—CHAPTER FIVE—
Yeast Breads
Bread is one of the first foods of which we have a written record. It fills the stomach and tastes wonderful. Our earliest food memories probably include bread in some incarnation; it follows us through life like a constant friend, happy to stay in the background, but always present. Is there a better example of comfort food than warm bread and butter?
In years gone by, home bakers universally made bread at home. These days it’s much more rare, as cookies, muffins, and other sweet treats have taken center stage in the kitchen of the modern baker.
But the plain truth is, here at King Arthur we find yeast bread easier to make than cake or biscuits or pie. Yes, it takes longer, but unlike other baked goods, its schedule is flexible. Start it in the morning, finish it at night; speed it up in a warm oven, slow it down in the refrigerator. It will happily bend itself to your agenda. And with the easy access most of us have to time-saving appliances—stand mixers, food processors, and so on—even the vigorous 10 minutes or so of required kneading can be taken out of your hands, quite literally. Good homemade bread is a goal any baker can easily achieve.
And what a broad landscape lies before us! Yeast bread is open to all kinds of variations. Even just among the categories of white, whole wheat, rye, and whole grain, there are myriad variations on each of those themes, ranging from white sandwich bread to crusty baguettes, light sandwich rye to raisin pumpernickel, and honey oatmeal bread to 10-grain loaf. And what’s fascinating is, even when you’ve drilled right down to, say, rye bread, there’s still not just one “right” recipe. You can use light, medium, or dark rye flour, or pumpernickel; add caraway, mustard, fennel or anise seeds; begin with a starter, or add pickle juice or sauerkraut; shape it into a sandwich loaf or a buxom round.
Join us as we explore the wonderful world of bread. You’ll be helping to carry on a piece of the world’s culture that’s as ancient as the first tilled fields and as welcoming as a piece of warm buttered toast.
Seasons of Change
Flour is porous, like a sponge. When the air around it is dry, flour will be dry. When the air is humid, flour will absorb the moisture in it. Just as a dry sponge can soak up more water than a wet sponge, so can dry flour. You’ll find that during cold, dry months you’ll often need more liquid when making a dough, and in hot, humid months, a bit less. Find a dough consistency that works well for you, then snap a mental picture of it; that’s the consistency you’re after all year long, no matter how the balance of ingredients may change.
You’ll also find that, on rainy or stormy days (great days for baking anyway), when the barometric pressure is low, your bread will rise more quickly than it does ordinarily. This is because the dough doesn’t have as much air to push against it; the air is not as dense or heavy as it is on clear days.
Fitting Bread into Your Schedule
The amount of yeast you use in your bread dough has a significant bearing on how quickly it will rise, and thus on your own schedule. By reducing the yeast, you ensure a long, slow rise rather than a series of quick rises and resultant falls.
You can reduce the yeast in most types of bread recipes (sweet breads being the exception) to produce a dough that will rise slowly over a long period of time, rather than one that rises for an hour in the bowl and half an hour in the pan before baking. This long rise is often much more convenient than the regular, short-rise method. In recipes calling for a packet of yeast (2¼ teaspoons), we recommend cutting the amount back to ½ to 1 teaspoon of instant yeast, depending on how long you want to let the dough ferment before the final shape-rise-bake process; ½ teaspoon would give you lots of flexibility, such as letting the dough rest for 16 to 20 hours; 1 teaspoon would be a good amount for an all-day or overnight rise (10 hours or so, at cool room temperature). If you’re using active dry yeast, which isn’t as vigorous as instant yeast, we’d up the range to ¾ to 1½ teaspoons.
The easiest, safest dough to subject to a long, slow rise is one containing only a small amount of sugar, if any, and no dairy products (eggs, milk, butter, etc.). Sweet doughs are notoriously slow risers, anyway; by cutting back on the yeast, you’re just slowing them down even more. Sweet doughs are best slowed down by refrigeration, rather than reducing the amount of yeast. Also, doughs that contain dairy products (and shouldn’t, for food safety reasons, be left at room temperature all day) should also be refrigerated if you want to slow them down.
Whole grain doughs are naturally slow-rising, due to the bran in the grain, which interferes with gluten development. If you’d like to slow down a familiar whole grain recipe, then do cut back on the yeast; if you’re making a particular whole grain recipe for the first time, however, we recommend using the amount of yeast indicated and seeing just how long it takes the dough to rise fully. Often it takes longer than the directions say, and there’s probably no need to slow things down even more.
Basic flour-water-yeast-salt doughs (which may also contain a bit of oil and/or sugar), such as those for baguettes, focaccia, and pizza, are the best candidates for an all-day countertop rise. Keep in mind, however, the vagaries of your own kitchen. If you bake bread all the time, your kitchen is full of wild yeast and any dough you make there will rise vigorously. If you seldom bake bread, or are just beginning, your kitchen will be quite “sterile”; your dough won’t be aided by wild yeast and will rise more slowly than it would in a more “active” kitchen. We’ve found that here in our King Arthur kitchen, where we bake bread every day, we can cut the yeast back to 1/16 teaspoon in a 3-cup-of-flour recipe and get a good overnight rise. In a kitchen where bread is seldom baked, we needed ½ teaspoon of yeast to get the same effect. Use your judgment in rating your own kitchen as to “yeast friendliness.”
Keep in mind, also, that this slow rise usually extends to the shaped loaf, as well as dough in the bowl. Once you’ve shaped your loaf, covered it, and set it aside to rise again, it may take 2 hours or more, rather than the usual 1 to 1½, to rise fully and be ready for the oven.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule for the amount of yeast you should use in any particular recipe. It depends on how slow (or fast) you want the dough to rise; the composition of the dough itself (whole grain, sweet/dairy, or “straight”); and your kitchen. Be flexible and experiment; you’ll soon discover the formula that will work just right for you, producing a ready-to-shape dough when you’re ready to shape it.
How Does Yeast Work?
First, what is it? Yeast is a “thallophyte,” a complete, smaller-than-we-can-see, one-celled fungus. Each cell is the same; that is, as they grow, they don’t become differentiated to form more complex organisms like plants or animals. The name for all strains of bakers’ yeast (with the exception of sourdough or wild yeast) is Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
The tiny pellets you see in a container of dried yeast are not single yeast cells, but agglomerations of many cells. It takes about 25 billion of them to make a gram (1/28 of an ounce). One yeast cell may be tiny, but in huge numbers they can certainly make their presence known—primarily by their waste products, which are very valuable to the baker. The most important waste products are carbon dioxide, which leavens bread; alcohol, which contributes to the bread’s aroma; and organic acids, which give it flavor.
A mixture of flour and water creates one of the most favorable living conditions for yeast. It provides a good source of the carbohydrates and other minerals that yeast needs for nourishment. But beyond this, yeast also needs proper hydration, the right temperature, and an appropriate pH.
What are the optimum living conditions for yeast? The temperature should be in the range of 75°F to 90°F, although a dough can stray somewhat above or below these temperatures without undue effect.
If actively fermenting yeast is too cold for too long, the yeast cells slowly die. Thus, if you freeze a dough, it will remain viable only for a couple of months. On the other hand, yeast that is dormant, or not actively fermenting, can remain in the freezer (above 0°F, and not self-defrosting) for years at a time.
Yeast also needs access to the sugars and minerals in dough, and while it ultimately has the ability to break these down itself, bakers sometimes add a small amount of sugar to start the process. In addition, the pH of the liquid plays an important role. Soft (alkaline) water is relatively free of minerals. Because yeast has its own characteristic mineral content, it wants a growing medium that’s similar. So it doesn’t like soft water. Hard (acidic) water, on the other hand, contains lots of minerals and yeast will grow very quickly when it has access to such abundance. A small amount of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can help correct water that is too soft. Slightly more yeast can help overcome water that is too hard.
Primer: How to Make
a Loaf of Bread
In simplest terms, bread is a combination of flour, yeast, and water. Most bakers add salt, and from there the list of ingredients can grow in direct proportion to the baker’s imagination. It’s the basic ingredients you use, however, and how you treat them that makes or breaks your loaf of bread.
Start with the Flour
Flour is the dominant ingredient in bread, and thus carries much of the responsibility for its success or failure. While bread can be made from most any flour, the majority of yeast-leavened breads are most successfully made with a medium-to-high protein wheat-based flour. That means all-purpose or bread flour; the protein level on the side of the bag should read 3g to 4g per ¼-cup serving.
Yeast: Active Dry vs. Instant
You may substitute active dry yeast for the instant yeast called for in our recipes without making any changes in the amount; if the recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of instant yeast, use 2 teaspoons of active dry yeast.
While there’s no need to dissolve active dry yeast before using it, you may still want to “proof” it to make sure it’s healthy. Dissolve the yeast in a few tablespoons of the liquid in your recipe, along with a half teaspoon or so of sugar, or a tablespoon of flour. Wait 10 to 15 minutes; if you don’t see any activity (small bubbles forming), try some newer yeast. If the yeast is active and producing bubbles, add the liquid mixture along with the other liquid ingredients.
Active dry yeast is a little bit slower off the mark than instant, as far as dough rising goes; but in a long (2- to 3-hour) rise, the active dry yeast catches up. If a recipe using instant yeast calls for the dough to “double in size, about 1 hour,” you may want to mentally add 15 to 20 minutes to this time if you’re using active dry yeast. When dough is rising, you need to judge it by how much it’s risen, not how long it takes; cold weather, low barometric pressure, how often you bake, and a host of other factors affect dough rising times, so use them as a guide, not an unbreakable rule. Remember, bread-baking involves living things (yeast), your own personal touch in kneading technique, and the atmosphere of your kitchen. There are so many variables that it’s impossible to say that “dough X will double in size in 60 minutes.” Baking with yeast is a combination of art, science, and a bit of magic; stay flexible, and your bread will be just fine.
Flour can vary from region to region and season to season; just as a particular type of grape doesn’t always produce the exact same kind of wine, the particular wheats used to make all-purpose and bread flour may produce a slightly different product from one growing season to the next. It’s up to the flour manufacturer to ensure that the flour remains as consistent as possible; here at the King Arthur Baking Company, we have very high specification standards. It’s up to you to discover which brand of flour works best for you.
Bread bakers rely on wheat flour because of its ability to form gluten. (For more information on wheat, flour, and gluten, see pages 452–461.) The protein in wheat flour, when combined with a liquid, forms long strands called gluten. These strands become elastic when you knead the dough; they’re responsible for the final high-rising shape your bread assumes as it bakes. Other flours—rye, oat, corn—contain minimal amounts, if any, of this gluten; thus breads made with them alone won’t be able to rise very high.
