Flour + Water + Yeast + Salt
Introduction The country loaf—a rustic, hearty bread that embodies the essence of traditional baking—represents the perfect canvas for understanding bread’s fundamental principles. With just four simple ingredients—flour, water, yeast, and salt—you can create a transformative culinary experience that connects you to centuries of baking tradition. The Science Behind the Loaf Before diving into the recipe,…
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Grains are grass seeds. I know this might not sound appatising but this is the truth. Specifically, they are the seeds or fruit of the cereal grass. When these are ground very fine these seeds will become flour. As we all know flour is an essential ingrediant in bread. Now, there are other “flours” out…
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Levain: 90g unbleached all purpose flour OR 45g unbleached all purpose flour 45 g stone ground whole wheat flour Then Add 45g mature starter 90g filtered water at room temperature Mix this all together and let it sit on your counter-top, covered, until it has roughly doubled in size. Depending on the temperature of your…
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Now that you have spent time and effort developing your sourdough starter, wouldn’t it be great to “hit the save” button like on your computer? What if you could just take some starter and put it somewhere out of sight/mind, knowing that it is an exact snapshot of your starter. Well, you can by dehydrating…
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The key to sourdough bread is that we are replacing the normal levining (yeast) with naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast. The lactobacilli also is the source of sourdough’s tang. In order to gather the yeast and lactobacilli from nature, we need to have a great place for it to hang out and do its thing, this is the starter.
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Do you know the muffin man? In 2020, that probably just brings up images of SHREK. In the 19th and early 20th century, before most people had ovens in their homes, you HAD to know the muffin man if you wanted your daily fresh treat. This pre-insta-cart business was popular in England, the home of…
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Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way, bread needs yeast. The fluffy, soft, chewy texture that we love so much can /truly/ only come through some sort of fermentation, which gives us C02 which creates air-pockets in the dough — held together with gluten. Typically, yeast or natural yeast in sourdough,…
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Italians have known for a long time that their meals are not complete without wonderful bread on the table. Their solution? Focaccia. This flattened, oil slathered bread is so versitile that one could serve it plain or with all the fixings of an everything pizza. The role of Focaccia in history dates back to the…
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This is my most used, go-to bread recipe. One can use this for loaf bread, buns, pizza dough, focaccia, pretzels, etc… If you’re just getting into bread making, this is your dough code. The basics are all here. Flour — we’re using all purpose. You can find all-purpose flour anywhere. There are many options at…
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