many different ways. If you pay attention to all the little things like using cold water, adding salt after the yeast is mixed in, using a baking stone, and steaming during the early part of baking, you should be able to turn out awesome breads and pizzas in no time.
Biga starter
Biga STARTER
Biga is Italian for “chariot,” referring to the way a bread starter drives the yeast throughout bread dough. Starter gives dough a better texture and allows it to stretch a little farther as it rises, keeping it from breaking too soon. I use this simple starter in all sorts of breads like Rustic Loaf and Ciabatta. Different doughs call for different flours and different ratios of flour to water, so I always keep a few tubs of various starters on hand. But it’s easy enough to make starter on the spot whenever you need it. Check out the variations below for a few of them.
MAKES ABOUT 5 CUPS (1 KG)
4 cups (500 g) high-protein flour, such as King Arthur Sir Galahad or Unbleached All-Purpose
½ teaspoon (2 g) packed fresh cake yeast, or ¼ teaspoon (1 g) instant yeast
2¼ cups (500 g) warm water (100 to 110°F)
Choose a large bowl that’s about five times the volume of the ingredients. Mix the flour, yeast, and water in the bowl until well combined. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 12 hours, or until almost tripled in volume. Now, it’s ready to use. (Keep the timing in mind. If you plan to bake bread in the morning, get the starter going early the night before.)
When making bread daily, store the starter at room temperature and feed three times a day. If baking less frequently, store it in the refrigerator and feed every other week. To feed the starter, scoop out 2 cups (bake with it, give it away, or trash it) and replace it with 2 cups high-protein flour and 2 cups warm water (100 to 110°F), stirring until blended. Most of the bread recipes in this book call for 1 to 2 cups of starter, so you can use that amount to bake with, then replace it with a 50-50 mix of flour and water.
DURUM STARTER
Use 2⅔ cups (335 g) durum flour, 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons (15 g) packed then crumbled fresh cake yeast or 2 teaspoons (7 g) instant yeast, and 1¼ cups (280 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). To feed, scoop out 1½ cups (300 g) and replace it with 1 cup (125 g) durum flour and ¾ cup (160 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). Makes about 3 cups (about 600 g).
DURUM FOCACCIA STARTER
Use 3½ cups (440 g) durum flour, 2 tablespoons (18 g) packed then crumbled fresh cake yeast or 2¼ teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast, and 2 cups (440 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). To feed, scoop out 1 cup (215 g) starter and replace it with 1 cup (125 g) durum flour and ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon (175 g) warm water (110 to 110°F). Makes about 4¼ cups (850 g).
NATURAL HONEY STARTER
Use ¾ cup (220 g) whole wheat flour, 1¼ cups (275 g) warm water (100 to 110°F), and 1 tablespoon (21 g) honey. DAY 1: Mix the ingredients, cover loosely, and let sit in a warm spot (90°F) overnight. DAY 2: Take 1 cup (250 g) of starter and mix in ¾ cup
plus 2 tablespoons (110 g) whole wheat flour and ⅔ cup (140 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). Throw away the rest. Cover and let sit in a warm spot overnight. DAY 3: Mix ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon (100 g) high-protein flour, such as King Arthur Sir Galahad or Unbleached All-Purpose and 7 tablespoons (100 g) warm water (100 to 110°F) into all of the starter. Let sit in a warm spot overnight again. To feed, scoop out half of the starter and replace it with ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon (100 g) high-protein flour, such as King Arthur Sir Galahad or Unbleached All-Purpose, and 7 tablespoons (100 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). Makes about 3 cups (700 g).
NATURAL SOURDOUGH STARTER
Use 1¼ cups (160 g) high-protein flour, such as King Arthur Sir Galahad or Unbleached All-Purpose, ¼ cup plus 1½ tablespoons (40 g) whole wheat flour, and 7 tablespoons (100 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). DAY 1: Mix the ingredients, cover loosely, and let sit in a warm spot (90°F) overnight. DAY 2: Take all of the starter (about 1⅓ cups or 300 g), and mix it with 1¾ cups (220 g) high-protein flour, ⅔ cup (80 g) whole wheat flour, and ⅔ cup plus 1 tablespoon (150 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). Cover and let sit in a warm spot overnight. DAY 3: Take all of the starter (about 3⅓ cups or 750 g) and mix it with 4¾ cups (600 g) high-protein flour, 1¼ cups (150 g) whole wheat flour, and 1⅔ cups (375 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). To feed, scoop out 2¼ cups (500 g) of the starter (use the rest or chuck it) and mix it with 3 cups plus 3 tablespoons (400 g) high-protein flour, ¾ cup plus 1½ tablespoons (100 g) whole wheat flour, and 1⅛ cups (250 g) warm water (100 to 110°F). Makes about 5⅔ cups (1.25 kg).