Combine It with Yeast, Any Other Dry Ingredients, and Liquid
Mix the yeast, salt, and sugar (if you’re using it) into the flour. Once you combine the flour in your recipe with liquid, gluten starts to form. You’ll notice that the dough starts to become cohesive very quickly; before you know it, it’s following your spoon around the bowl (or the dough hook around the mixer). At this point—just as the dough has barely come together and is still extremely rough-looking—one option you have is to give the dough a 20-minute rest. This rest (called an autolyse by French bread bakers) allows the flour to absorb the liquid fully, making it easier to knead, and less likely that you’ll make the mistake of adding too much flour as you go along. This step isn’t crucial and can be skipped if you’re in a hurry.
When to Add the Salt
There’s much disagreement among professional bread bakers (and among ourselves—see page 228) about when to add salt to the dough, with the discussion centering on the preferred order of certain chemical reactions. Our preference is to combine all the basic dry ingredients with the flour—salt, sugar, instant yeast—and then to add the liquid. We don’t feel it makes a discernible difference to hold the salt out until after the autolyse; and frankly, if we don’t add it right at the beginning, we sometimes forget to add it at all—not a good thing!
A Little Sweet, A Little Salt
Can you make bread without sugar or salt? Sure. But keep the following points in mind.
- It won’t taste very good. Both sugar and salt are flavor enhancers. Without salt in particular, your bread will taste flat. Cardboard is the best descriptor for saltless bread.
- It will rise very quickly. Both salt and sugar tend to temper the yeast’s growth, allowing it to occur in a calm, regular manner. Without this tempering, the yeast grows very quickly and the dough rises too fast, without the chance to develop flavor.
- It may collapse. Both salt and organic acids, developed over a long, slow fermentation (rise), help strengthen the gluten in your loaf, allowing it to hold its shape until the hot oven does its job. Without them, your loaf is likely to rise and then collapse.
Too Much Sweet, Too Much Salt
If a little salt is good for your bread dough, is a lot even better? No. Too much salt attracts water in the dough, robbing the yeast of the liquid it needs to do its job. Sugar acts similarly; an “overdose” of sugar also coaxes your yeast to “overeat,” resulting in yeast that acts like you do after Thanksgiving dinner: tired and lethargic.
We find that for a typical 3-cup-flour recipe, 1½ teaspoons salt and up to ¼ cup sugar won’t result in any slowdown. More than that, you’re tempting fate. To add more sugar for a sweeter bread, you may choose yeast that’s designed specifically for sweet breads, or you may choose to increase the amount of yeast and give the dough a much longer window in which to rise.
Add the Remaining Ingredients
Now it’s time to add any other ingredients you’re using: butter or oil, eggs, whole grains, flavorings, or whatever your recipe calls for. The only ingredient you don’t want to add at this point would be dried fruit or any other sweet add-in; sugar may leach from these ingredients into the surrounding dough, upsetting the sugar balance and slowing down the yeast. Combine thoroughly, using a mixer or your hands.
Time to Knead
Sprinkle your work surface with flour or spray with vegetable oil spray. Knead the dough until it’s smooth and supple. It will become more and more elastic as you develop the gluten, until eventually it should feel like a baby’s bottom—soft but springy. Take a break at about the 5-minute mark; giving the dough a 5-minute rest at this point allows the gluten to relax, making the remaining kneading a lot easier.
Rise and Shine
If you live in snow country, it’s fairly certain your house will be a bit cool for optimum dough rising during the winter. There are a number of things you can do to help yeast remain warm and happily multiplying. First, seek out the naturally warm areas of your house, which may include the top of the water heater or the top of the refrigerator. Cover the top of your bowl of dough with lightly greased plastic wrap, wrap the bowl in a large dish towel or not-too-thick bath towel, and set it in this warm place. If you have a wood stove, any area near and above the stove (heat rises), such as a bookshelf, will be ideal. Ditto a radiator or hot air vent.
Second, for a more reliable, controllable source of heat, set a heating pad on low, swaddle it in a towel, and set your covered bowl on top. We’ve known a lot of bakers who’ve had great luck with this method. Or try this: Put your bowl of dough into the oven and turn on the oven light. Just the heat of the lightbulb(s) alone will warm the oven nicely. We’ve also heard of bakers setting their covered bowl of rising dough in a dishwasher that’s just completed its cycle.
You can also make a temporary proofing box (a box for raising bread dough) out of a chest-type cooler. Put a cooling rack in the bottom of the cooler, then preheat the cooler by pouring a couple of cups of boiling water into it and shutting the lid. When your dough is ready, quickly open the top of the cooler, put in the bowl of dough, and shut the lid; the dough stays warm and moist and rises very nicely. If you’re looking at a long rise, add another cup of boiling water every hour or so.
The First Rise
Put the kneaded dough into a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket (see Tools, page 532) with a capacity two to three times the size of the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise, at warm room temperature (70°F to 80°F), until it’s doubled in bulk or looks like the recipe tells you it should; not all doughs will double in bulk during this first rise.
Shaping
Pick the dough up out of the bowl and squeeze it gently to deflate it. Forget all that stuff you might have heard about punching down the dough or slamming it onto the counter. All this rough treatment does is (a) excite the gluten so that it becomes tough and resistant to shaping, and (b) drive the air out of the dough—those same gases you’re counting on to make a tall, light loaf. So treat it gently.
Now it’s up to you (and the recipe) to decide which shape your bread will take. A sandwich loaf? Baguette? Cloverleaf rolls? Pizza? Work on a lightly greased work surface to divide and / or shape the dough as the recipe directs.
The Second Rise
Most breads rise again once they’re shaped. An exception would be ultra-flat breads, such as a thin-crust pizza or very thin flatbreads. Cover the shaped dough with thoroughly greased plastic wrap, a cake cover (for a round pan of rolls), or any other sturdy cover wide enough to cover the pan and tall enough for the dough to rise.
Again, your recipe will tell you how the dough should look at the end of its second rise. Sometimes dough needs to double; sometimes, for extra-light breads (such as ciabatta), it should at least triple. Sometimes it needs to rise just a bit before going into the oven to complete its rise. Follow your recipe.
The Perfect Loaf
You can tell if your bread is done if a digital thermometer pushed into the center of the loaf reads 190°F. Dense, whole grain hearth loaves should be baked to about 200°F to 210°F. We’ve come to rely entirely on our digital thermometer, and no longer use the traditional tapping method.
However, if you don’t have a thermometer and want to check your bread the classic way—by sound—here’s what to do: When you feel the bread is done, remove it from the oven, take it out of the pan and, holding it in one hand, give it a few quick, hard taps on the bottom with your index or middle finger. A loaf that’s done will sound hollow, like a drum. Tapping that sounds muffled or dull means the loaf needs a bit more baking time. If that’s the case, there’s no need to put it back into the pan; simply place it right on the rack of the oven.
If you have tough hands (baker’s hands!), you can do this quickly and quite easily without the aid of a potholder or mitt. If your hands are too sensitive to use this method, use a mitt or potholder to hold the loaf while you tap it with your bare finger.
Storing Yeast
A vacuum-sealed bag of yeast stored at room temperature will remain fresh up to its best-by date. Once the seal is broken, it should go into the freezer for optimum shelf life. A vacuum-sealed bag of yeast stored at high temperatures, however—for example, in a hot kitchen over the summer, or in a hot warehouse before delivery—will fairly quickly lose its effectiveness. After a while, if stored improperly, yeast cells will slowly become inactive (die). If you aren’t using your yeast fairly quickly (or even if you are), it’s a good idea to keep it in an airtight container in the freezer. It will keep for quite long periods of time that way (years in the freezer, if your freezer isn’t self-defrosting). If you think you got old yeast, take it back to the store and ask for a new batch. Any business worth its salt will certainly replace it.
Baking
In general, crusty hearth breads bake for a short amount of time at a high temperature: 425°F to 450°F or hotter. Soft sandwich loaves or sweet breads bake at a lower temperature (350°F to 375°F) for a longer amount of time. A hot, fast bake produces a crisp crust; a slower, cooler bake yields a more tender crust. An exception to this is large breads without much fat or sugar, such as round country loaves. These breads need a lower temperature and longer time in the oven in order to bake all the way through; in the process, their crust tends to become thick and chewy rather than tender or crispy.
What should you do if your bread appears to be perfectly browned, but it’s not ready to come out of the oven according to the times given in the recipe? This sometimes happens with breads that are high in sugar (especially honey) or fat. If your bread appears to be browning too quickly, carefully lay a sheet of aluminum foil over it; this should slow down the browning enough that the center has a chance to finish before the outside burns.
The bread is done when its interior temperature registers between 190°F (for most loaves) and 210°F (for heavier, denser country-style loaves). Remove it from the oven and transfer it from its pan to a cooling rack as soon as possible. Cooling bread left in a pan will steam, making the crust rubbery. For extra-crisp bread, turn off the oven, remove the bread from the pan, and set the bread back on the oven rack. Prop the door open a couple of inches and allow the bread to cool in the oven. This prevents steam from migrating from the bread’s center and condensing on its crust, which would tend to soften the crust.
Which Size Pan?
The most common cause of poorly shaped pan loaves is using the wrong size pan. A good rule of thumb is as follows: A recipe using 2¾ to 3 cups flour and about 1 cup liquid will make a loaf of approximately 1 pound, which will rise to a nice shape in an 8½″ × 4½″ bread pan. Such a recipe will also work in a 9″ × 5″ pan, but will make a somewhat flatter loaf; the optimal amount of flour for a 9″ × 5″ pan is 3½ to 4 cups. To make a 1½-pound loaf, which will rise nicely in a 10″ × 5″ pan, use approximately 4½ cups flour and 1½ cups liquid.
If you’re using the correct amount of flour and right size pan, and you think your bread is too flat, try letting it rise twice in the bowl before shaping and baking. This second rise not only gives the yeast more of a chance to do its work, but also improves your bread’s texture and flavor. Flat-topped bread may also indicate your dough needs more flour, due to summer humidity; a slack dough tends to be flatter on top.
Cool It!
Warning! Tempting though it may be, it’s better to wait 10 to 15 minutes before cutting into your bread. Until it has a chance to set as it cools a bit, it’s very tender. Cutting into bread at this point tends to mar its shape, as well as allow too much moisture to escape, which can result in it becoming stale more quickly.
Sandwich and Pan Loaves
Pan bread—the soft, rectangular sandwich loaf we grew up with—has gotten a bad rap as the popularity of crusty artisan-style loaves has increased. Well, this is a big world; there’s room for more than one type of bread. For toast and French toast, sandwiches and grilled cheese, stuffing or bread pudding or croutons, nothing beats a good loaf of close-grained, tender white bread. Or its siblings—oatmeal, whole wheat, and rye.
But this familiar bread doesn’t stand alone. The same type of dough can be rolled into balls, built into a loaf, and called monkey bread; it can be spread with filling and rolled, to make a swirl loaf; it can even be enriched with eggs and butter to become an alluring brioche. The thread that joins all these loaves is texture; soft and light, they’re ideal for little ones, as well as any of us looking for a comforting slice of toast or a perfect sandwich.
White Bread 101
One 8½″ loaf
The name of this bread refers to its basic nature—making it is child’s play and the result is a delicious, fine-textured loaf, perfect for toast or sandwiches (especially peanut butter and jelly). The nonfat dry milk and potato flakes might not be common ingredients in your pantry, but they’re responsible for the exceptionally tender and soft texture of this loaf, and worth seeking out if terrific sandwich bread is your goal.
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons (35g) sugar
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 56g) butter, at room temperature
¼ cup (35g) nonfat dry milk
¼ cup (42g) potato flour or 1/3 cup (21g) potato flakes
1 1/8 cups (252g) water, lukewarm
Combine all the ingredients and mix and knead them together until you’ve made a soft, smooth dough. Adjust the dough’s consistency with additional flour or water as needed—but remember, the more flour you add while you’re kneading, the heavier and drier your final loaf will be. Cover and let the dough rise for 1 hour, until it’s puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk).
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and shape it into an 8″ log. Transfer the log to a lightly greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan, cover the pan, and let the bread rise until the outer edge has risen about 1″ over the rim of the pan, about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Uncover the pan and bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 10 to 15 minutes if it appears to be browning too quickly.
Remove the bread from the oven, take it out of the pan, and place it on a rack to cool completely. Once the bread is cool, brush it with melted butter, if desired; this will give it a soft crust.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 55g
129 cal | 3g fat | 3g protein | 19g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 9mg cholesterol | 179mg sodium
Help! My Bread . . .
. . . is coarse, dry, and crumbly
There are several causes for dry bread—bread that won’t hold together in a sandwich—but the number one culprit is usually too much flour.
When you’re kneading bread, and it’s sticking to your hands, it’s always a temptation to add more flour. But an overdose of flour will cause the resulting bread to be coarse-grained, crumbly, and dry. There are several solutions. First, use a dough scraper when you first start to knead, scooping underneath the dough and flopping it over on itself as you gradually sprinkle flour onto the dough. This is easier than constantly scraping the dough off your fingers. Second, once dough gets to the point where it’s fairly kneadable by hand—though still sticky—try spraying your work surface and hands with nonstick vegetable oil spray. This will help you handle the dough without adding more flour. Third, let the dough remain a bit sticky. Yes, it’s harder to work with, but the resultant loaf will have a much nicer texture.
A coarse grain in bread can also occur when bread is baked at too low a temperature. We like to bake loaf bread at 350°F or 375°F, while baguettes and other free-form loaves are usually baked at 425°F or 450°F. Another way to ensure your bread will have a fine grain is to let it rise twice in the bowl, rather than just once; this will also give better flavor, as the longer the dough rises, the more flavorful the bread will be.
Another cause of coarse-grained or dry bread is a lack of sufficient mixing or kneading. When making your dough, try adding only about 1/3 the flour to the liquid ingredients at first, then beat for about 2 minutes with a spoon or mixer; this ensures everything is well mixed. Mix in the remaining flour, then knead. Dough should be kneaded a good 8 to 10 minutes, at least. If you get tired, give the dough a rest after 5 minutes; this rest not only benefits you, it helps the dough as well, as the developing gluten has a chance to relax, making any further kneading that much easier and more effective.
Finally, crumbly bread may be caused by too much fat in the dough. The right amount of fat in a recipe will prevent moisture loss and staling. Too much fat, however, will prevent the gluten strands in the flour from bonding properly—thus the crumbling.
. . . has a wrinkled top crust
Wrinkling occurs for several reasons. First, if bread rises too much it will develop a thin layer of air under the crust. If, at the same time, the crust dries out as it rises—if the dough is covered with a dry cloth or insufficiently covered—when you put the bread in the oven to bake, the crust doesn’t allow steam from the interior of the bread to escape as readily as it would if it were more moist and porous. Instead, the crust absorbs the moisture. Additionally, once you take the bread out of the oven the interior continues to cook, sending off steam, while the outer crust rapidly cools and contracts. This causes moisture to condense on its surface, and you have the perfect recipe for wrinkling.
There are two things you can try to avoid this. First, let the bread rise only three-quarters of the way to full, then put it in a cold oven, set the temperature, and go from there. Your bread will require an additional 10 minutes or so of baking time, but its gradual rising as the oven heats will help prevent the top crust from separating from the interior.
Second, when your bread is done, turn off the oven, crack open the door, and leave the loaf in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Steam from the interior will have an easier time evaporating through the crust into the hot oven air. Because the crust remains hot, the steam won’t condense on it.
One more hint: If you want to brush your finished loaf with butter, wait until it’s cool; fat forms a seal when applied to a hot loaf, preventing steam from escaping.
. . . gets stale too quickly
Storing bread is a many-faceted challenge. If you can eat it quickly enough, wrap the bread in plastic and keep it on the kitchen counter or in a bread box. Bread will keep well for several days up to perhaps a week, depending on the weather. (In extremely hot, humid weather, bread will mold quickly at room temperature; you’ll have to freeze it.)
Staling happens most quickly at refrigerator temperature—about five times faster than at room temperature. So don’t store bread or other baked goods in the refrigerator; they’re much better off at room temperature or in the freezer.
By the way, the best way to store crunchy-crusted, country-type loaves—typically sourdough-based—is neither in the freezer nor wrapped at room temperature. Instead, store the bread, cut side down, on the counter. This keeps the outer crust crunchy and the inner bread soft.
Interestingly, you can reverse the staling process by reheating, which sends all the molecules spinning back into their just-out-of-the-oven physical alignment. Reheating stale bread (stale bread, not rock-hard, days-old bread) to 140°F, the temperature at which starch gelatinizes, will make stale bread soft again for a short period of time.
English Muffin Toasting Bread
One 8½″ loaf
This yeasty, coarse-textured bread makes the best toast ever, a perfect partner to jam or preserves. A purely mix-it-slap-in-the-pan-bake-and-eat-it loaf, it’s earned a place of honor in our test kitchen’s hall of fame.
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (14g) sugar
1½ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
1 cup (227g) milk
¼ cup (57g) water
2 tablespoons (25g) vegetable oil or olive oil
cornmeal, for sprinkling
Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and instant yeast in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer. Combine the milk, water, and oil in a separate, microwave-safe bowl, and heat to between 120°F and 130°F. Be sure to stir the liquid well before measuring its temperature; you want an accurate reading. If you don’t have a thermometer, the liquid will feel quite hot (hotter than lukewarm), but not so hot that it would be uncomfortable as bath water.
Pour the hot liquid over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Using an electric beater, or stand mixer with beater attachment, beat at high speed for 1 minute; the dough will be smooth and very soft. If you don’t have a stand or electric hand mixer, beat by hand for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and starting to become elastic.
Lightly grease an 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan, and sprinkle the bottom and sides with cornmeal. Scoop the soft dough into the pan, leveling it in the pan as much as possible.
Cover the pan, and let the dough rise until it’s just barely crowned over the rim of the pan. When you look at the rim of the pan from eye level, you should see the dough, but it shouldn’t be more than, say, ¼″ over the rim. This will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour, if you heated the liquid to the correct temperature and your kitchen isn’t very cold. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 400°F.
Remove the cover, and bake the bread for 22 to 27 minutes, until it’s golden brown and its interior temperature is 190°F.
Remove the bread from the oven, and after 5 minutes, turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 44g
109 cal | 2g fat | 4g protein | 17g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 1mg cholesterol | 245mg sodium
Back-of-the-Bag Oatmeal Bread
One 9″ loaf
This tender, high-rising sandwich bread is soft enough for kids to enjoy, yet sturdy enough for all kinds of sandwich fillings. It also makes great toast, especially with jam or buttered alongside scrambled eggs. Bread flour ensures a high rise even in the presence of oats, which can inhibit gluten formation. In fact, the recipe was featured on our bread flour bag for quite some time and has become a perennial customer favorite for good reason: It’s easy to make, uses simple ingredients, and we guarantee everyone in the family will love it!
Dough
3 cups (360g) unbleached bread flour
1 cup (99g) old-fashioned rolled oats
2 tablespoons (28g) butter, at room temperature
1½ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons (40g) brown sugar or honey (63g)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1¼ cups (283g) milk, lukewarm
Topping
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon (14g) water, cold
1 to 2 tablespoons (6g to 12g) old-fashioned rolled oats
In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together all the dough ingredients to form a rough, shaggy dough.
Knead the dough, by hand or mixer, until it’s springy though still somewhat soft, about 5 to 7 minutes. The dough may feel quite sticky at the beginning; don’t be tempted to add more flour, as additional flour will make the loaf dry. If you’re kneading by hand, try kneading on a lightly greased work surface rather than a floured surface.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and allow it to rise at room temperature for 1 hour; it’ll become quite puffy, though it may not double in bulk. If your kitchen is particularly cold (below 65°F), place the bowl of dough in your turned-off oven with the oven light on.
To shape the dough: Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface. Flatten the dough into a 6̋× 8″ rectangle. Fold the top down to the center (like you were folding a letter), pressing it firmly with the heel of your hand to seal. Pull the upper left and right corners into the center, pressing to seal. Repeat the first step (folding the top to the center and sealing) three or four more times, until you’ve created a 9″ to 10″ log. Tuck the ends under slightly, and turn the log over so its seam is on the bottom.
Place the log in a lightly greased 9̋ x 5″ loaf pan, and tent the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap or the cover of your choice. Allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1½ hours, until it’s crested about 1″ over the rim of the pan.
Toward the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 350°F with a rack in the center.
To add the topping: Uncover the risen loaf. Beat the egg white with the cold water. Brush the beaten white all over the top crust (you won’t need it all), then sprinkle with the oats.
Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it’s golden brown. If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, cover it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 10 minutes of baking. When done, a digital thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf will register 190°F. If you don’t have a thermometer, slide the bread out of its pan and tap its bottom with your fingers: You should hear a hollow thump.
Remove the bread from the oven and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 61g
160 cal | 2.5g fat | 5g protein | 24g complex carbohydrates | 8g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 5mg cholesterol | 230mg sodium
Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread
One 8½″ or 9″ loaf
This recipe yields a tender, tasty, high-rising loaf—perfect for a simple PB&J or BLT. Toast and spread it with butter and jam for breakfast, turn it into French toast, or make a gooey grilled cheese sandwich.
3 cups (468g) gluten-free all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons (35g) sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
1¼ teaspoons xanthan gum
1 cup (227g) milk, warmed
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter, softened
3 large eggs
Place the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and xanthan gum in a bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix until combined.
Using a stand mixer, drizzle in the milk, beating all the time; the mixture will be crumbly at first, but once all the milk is added, it’ll come together.
Add the butter and beat until thoroughly blended.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating each in thoroughly before adding the next. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then beat at high speed for 3 minutes, to make a very smooth, thick batter.
Cover the bowl, and let the batter rise for 1 hour.
Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl, gently deflating the batter in the process.
Grease an 8½″ by 4½″ loaf pan, or a 9̋ x 4̋ x 4″ pain de mie pan.
Scoop the dough into the pan. Press it level, using a spatula or your wet fingers.
Cover with greased plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise until the loaf barely crowns above the rim of the 8½̋ x 4½″ pan, or until it comes to within about an inch of the rim of the 9″ pain de mie pan. This should take about 45 to 60 minutes. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake the bread for 38 to 42 minutes, until golden brown. If you’re using a pain de mie pan, leave the lid on the entire time. Remove the bread from the oven, turn it out of the pan, and cool on a rack.
Like a baguette, this bread has a short shelf life. For best texture, reheat or toast after the first day.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 58g
154 cal | 4g fat | 3g protein | 23g complex carbohydrates | 3g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 48mg cholesterol | 204mg sodium
Herbed Monkey Bread
One 8″ round loaf
This soft, pull-apart bread is a fun loaf for sharing. Use the smaller amount of oil if you simply want to drizzle the herb coating over the dough balls once they’re in the pan. To thoroughly coat each dough ball before putting them in the pan, use the full 5 tablespoons of olive oil. This extra oil will give the bread a delicious crispy crust.
Herb Coating
3 to 5 tablespoons (35g to 67g) olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh thyme or 1½ teaspoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or 1 tablespoon (2g) dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 garlic clove, minced
Dough
1 recipe White Bread 101 (page 146)
Combine the oil, herbs, and garlic. Set the mixture aside.
Prepare White Bread 101 through its first rise. Grease the bottom and sides of a small (8″) tube or bundt-style pan, or a deep (2″ or deeper) 8″ cake pan or soufflé dish. Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 32 small pieces, each about the size of a chestnut and weighing approximately 21g. Place about a third of them in the bottom of the pan if you’re using a small bundt-style pan. If you’re using a cake pan, put about two-thirds of the pieces into it. Brush the dough in the pan with the herb coating. Continue to layer with the remaining balls, brushing the top layer with the remaining herb oil. (If you’ve used the greater amount of olive oil, dip each piece of dough into the oil to coat it completely before layering it into the pan.) Let the bread rise, covered, for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the bread for 30 to 35 minutes, until it’s golden. Remove it from the oven and invert it onto a serving platter; the crispy bottom crust should be on top. Serve warm.
Nutrition information per serving: 4 small pieces, 87g
235 cal | 7g fat | 6g protein | 33g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 1g fiber | 7mg cholesterol | 322mg sodium
Dividing dough
When you’re making monkey bread (or rolls or breadsticks), you need to divide the dough evenly into smaller pieces. The best way to do this is with a bench knife and a scale (see Tools, pages 531 and 541). Weigh the dough, then divide it in half, weighing each half to make sure they’re the same size. Then, depending on how many pieces you want to end up with, keep dividing the halves in half, continuing to use the scale to make sure the pieces are all the same size.
An exception to this process is if you want to end up with a number of dough pieces that’s not divisible by 4—say, 15 or 18 pieces of dough. In that case, you’ll need to divide the dough into three pieces at some point, rather than two. It’s up to you to figure out when that point is, depending on how many rolls or breadsticks you’re making. (Now’s the time to pull out those short division skills!)
Up-sizing
Unlike many baking recipes, you can increase the size of most bread recipes simply by doubling or tripling all the ingredients. The exception is the yeast, when making a large batch of rolls or multiple loaves of bread; if you increase the amount of yeast at the same rate you increase everything else, you may find yourself with a lot of dough on your hands and not enough time to deal with it.
If you’re doubling or tripling your recipe, simply double or triple all the ingredients, including yeast. But for larger batches, hold back on the yeast; 1 tablespoon of yeast is about right for 8 loaves or batches of rolls. The resulting dough will rise more slowly, which not only improves the bread’s flavor, but gives you the time you need to work with the dough most effectively.
Vermont Whole Wheat Honey Oat Bread
Two 8½″ loaves
This lovely loaf is soft and mildly sweet, perfect for both sandwiches and toast. If you can find it, use Vietnamese cinnamon—a spicier, bolder variety that comes through beautifully in this bread.
2 cups (454g) boiling water
1 cup (99g) old-fashioned rolled oats
½ cup (78g) maple sugar or brown sugar (107g)
1 tablespoon (21g) honey
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter
2½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
1½ cups (170g) white whole wheat flour
4 cups (480g) unbleached all-purpose flour
In a large bowl, combine the water, oats, maple or brown sugar, honey, butter, salt, and cinnamon. Let cool to lukewarm (100°F to 110°F), which typically takes about 10 to 15 minutes; stir the mixture several times to help things along, if you like.
Add the yeast and flours, stirring to form a rough dough. Knead (about 10 minutes by hand, 5 to 7 minutes using a mixer) until the dough is smooth and satiny.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour. Since the dough is warm to begin with (from the boiling water), it should become quite puffy.
Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a loaf. Place the loaves in two greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pans.
Cover the pans with lightly greased plastic wrap and allow the loaves to rise until they’ve crowned about 1″ over the rim of the pan, about 60 to 90 minutes.
Bake the loaves in a preheated 350°F oven for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting them lightly with aluminum foil after 25 minutes to prevent over-browning. Remove them from the oven when they’re golden brown, and the interior registers 190°F on a digital thermometer.
Turn the loaves out onto a rack to cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 89g
110 cal | 2g fat | 3g protein | 16g complex carbohydrates | 4g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 5mg cholesterol | 180mg sodium
Sandwich Rye Bread
One 8½″ loaf
To us, an excellent loaf of sandwich rye bread should be dark on the outside and light brown (almost a putty-beige color) on the inside. It should taste strongly of caraway and should have that distinctive rye bread flavor—a combination of caraway and the rye flour itself, with perhaps a hint of sour pickle. It should be shaped like sandwich bread and have a slightly chewy crust and a tender crumb. Finally, it should be moist enough to hold together when piled with pastrami or layered with ham and cheese and mustard.
This bread is all of that. Each of the four flours adds its own special characteristic: height and structure from the bread flour, flavor from the rye, texture from the pumpernickel, and added moistness from the potato flour. Pickle juice adds just the right amount of tang.
2 cups (240g) unbleached bread flour
1 cup (112g) rye flour
1/3 cup (39g) pumpernickel
¼ cup (42g) potato flour or 1/3 cup (21g) potato flakes
1 tablespoon (7g) caraway seeds
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (12g) sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
¼ cup (50g) vegetable oil
¼ cup (56g) dill pickle juice or sour pickle juice
1 cup (224g) water
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the vegetable oil, pickle juice, and water and mix until a shaggy mass forms. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes; this resting period allows the flour to absorb the liquid fully, making it easier to knead.
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes; it should feel firm and smooth, though somewhat sticky. Put it into a greased bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise until it’s almost doubled in bulk.
Turn the dough onto a lightly oiled or lightly floured surface and shape it into an 8″ log. Place the log in a lightly greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan, cover the pan with greased plastic wrap or a reusable cover, and let the loaf rise until it’s just about crowned over the rim of the pan (about 60 to 90 minutes).
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for about 35 minutes, until it’s a deep golden brown and its internal temperature registers 190°F on a digital thermometer. (If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, tent it with aluminum foil, shiny side up, for the final 10 minutes of baking.) Remove the bread from the oven, take it out of the pan, and cool it on a rack.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 51g
126 cal | 3.5g fat | 3g protein | 20g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 202mg sodium
Variation
Sauerkraut Rye Loaf: Use this bread to make a fantastic Reuben melt with corned beef and Swiss cheese layered on two slices of bread, cooked on the griddle like grilled cheese. You’ll need coleslaw and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Tonic on the side, of course.
Prepare the sandwich rye dough, adding ¾ cup (112g to 140g) very well drained, chopped sauerkraut, and reducing the water to ¾ cup. Another nice addition is up to 4 teaspoons mustard seeds (yellow, brown, or a mix). Shape and bake the bread as directed above; it may take a bit longer to rise.
One Potato . . .
Many traditional American bread recipes call for cooked potato or potato water as one of the ingredients. In the days before yeast was readily available, bakers had to rely on wild yeasts, present in the air, to leaven their breads. Yeast is attracted to starch, and the starch-filled water in which potatoes have been boiled is a good medium for capturing and propagating wild yeast.
It’s this same starch that accounts for the crisp brown crust, moist airy interior, and wonderful keeping qualities of potato bread. The starch in potatoes (or in potato water) absorbs liquid as bread dough is kneaded, and holds onto that liquid as the bread bakes.
If you want or need potato water for your recipe, peel potatoes, leave them whole, and boil—using enough water to cover the potatoes fully—until tender, 25 to 30 minutes. The resulting water will be cloudy and full of starch, ideal for using in yeasted breads. (Yeast happily converts starch to sugar, so starch is an excellent food for yeast.)
Potato flour—dried, ground potatoes—and potato starch are both good stand-ins for potato water. Use 3 to 4 tablespoons (35g to 46g) potato flour or starch in a 3-cup-flour (1 pound) bread recipe.
Cinnamon Swirl Bread
One 8½″ loaf
This tender white bread, with its swirl of cinnamon in the center, cries out for toasting and buttering. The streusel topping adds just the right final touch.
The following recipe incorporates a few tips for success that we’ve discovered over the years. First, for a deep, dark, moist cinnamon swirl inside the bread, whirl sugar, cinnamon, and raisins or currants together in a blender or food processor until smooth. The fruit adds moistness as well as subtle flavor to the filling. And second, rather than brush the dough with butter before sprinkling on the filling, brush it with beaten egg. Butter acts as a barrier between the pieces of rolled-up dough, preventing them from cohering and giving you bread that “unravels” when you cut it. On the other hand, the protein in egg acts like glue, cementing the bread and filling together, and allowing much less (though still a bit) unraveling.
Dough
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (42g) potato flour or 1/3 cup (21g) potato flakes
¼ cup (35g) nonfat dry milk
1¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons (35g) sugar
2½ teaspoons instant yeast
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 56g) butter, at room temperature
1 cup (227g) water
Filling
¼ cup (50g) sugar
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
¼ cup (42g) raisins or currants
2 teaspoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon (14g) water
Topping
2 tablespoons (28g) butter
2 tablespoons (25g) sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup (30g) unbleached all-purpose flour
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: In a large bowl, combine all the dough ingredients, mixing until the dough begins to come away from the sides of the bowl. Knead (about 10 minutes by hand, 5 to 7 minutes using a mixer) until the dough is smooth and satiny. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set it aside to rise for 1 to 1½ hours; it will be puffy, if not doubled in bulk.
To make the filling: Pulse filling ingredients except the egg wash in a food processor or blender.
To assemble: Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled work surface and shape it into a long, narrow rectangle, about 16̋ x 8″. Brush the dough with some of the egg wash (set the remainder aside) and pat the filling gently onto the dough. Beginning with a short edge, roll the dough into a log. Pinch the side seam and ends closed (to keep the filling from bubbling out) and place the log in a lightly greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan.
Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap or a reusable cover and let the bread rise for about 1 hour at room temperature, or until it’s crowned about 1″ over the rim of the pan.
To make the topping: In a small bowl or mini processor, mix together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour until the mixture is crumbly. If you’re using a mini processor, watch carefully; topping will go from crumbly to a cohesive mass in just a second or so. Brush the top of the loaf with some (or all) of the reserved egg wash and gently press on the topping.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for about 45 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 15 minutes or so if it appears to be browning too quickly. Remove the loaf from the oven and after about 5 minutes, gently remove it from the pan. Some of the streusel will fall off, but you can alleviate this by first loosening all around the edges of the loaf with a knife, then turning the pan on its side and gently pulling it away from the loaf.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 62g
171 cal | 5g fat | 4g protein | 22g complex carbohydrates | 6g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 25mg cholesterol | 183mg sodium
Adding Whole Grain Goodness
When making breads that use whole, flaked, or cracked grain berries, it’s a good idea to soak these grains first, before adding them to your dough. This accomplishes a number of things. First, it makes the grain kernels themselves softer and easier to chew. Second, it prevents them from drawing moisture from the dough, which can cause dry dough and heavy, dry bread. Third, they’ll assist in the gluten formation in the dough.
There are two ways to soak grains. If you’re not in a hurry to make your bread, put the grain and an equal amount of cold water in a nonreactive bowl and soak overnight. By morning, the water should be totally absorbed. If it’s not, drain off any excess. If time is a factor, combine equal parts grain and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool to lukewarm before using.
Remember, the water you’ve added to the grain should be taken into account when you’re making your bread dough. About half the soaking water you used will remain in the grain, while half will leave the grain and join the dough. So if you use ½ cup of water to soak your grain, reduce the amount of liquid in your dough recipe by ¼ cup. (This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, as the moisture in your flour will vary from season to season; just use it as a jumping-off place.)
Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread
One 8½″ loaf
This is the bread that will convert anyone into a whole wheat bread lover. This 100% whole wheat recipe features the delightfully nutty taste of wheat in a fine-grained, moist, faintly sweet loaf. Use the lesser amount of water in summer or a humid climate and the greater amount in winter or dry weather.
1 to 1 1/8 cups (227g to 255g) water, lukewarm
¼ cup (50g) vegetable oil
¼ cup (85g) honey, molasses, or maple syrup
3½ cups (397g) white whole wheat flour
2½ teaspoons instant yeast
¼ cup (35g) nonfat dry milk
1¼ teaspoons salt
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and stir until the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. For easiest, most effective kneading, let the dough rest for 20 to 30 minutes in the bowl; this gives the flour a chance to absorb some of the liquid, and the bran to soften. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands, and knead it for 6 to 8 minutes, or until it begins to become smooth and supple. (You may also knead this dough in a stand mixer or bread machine set to the dough cycle.) The dough should be soft, yet still firm enough to knead. Adjust its consistency with additional water or flour, if necessary.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or large measuring cup, cover it, and allow the dough to rise until puffy though not necessarily doubled in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled work surface, and shape it into an 8″ log. Place the log in a lightly greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan, cover the pan loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the bread to rise for about 1 to 2 hours, or until the center has crowned about 1″ above the rim of the pan. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil after 20 minutes to prevent over-browning.
Remove the bread from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. If desired, brush the top with melted butter; this will yield a soft, flavorful crust. Cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 50g
150 cal | 3.5g fat | 5g protein | 19g complex carbohydrates | 5g sugar | 3g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 200mg sodium
Cheese Bread
One 8½″ loaf
This golden loaf, soft and high-rising, has a nicely assertive sharp cheese flavor and aroma. Use it for the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich, or an excellent BLT. Cut any stale bread into cubes, drizzle with olive oil, and toast them in the oven for cheese croutons.
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
¼ cup (56g) water
1 cup (227g) milk
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (12g) sugar
3½ cups (420g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (112g) finely grated cheddar cheese
½ cup (56g) finely grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons (28g) butter or vegetable oil (25g)
2 teaspoons tomato paste (optional, for color)
Combine all the ingredients and mix and knead them together until you’ve made a soft, smooth dough. Adjust the dough’s consistency with additional flour or water as needed; this dough should be soft but not sticky. Cover and let the dough rise for 1 hour, or until it’s puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk).
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and pat it into an 8″ log. Transfer the log to a lightly greased 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pan, cover the pan, and let the bread rise until the outer edge has just barely risen over the rim of the pan, about 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 10 to 15 minutes if it appears to be browning too quickly. Remove the bread from the oven, take it out of the pan, and place it on a rack to cool completely.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 57g
150 cal | 5g fat | 6g protein | 19g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 14mg cholesterol | 261mg sodium
Brioche
One 9″ round loaf
Brioche is a yeast bread that’s so rich it can be eaten pleasurably with absolutely no adornment at all. Which isn’t to say that orange marmalade or peach jam or butter wouldn’t all be welcome additions.
Brioche can be shaped in the traditional tête shape—a fluted round with a jaunty top-knot—but it can also be made into sandwich loaves or shaped into balls and laid side by side to make a ring. You can even pile it into a loaf pan to make a kind of French monkey bread. However you shape it, brioche is a versatile loaf that can easily be sliced and served plain or toasted with jam or turned into French toast.
With all its butter, this is a difficult dough to develop by hand and we don’t suggest trying it. A stand mixer or bread machine set to the dough cycle are ideal for the task; if you have access to either one, don’t hesitate to tackle this recipe. It’s only a tad more challenging than any other yeast bread recipe, and the results are out of this world.
Dough
2¾ cups (330g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons instant yeast
¼ cup (57g) water, cool (about 70°F)
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons (25g) sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks, 227g) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature, 65°F to 68°F
Egg wash
1 large egg
1 tablespoon (14g) cold water
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Place 1½ cups (180g) of the flour, the yeast, water, and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer or the bucket of your bread machine set to dough mode. Beat at medium speed (or knead in the bread machine) until smooth. Cover the mixture and let it sit for 45 minutes. It will develop some bubbles, but not change very much due to the thinness of the batter. The yeast, however, is getting a jump-start.
Add the remaining 1¼ cup (150g) of flour, sugar, and salt. Beat for 8 to 10 minutes (switch to a dough hook if you’re using a mixer), or knead in the bread machine, until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl and becomes shiny and elastic.
With the mixer or bread machine running, add the butter 2 tablespoons at a time, letting the butter become absorbed before adding the next chunk. Repeat until all of the butter is added.
Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 hour. It’ll be very soft at this point and should have grown by about one-third. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold it over several times. (Use a bench knife to scrape up any bits that stick to the table.) Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover the bowl, and refrigerate it for a minimum of 4 hours and up to about 16 hours. The dough will firm up considerably.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form it into a round loaf. Work quickly, because as the dough warms it becomes very sticky. Place it in a 9″ brioche pan. (We’ve chosen not to make the top-knotted brioche here; it’s a fair trick to get the knob on top to stay centered throughout the rising and baking process, and as we don’t like the look of tipsy brioches, we usually just form it into a plain round.) Allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1½ hours, until it’s an inch above the edge of the pan and looks puffy. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
To make the egg wash: Beat the egg and water and brush all exposed surfaces with the egg wash. Cut four slashes into the top of the loaf (see instructions, page 191). Bake the brioche for 40 to 50 minutes, until its internal temperature reads 190°F on a digital thermometer and it’s golden brown. For brioche with lighter crust, tent it with aluminum foil after 20 minutes of baking.
Remove the brioche from the oven and cool it in the pan for 10 minutes. Turn it out of the pan and cool it completely on a rack. Serve the brioche when it’s completely cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 68g
268 cal | 18g fat | 5g protein | 19g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 116mg cholesterol | 320mg sodium
Juicing Up Your Bread
Adding a tablespoon of orange juice concentrate or vinegar or a pinch of ascorbic acid to bread dough will aid in its rising. Yeast loves to grow in an acidic environment. Basically, yeast requires only a bit of food and a bit of warmth to multiply. But like any living organism, it will grow slowly if given a minimal amount of food and comfort. Increase the food (sugar, diastatic malt powder), give it a comfortable (acidic) home, and watch the yeast and your bread dough take off.
A little extra acid works particularly well in rich sweet doughs, which often rise very, very slowly. In a side-by-side test we did with kuchen, a plain sweet dough, the kuchen with ascorbic acid rose 50% higher than the plain kuchen, in the same amount of time.
Sweet Breads
As soft as sandwich or pan breads, sweet breads add sugar (and often additional fat) to that formula to become even more tender and rich. Sweet bread dough is often braided, or braided and shaped into a wreath, fashioned into rolls and stuffed with filling, or spread with filling, rolled, and sliced. These breads may take a bit longer to make, due to their increased sugar content, so be sure to read the recipe all the way through before beginning, and allow yourself plenty of time from start to finish.
Raspberry Cream Cheese Braid
2 braids
This sweet braided bread is impressive looking, but easy to make. The soft and pliable dough is a joy to work with—though the braiding looks challenging, it’s anything but. This dough is also an ideal base for all manner of soft sweet breads: monkey bread, sweet glazed braids, hot cross buns, and the like. If you use all-purpose rather than pastry flour, expect a loaf that’s a bit chewy (rather than totally tender). You’ll need to increase the water by a couple of tablespoons, as well.
Dough
2 teaspoons instant yeast
¼ cup (57g) water, warm
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
3 cups (318g) unbleached pastry flour or all-purpose flour (360g)
6 tablespoons (84g) sour cream or yogurt
6 tablespoons (¾ stick, 84g) unsalted butter, softened
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 large egg
¼ teaspoon lemon oil or 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Filling
1 package (227g) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, softened
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons (22g) Instant ClearJel or 3 tablespoons (23g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 large egg
½ cup (168g) raspberry jam mixed with 2 tablespoons (22g) ClearJel or all-purpose flour (15g)
Topping (optional)
1 large egg
1 tablespoon (14g) cold water
¼ cup (50g) coarse white sugar
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: In a large bowl, combine all the dough ingredients and knead the dough—by hand or mixer—until it’s soft and pliable but not sticky.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in a warm place for about 45 minutes, or until doubled.
To make the filling: In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Mix in the ClearJel or flour and the egg, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl thoroughly.
Gently deflate the risen dough and divide it in half. Roll each half into a 15̋ x 10″ rectangle and place each onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Spread half of the jam in a 2½″-wide swath, lengthwise, down the center of each dough rectangle, leaving a 1″ border at the top and bottom.
Top the jam with half of the filling. Make 2½″ cuts every ¾″ down both long sides of the dough. Fold the two ends of the dough over the filling, then pull the cut strips up and over, alternating sides to look like a braid. Repeat with the remaining piece of dough.
Cover the braids and let them rise for 30 to 45 minutes, until they’re puffy looking.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
If desired, mix the egg and water and brush onto both braids (this will make a darker, shinier crust), or spritz the braids with water. Sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake the braids for 32 to 36 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 33g
98 cal | 3g fat | 2g protein | 9g complex carbohydrates | 6g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 21mg cholesterol | 110mg sodium
Soft Cinnamon Rolls
24 rolls
These are quintessential cinnamon rolls, stuffed with rich filling and slathered with thick white icing. The chief attribute setting these rolls apart from their peers is their texture. While all cinnamon rolls are delicious straight from the oven, they often harden up and become dry as they cool. These rolls will stay soft for several days thanks to tangzhong, the technique popularized by Asian bread making of cooking water with flour that produces a light, fluffy, moist yeast bread.
Tangzhong (starter)
5 tablespoons (71g) water
5 tablespoons (71g) whole milk
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (28g) unbleached bread flour
Dough
4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (496g) unbleached bread flour
3 tablespoons (24g) nonfat dry milk
1¾ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
¾ cup (170g) whole milk, lukewarm
2 large eggs
6 tablespoons (¾ stick, 85g) unsalted butter, melted
Filling
¾ cup (142g) brown sugar, packed
4 teaspoons cinnamon
Icing
2 cups (227g) confectioners’ sugar
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, melted
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 to 3 tablespoons (28g to 43g) whole milk or cream, enough to make a thick but spreadable frosting
To make the tangzhong: Combine all the starter ingredients in a small saucepan and whisk until no lumps remain.
Place the saucepan over medium heat, and cook the mixture, whisking constantly, until thick and the whisk leaves lines on the bottom of the pan. This will take only a minute or so. Remove from the heat and set it aside for several minutes.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Mix the tangzhong with the remaining dough ingredients until everything comes together. Let the dough rest, covered, for 20 minutes; this will give the flour a chance to absorb the liquid, making it easier to knead.
After 20 minutes, knead the dough—by hand or mixer—to make a smooth, elastic, somewhat sticky dough.
Shape the dough into a ball, and let it rest in a lightly greased covered bowl for 60 to 90 minutes, until puffy but not necessarily doubled in bulk.
To make the filling: Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon, mixing until the cinnamon is thoroughly distributed.
Gently deflate the risen dough, divide it in half, and shape each piece into a rough rectangle.
Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough into an 18̋ x 8″ rectangle.
Sprinkle half the filling onto the rolled-out dough.
Starting with a long edge, roll the dough into a log. With the seam underneath, cut the log into 12 slices, 1½″ each.
Repeat with the second piece of dough and the remaining filling.
Lightly grease a 9̋ x 13″ pan. Space the rolls in the pan.
Cover the pan and let the rolls rise for 45 to 60 minutes, until they’re crowding one another and are quite puffy.
While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the bottom third.
Uncover the rolls, and bake them for 22 to 25 minutes, until they feel set. They might be just barely browned; that’s fine. It’s better to under-bake these rolls than bake them too long. Their interior temperature at the center should be about 188°F.
While the rolls are baking, stir together the icing ingredients, adding enough of the milk to make a thick, spreadable icing. The icing should be quite stiff, about the consistency of softened cream cheese.
Remove the rolls from the oven, and turn them out of the pan onto a rack. Spread them with the icing; it’ll partially melt into the rolls.
Serve the rolls warm. Or cool to room temperature and reheat just before serving, if desired.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 roll, 63g
190 cal | 5g fat | 4g protein | 18g complex carbohydrates | 16g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 25mg cholesterol | 220mg sodium
Favorite Sticky Buns
1 dozen buns
These gooey, dark gold buns feature thick cinnamon filling and a topping of rich brown sugar sauce sprinkled liberally with pecans. We guarantee these will rival (or surpass!) any bakery sticky buns you’ve ever enjoyed.
Starter
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (255g) water
1/16 teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
1½ cups (180g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (32g) nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons (21g) potato flour or ¼ cup (22g) dried potato flakes (optional, but makes a more tender bun)
¼ cup (21g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1¼ teaspoons salt
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
6 tablespoons (¾ stick, 84g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
Filling
1 cup (196g) sugar
1½ tablespoons (11g) cinnamon
Glaze
½ cup (154g) golden syrup or light corn syrup
1 tablespoon (14g) rum (optional)
3 tablespoons (42g) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (213g) brown sugar
1 cup (105g) diced pecans
To make the starter: Combine the flour, water, and yeast in a medium bowl, stirring until fairly smooth. Cover the bowl and let the mixture rest at room temperature (cooler than 75°F) overnight, or for 12 to 16 hours.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the overnight starter with all the dough ingredients and mix and knead them together—by hand or mixer—to make a soft, smooth dough. Cover and let the dough rise for about 1 hour; it will become slightly puffy but won’t double in bulk.
While the dough is rising, prepare the pans: two 9″ round cake pans or a 9″ × 13″ pan. Spray with nonstick pan spray or lightly grease with vegetable shortening or butter.
To make the filling: Combine the sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
To make the glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the syrup, rum (if using), and melted butter. Pour the glaze into the pan, or divide it evenly between the pans if you’re using two pans. Sprinkle the brown sugar and pecans on top of the glaze.
To assemble: Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and roll it into a rectangle approximately 14̋ x 20″. Spread it with the prepared filling, leaving an uncovered strip about 1″ wide along one short end of the dough. Starting with the short end without the filling, roll the dough into a log and slice it into 12 slices, each about 1″ to 1¼″ wide. Place the buns in the prepared pan(s), leaving about ½″ between them. Cover the pan(s), and let the buns rise for 90 minutes; again, they won’t rise much, they’ll just seem to spread a bit.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the buns for 25 to 30 minutes, tenting them lightly with aluminum foil for the final 5 minutes if they appear to be browning too quickly. The finished buns will be golden brown. Loosen the edges of the buns with a knife, then carefully (the sugar is hot!) turn them out (upside down) onto a rack or parchment-covered baking sheet to cool, scraping any glaze that may have stuck to the pan onto the warm buns. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 bun, 136g
473 cal | 15g fat | 6g protein | 31g complex carbohydrates | 48g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 25mg cholesterol | 262mg sodium
Portuguese Sweet Rolls
16 rolls
Our take on traditional Portuguese sweet bread is simply a big round loaf broken down into smaller rolls, ideal for carrying in a brown bag lunch. Serve these soft, almost-sweet rolls with jam and double Devon cream just as you would a scone, for breakfast or tea.
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
½ cup (113g) milk
6 tablespoons (¾ stick, 84g) unsalted butter
¼ cup (57g) water
1¼ teaspoons salt
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (46g) potato flour or ½ cup (46g) dried potato flakes
2 large eggs
1/3 cup (67g) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon lemon oil or 1½ teaspoons lemon zest
Mix and knead together all the ingredients—by hand or mixer—to form a soft, smooth dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise until puffy but not necessarily doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes, depending on the warmth of your kitchen.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and divide it into 16 pieces. Round each piece into a smooth ball. Place the balls in a lightly greased 9̋ x 13″ pan, two 9″ round cake pans, or a 14″ round pan. Cover the pan and let the rolls rise for about 1 hour; they should double in bulk.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Bake the rolls for 30 minutes, tenting lightly with aluminum foil after the first 20 minutes. Remove them from the oven when they’re golden brown and transfer them to a rack to cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 roll, 62g
191 cal | 6g fat | 5g protein | 25g complex carbohydrates | 4g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 40mg cholesterol | 193mg sodium
Small Breads and Rolls
Buns and bagels, rolls and pretzels—these small, single-serve breads are self-contained, each one an entity unto itself. All of them are easily obtainable at the grocery store or a nearby bakery, but if you love to bake, you’ll want to try making them at home. Even the very freshest store-bought roll can’t compare with a crusty homemade hard roll, or a soft, tender cloverleaf or crescent, hot from the oven.
Soft Rolls
16 dinner rolls
Although we love crusty, crunchy artisan-style breads and rolls, it’s comforting at times to drift back into childhood and the soft, squishy white rolls that graced so many of our tables, particularly at the holidays. Cloverleafs, crescents, fantans, knots—any baker worth their salt can put together a beautiful bread basket with just one simple dough and a few different shaping techniques.
The following rolls all begin with the dough for White Bread 101 (page 146).
Choose the shapes you want to create, and divide the dough into 16 pieces, or roll out as required. Shape according to the illustrations on page 170–171.
After shaping, let the rolls rise until puffy and almost double in size, about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown with an internal temperature of 190°F.
Finished rolls can be brushed with butter for a delicious soft crust; a double coating of butter for a soft, satiny crust; or lightly dusted with flour, if you prefer.
Bagels
8 bagels
It’s fairly simple to find top-notch bagels in bakeries and bagel shops. With all kinds of good bagels available just about wherever you turn, why make your own? First, so you know what’s in them—who wants things like azodicarbonmide in their pumpernickel bagel? Second, so you can customize them to taste, as in pesto bagels with sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts. And third, it’s fairly easy and fun! If you can make bread dough, you can make bagels.
If you’re a seasoned bread baker, you may notice that the dough for these bagels is quite a bit stiffer than that for most breads. This is to ensure that the bagels attain their typically dense, close-grained, chewy texture; you don’t want them rising very much, and a dry (stiff) dough naturally rises much less than a wetter dough.
Dough
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
4 cups (480g) unbleached bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (9g) non-diastatic malt powder, brown sugar (13g), or barley malt syrup (22g)
1½ cups (340g) water, lukewarm
Water Bath
2 quarts (1.82kg) water
2 tablespoons (18g) non-diastatic malt powder, brown sugar (27g), or barley malt syrup (43g)
1 tablespoon (12g) granulated sugar
Combine all the dough ingredients in a mixing bowl and knead vigorously, by hand for 10 to 15 minutes, or by machine on medium-low speed for about 10 minutes. Since you’re using a high-protein bread flour, it takes a bit more effort and time to develop the gluten. The dough will be quite stiff; if you’re using a stand mixer it will “thwap” the sides of the bowl and hold its shape (without spreading at all) when you stop the mixer. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and set it aside to rise until noticeably puffy though not necessarily doubled in bulk, 1 to 1½ hours.
Transfer the dough to a work surface and divide it into 8 pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll it into a smooth, round ball. Cover the balls with plastic wrap and let them rest for 30 minutes. They’ll puff up very slightly.
While the dough is resting, prepare the water bath by heating the water, malt powder, and sugar to a very gentle boil in a large, wide-diameter pan. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Use your index finger to poke a hole through the center of each ball (see illustration on next page), then twirl the dough on your finger to stretch the hole until it’s about 2″ in diameter (the entire bagel will be about 4″ across). Place the bagel on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.
Transfer the bagels, four at a time if possible, to the simmering water. Increase the heat under the pan to bring the water back up to a gently simmering boil, if necessary. Cook the bagels for 2 minutes, gently flip them over, and cook 1 minute more. Using a skimmer or strainer, remove the bagels from the water and place them back on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining bagels.
Bake the bagels for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re as deep a brown as you like, turning them over after about 15 minutes, which will help them remain tall and round. Remove the bagels from the oven and cool completely on a rack.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 plain bagel, 111g
211 cal | 1g fat | 7g protein | 43g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 2g dietary fiber |
0mg cholesterol | 536mg sodium
Variations
Sesame Seed Bagels: Brush each bagel, just before baking, with a glaze made of 1 egg white beaten until frothy with 1 tablespoon of water. Glaze each bagel and sprinkle heavily with seeds.
Onion Bagels: Bake bagels for 20 to 22 minutes (or until they’re almost as brown as you like) and remove the pan from the oven, keeping the oven turned on. Working with one bagel at a time, glaze as instructed above and sprinkle with minced, dried onion. Return the bagels to the oven for no more than 2 minutes (the onions will burn if the bagels are left in longer than that).
Cinnamon Raisin Bagels: Knead about 2/3 cup (100g) of raisins into the dough toward the end of the kneading process. Just before you’re done kneading, sprinkle your work surface heavily with cinnamon sugar and give the dough a few more turns; it will pick up the cinnamon sugar in irregular swirls. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, form each piece into a ball, and roll each ball in additional cinnamon sugar. Let rest and shape as directed above.
Classic Pretzels: The traditional street vendor pretzel, with its characteristic dark brown, highly glazed appearance, is difficult to make at home, since professional bakers often use food-safe lye to give pretzels their characteristic sheen. You can use bagel dough to make a dense, chewy, Philadelphia-style pretzel; it will lack only in appearance.
Prepare bagel dough up through its first rise. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each piece into a 25″ to 30″ rope. Shape ropes into pretzels (see illustrations) and simmer and bake as directed in the bagel recipe, understanding that the pretzels are larger and will be a bit more challenging to deal with as you move them from counter to water bath to baking sheet.
English Muffins
10 to 12 muffins
Sure, you can buy excellent English muffins, but for those of you who like the challenge of making your own, this is a great recipe.
We find these muffins are best made the day before you want to serve them. You may certainly sample them straight off the griddle, but they can be a bit gummy at that point; they definitely benefit by drying out for a day.
Starter
1½ cups (180g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup (170g) water
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
1¾ cups (210g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons (14g) cornstarch
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (25g) sugar or non-diastatic malt powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons (28g) butter, melted
¾ cup (170g) milk, warm
1 to 2 tablespoons (10g to 20g) cornmeal, for sprinkling on the pan (if you’re baking the muffins)
To make the starter: Mix the flour, water, and yeast in a medium bowl to form a smooth batter. Cover and leave at room temperature for at least 4 hours, or up to 16 hours. The starter should be puffy and full of holes when it’s ready to use.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: In a large bowl, beat together the starter and all the dough ingredients to form a smooth, very soft dough. The dough needs to be beaten for 5 to 8 minutes, so unless you feel like giving your biceps a good workout, we suggest using a stand mixer. Cover the bowl and place it in a warm spot until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Now you can bake the English muffins in the oven or dry-fry them on the stovetop. Read both sets of directions first to decide which you want to do.
To prepare muffins for baking: Lightly grease 10 to 12 English muffin rings (nonstick spray works well) and place the rings on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet that’s been sprinkled with a small amount of cornmeal. (The cornmeal isn’t really necessary, but it makes the muffins look more authentic.) Stir the dough, then drop a scant ¼ cup into each ring. Sprinkle lightly with cornmeal. Smooth the dough with your fingers, dipped in water first. If you don’t have English muffin rings, simply drop the soft dough onto the pan and shape it with your fingers. The muffins won’t be as symmetrical, but their taste will be just fine.
Cover the pan and place in a warm place to rise for 1 hour, or until the muffins have grown by at least a third.
To bake English muffins: Preheat the oven to 350°F. If you’ve used muffin rings, place a clean baking sheet atop the muffins, which keeps them flat on both sides (rather than crowned on the top) so they’ll fit better in the toaster slot. (If you’re not using muffin rings, don’t put a pan on top of them—they’ll squish.) Bake the muffins for 25 minutes, until they’re lightly browned on both sides. (The bottoms will be more brown than the tops, just like the ones you buy at the store.) The muffins may be fork-split and eaten immediately (they’ll be soft) or, for crunchier muffins, cool them completely, split them, and toast.
To dry-fry English muffins: Let the dough rise for 1½ hours, until it’s very puffy looking. Preheat a griddle to 325°F. Lightly grease English muffin rings. Place the rings on the griddle. Lightly stir the dough, then use a ¼-cup measure or muffin scoop to fill each ring about a third full. If you’re not using muffin rings, simply drop the dough by ¼-cupfuls onto the griddle. Dry-fry the muffins (fry without grease) for 10 to 12 minutes on the first side before turning them over to cook on the other side. You’ll know the muffins are ready to turn when the top side has formed a dry skin. Cook the muffins for about half the time you cooked them on the first side, remove them from the griddle, carefully remove the rings, and allow them to cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 muffin, 82g
179 cal | 3g fat | 5g protein | 30g complex carbohydrates | 2g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 8mg cholesterol | 108mg sodium
Hot Buttered Pretzels
8 pretzels
Pretzels come in a few forms: crisp and hard in bags at your grocery store; bagel-like and chewy from a street vendor; or, if you’re lucky and in the right place, soft, buttery, and tender, like those this wonderful recipe yields.
Dough
2½ cups (300g) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
7/8 to 1 cup (196g to 224g) water, warm*
Topping
½ cup (112g) water, warm
1 teaspoon sugar
coarse, kosher, or pretzel salt (optional)
3 tablespoons (42g) salted butter, melted
Place all the dough ingredients in a bowl and beat until well combined. Knead the dough, by hand or mixer, for about 5 minutes, until it’s soft, smooth, and quite slack. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 475°F. Prepare two baking sheets by spraying them with vegetable oil spray or lining them with parchment paper.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and divide it into 8 equal pieces (about 63g each). Let the pieces rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Roll each piece of dough into a long thin rope (around 28″) and twist each rope into a pretzel (see illustration, page 174). Dip the pretzels in the warm water mixed with 1 teaspoon sugar, and place them on the baking sheets. Sprinkle them lightly with the salt, if using. Let them rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
Bake the pretzels for 8 to 9 minutes, until they’re golden brown, reversing the baking sheets midway through.
Remove the pretzels from the oven and brush them thoroughly with the melted butter. Keep brushing the butter on until you’ve used it all; it may seem like a lot, but that’s what gives these pretzels their ethereal taste. Eat the pretzels warm, or reheat them in an oven or microwave.
* Use the greater amount in the winter, the lesser amount in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall. Your goal is a soft dough.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 pretzel, 85g
171 cal | 5g fat | 4g protein | 27g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 12mg cholesterol | 444mg sodium
Variation
Soft Breadsticks: For soft, fat, chewy breadsticks, prepare the pretzel dough up through its first rest. Divide it into 24 pieces and shape each piece into an 8″ to 10″ breadstick. Transfer the breadsticks to a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, brush with warm water, and sprinkle with salt (for salt sticks) or seeds. Let rest and bake as directed in the preceding pretzel recipe.
Freeze!
Most yeast doughs respond very well to being refrigerated or frozen for a while. The exceptions are doughs very high in milk, eggs, and/or sugar, which tend to start fermenting after several days in the refrigerator (they do better in the freezer); or doughs with a lot of added fresh ingredients, such as cheese, fruit, or vegetables. These doughs tend to become watery when frozen, then thawed.
We’ve discovered the best way to produce freezer dough is to prepare your dough, let it rise once, deflate it, and freeze it before it can rise again. With loaf bread dough, we shape the dough, place it in a greased loaf pan, place the pan inside a plastic bag, seal it, and freeze for 24 hours; then remove it from the pan, wrap it tightly in plastic, then in aluminum foil, and return to the freezer.
When you want to bake bread, unwrap the dough, place it in a greased loaf pan, cover it with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let it thaw and rise at room temperature. Typically, it will take about 4 hours for the dough to thaw and begin to rise, and another hour or so for it to rise fully; these times, of course, depend on the temperature of your kitchen. You also may thaw the dough by placing it in its greased pan in the refrigerator overnight, then removing it for its final rise the next morning.
For best results, yeast bread or rolls should only be stored in the freezer for 2 to 3 weeks before thawing and baking.
Crusty Hard Rolls
12 rolls
These feathery light hard rolls have a delicious shiny, crunchy crust, partly the result of allowing them to proof overnight in the refrigerator, partly from an egg-white wash applied just prior to baking. This recipe starts with a poolish (pool-EESH), a premixed starter of flour, water, and a touch of yeast. Stirred together 12 to 16 hours before the remainder of the dough, the organic acids and alcohol produced by the growing yeast do wonders for both the bread’s taste and its texture. Poolish is an idiomatic French word for Polish, as in Poland, which is where the French believe this type of starter originated.
Poolish
1 cup (120g) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup (113g) water
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
3½ cups (420g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (227g) water
1½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon instant yeast
Wash
1 large egg white
½ cup (113g) water
To make the poolish: Mix together the ingredients until smooth, cover, and let rest at room temperature overnight.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the poolish and all the dough ingredients and mix and knead them together—by hand or mixer—until you’ve made a soft, somewhat smooth dough. It should be cohesive but the surface should still be a bit rough; don’t knead it until completely smooth. Cover and let the dough rise for 3 hours, gently deflating it and turning it over after 1 hour, and again after 2 hours.
To assemble: Turn the dough onto a lightly greased or floured work surface. Divide it into 12 pieces, about 56g each. Shape the pieces into balls and firm them up by rolling them under your lightly cupped fingers on an unfloured work surface (see illustrations). Place the rolls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover them, and let them rise for 1½ to 2 hours, until they’ve doubled in size. Refrigerate them, covered, for several hours, or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Remove the rolls from the refrigerator. Whisk together the egg white and water and brush this wash on the rolls (you won’t use it all). Slash a ¼″ deep cut across the top of each roll and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until they’re a deep golden brown. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack. For an extra-crisp crust, let them cool in the turned-off oven with the door propped open.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 roll, 82g
152 cal | 0g fat | 5g protein | 32g complex carbohydrates | 0 g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0 mg cholesterol | 272mg sodium
Rolling Rolls
When the recipe directs you to shape pieces of dough into smooth balls, the process involves rounding the pieces on an unfloured, ungreased work surface. This is important; if you try to roll the balls of dough on a work surface covered with flour or coated with oil, you’ll lack the dynamic tension between dough and rolling surface necessary for the rolls to become round. If the dough is very sticky, use a very light coating of oil on your work surface; never use flour.
Beautiful Burger Buns
8 large buns
Soft, subtly sweet, and golden yellow from the butter and egg, these simple buns are perfect for burgers, but are also excellent for any kind of sandwich. You can even turn them into dinner rolls by shaping them into round balls and crowding them close together in a pan. This recipe came to us from a baker named Ellen Dill, and was quickly adopted as everyone’s favorite soft bun.
Dough
1 cup (227g) water
2 tablespoons (28g) butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
3¼ cups (390g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (50g) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
1 teaspoon onion powder (optional)
½ teaspoon dried minced onion (optional)
Topping
3 tablespoons (43g) butter, melted
Combine all the ingredients and mix and knead them together to make a soft, smooth dough. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise for 1 hour.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces and shape each piece into a flattened ball. Place the buns on greased baking sheets, cover, and let rise 30 to 40 minutes, until they’re quite puffy. Brush the buns with about half of the melted butter.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the buns for 15 to 18 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, brush with the remaining melted butter, and cool them on a rack. Split and use for burgers or sandwiches. For burgers, butter the split sides and fry them, buttered side down, until they’re golden brown and warmed through.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 bun, 90g
211 cal | 4g fat | 6g protein | 32g complex carbohydrates | 6g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 35mg cholesterol | 276mg sodium
Amish Dinner Rolls
24 rolls
This exceptional recipe was inspired by one in a small handwritten Amish cookbook; thus its name. Dense yet still tender, moist but not at all heavy, these are the quintessential soft dinner rolls. Mashed potato gives them both their soft texture and staying power: They’ll remain moist and fresh-tasting at room temperature for several days, so consider them a good candidate for making ahead.
2 large eggs
1/3 cup (67g) sugar
2 teaspoons salt
6 tablespoons (¾ stick, 85g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (213g) unseasoned mashed potatoes, lightly packed
2½ teaspoons instant yeast
¾ cup (170g) water, lukewarm (water in which the potatoes were boiled, if possible)
4¼ cups (510g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Mix and knead all the ingredients together to make a smooth, soft dough.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise until it’s doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.
Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 24 balls. Round each ball into a smooth roll.
Place the rolls in a lightly greased 9̋ x 13″ pan. Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap and let them rise for 1½ to 2 hours, until they’re quite puffy. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re golden brown and feel set. Remove them from the oven and turn them out of the pan onto a rack. Brush with melted butter, if desired.
Serve rolls warm, or at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 roll, 48g
127 cal | 5g fat | 3g protein | 17g complex carbohydrates | 3g sugar | 0g dietary fiber | 24mg cholesterol | 174mg sodium
Japanese Milk Bread Rolls
8 rolls
Also known as Hokkaido milk bread, these rolls are incredibly soft and airy thanks to a simple technique involving a roux “starter,” known as tangzhong. The roux is mixed into the final dough, producing wonderfully tender bread each and every time.
Tangzhong (starter)
3 tablespoons (43g) water
3 tablespoons (43g) whole milk
2 tablespoons (15g) unbleached bread flour
Dough
2½ cups (300g) unbleached bread flour
2 tablespoons (16g) nonfat dry milk
¼ cup (50g) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
½ cup (113g) whole milk
1 large egg
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter, melted
To make the tangzhong: Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and whisk until no lumps remain.
Place the saucepan over low heat and cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until thick and the spoon or spatula leaves a line on the bottom of the pan, about 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer the tangzhong to a small mixing bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the tangzhong with the dough ingredients, then mix and knead to make a smooth, elastic dough.
Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest in a lightly greased, covered bowl for 60 to 90 minutes, until puffy but not necessarily doubled in bulk. Gently deflate the dough, divide it into 8 equal pieces, and shape each piece into a ball.
Place the rolls into a lightly greased 8″ or 9″ round cake pan. Cover the pan and let the rolls rest for 40 to 50 minutes, until puffy.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the rolls with milk and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown on top; a digital thermometer inserted into the center of the middle roll should read at least 190°F.
Remove the rolls from the oven. Allow them to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 roll, 90g
250 cal | 8g fat | 8g protein | 28g complex carbohydrates | 9g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 40mg cholesterol | 320mg sodium
Gruyère-Stuffed Crusty Loaves
4 mini loaves or 2 standard-size loaves
Who doesn’t love warm bread and cheese? Fresh from the oven, a lava-flow of aromatic cheese melts down the sides of these crusty loaves, made light and chewy thanks to the use of bread flour. They’re like a grilled cheese sandwich in roll form, and they make a very nice partner for soup or salad. When making the dough, consider the weather and use the greater amount of water in winter, when conditions are dry; and the lesser amount in summer, when the air is humid.
Starter
1¼ cups (149g) unbleached bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon instant yeast
½ cup (113g) water, cool
Dough
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons to 1¼ cups (255g to 284g) water, lukewarm
1 teaspoon salt
3½ cups (418g) unbleached bread flour
½ teaspoon instant yeast
Filling
1 tablespoon (16g) garlic oil (optional)
2½ cups (283g) grated Gruyère cheese, or the cheese of your choice (sharp cheddar or a mixture of provolone and mozzarella are good)
To make the starter: Mix the flour, salt, yeast, and water in a medium bowl until well combined; the starter will be stiff, not soft and liquid. Cover and let rest overnight at room temperature (65°F to 75°F is ideal); it’ll become bubbly.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the risen starter with the water, salt, flour, and yeast. Knead to make a smooth dough.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise until it’s nearly doubled in bulk, about 1½ to 2 hours.
Gently deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, or a piece of parchment. Pat and stretch it into a ¾″ thick rectangle, about 9̋ x 12″. Spritz with water (or brush with garlic oil, if using), and sprinkle with the grated cheese.
Starting with a long side, roll the dough into a log, pinching the seam and ends to seal. The cheese will try to fall out; that’s fine, just try to enclose as much as possible, then pack any errant cheese into the ends before sealing.
Place the log, seam-side down, on a lightly floured or lightly oiled surface (or leave it on the parchment and place the parchment on a baking sheet, for easiest transport).
Gently cut the log into four crosswise slices, for mini loaves; or simply cut the dough in half, for two full-size loaves. A large sharp knife or serrated knife works well here. If for some reason you fail to cut all the way through the dough at the bottom, simply take a pair of scissors and snip through the dough.
Place the loaves on one (for two loaves) or two (for four mini loaves) lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheets, cut side up.
Cover the loaves and let rise until they’re puffy but not doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1½ hours. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F. If you’re baking two loaves, position a rack in the center of the oven. If you’re baking four loaves, place two racks toward the center of the oven with just enough room in between to accommodate the rising loaves.
Spread the loaves open a bit at the top, if necessary, to more fully expose the cheese. Spritz with warm water.
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes (for the mini loaves), or 35 to 40 minutes (for the full-size loaves), or until the cheese is melted and the loaves are a deep golden brown. If you’re baking four loaves on two pans, rotate the pans halfway through the baking time: top to bottom, bottom to top. Remove the pans from the oven and cool the bread right on the pans. The bread is best served warm.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 40g
100 cal | 3g fat | 5g protein | 13g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 10mg cholesterol | 260mg sodium
Starter, Sponge, Poolish, Biga . . . I’m Confused!
A wide array of methods to help jump-start your bread’s rising (fermentation) process fall under the heading of preferments—as in PRE-ferments, something that happens before the first major fermenting (rising) of your bread dough. All the terms below refer to a type of starter, a combination of flour, water, and yeast prepared prior to the main body of the dough when making bread.
How do you know which, if any, of these preferments to use? When you’re just getting started, rely on your recipe; if it calls for a particular preferment, use it. Once you’ve become acquainted with the various types, use the one that fits your schedule, and that you feel produces the best flavor and texture in your bread.
The term “starter,” often used as a generic substitute for the word “preferments,” can also refer specifically to sourdough starter, a mixture of flour, water, and wild yeast used to provide the leavening (and wonderful flavor) in bread.
A sponge is typically made by using all of the liquid, half of the flour, and half of the yeast in a bread recipe. These three elements are mixed together, placed in a cool spot, and left to bubble for 3 to 10 hours or so. The remaining dough ingredients are added, and the bread is kneaded, shaped, raised, and baked as directed.
Poolish and biga are overnight starters, both utilizing domestic yeast (as well as wild). Poolish is a wet starter (the consistency of thick pancake batter), made from flour, water, and a touch of yeast (about 1/16 teaspoon).
A biga—the Italian name for a starter—can be either wet (batter-like consistency) or dry (stiff dough consistency). Like the poolish, it begins with flour, water, and a tiny bit of yeast. It can develop overnight, or for up to 3 days. As it develops, it will become more acidic and complex in flavor. The longer you let the biga develop, the more sour it will become.
Why are some bigas wet and some dry? This has to do with how much time you want to spend developing them, and how sour you want your bread to be. A wet biga will produce acetic acid, the acid that makes bread taste sour, more quickly than a dry biga. Most often, use a wet biga if you want to make dough within 10 to 12 hours; a dry one if you’d like to wait longer.
Levain is the French incarnation of what we know as sourdough starter. But, rather than taking the form of a slurry, a fairly liquid combination of flour and water, a levain is in the form of a dough, and the bread it leavens is not particularly sour. Because of the diet it has during its initial days, it develops a high enough concentration of wild yeast that it can leaven bread without the addition of commercial yeast. The slight acidity imparted by the levain allows the flavor of breads made with it to improve over time.
A chef or mère (they’re the same thing) is actually just part of a levain. In order to make bread, you break off part of the levain (it’s stiff and doughlike); this piece is called a chef or mère. The chef or mère is fed with additional flour or water and allowed to ferment; this process can be followed up to three times, each time the chef’s flavor becoming more complex, before finally it’s used as the leavening agent in a bread recipe.
Hearth or Country Breads
When you hear the phrase “artisan bread,” what comes to mind? A crusty, chewy loaf, perhaps loaded with pecans and dried cherries, or scented with fresh herbs. Or maybe a big round of sourdough with a shower of seeds on top. Or perhaps just the ultimate baguette.
What distinguishes artisan breads from others is the time that goes into them: most are made with an overnight (or longer) starter. As opposed to true sourdough, which is leavened by wild yeast, these loaves are often prepared using commercial yeast, but the flavor that develops from a series of long, slow rises is what sets them apart.
Most artisan-style hearth breads rely on just four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. Some include olive oil or other fat, but most are fairly simple breads. How, then, can there be such an incredible variety of breads made from these four basic ingredients? The methods used to make the dough, the time the dough is given to develop flavor, and the way the loaves are shaped and baked have an enormous effect on the final product. The following are some hints that we’ve come up with over the years that will help you successfully make artisan-style breads at home.
Choosing your ingredients: Use unbleached, unbromated flour with a protein level between 10.5% and 12%. If your water has a strong chlorine taste / smell or other off-flavors, use bottled water. To eliminate chlorine from tap water, let the water sit in an open container for a few hours. There are many different yeasts on the market, each with its own following. We recommend instant yeast because it’s so easy to use, easy to store, and can withstand some mishandling.
Time: Flavor comes from long, slow fermentation (rising) at relatively low temperatures. An ambient rising temperature of 70°F to 80°F results in the best-flavored bread. Using a preferment (a sponge, poolish, biga, or levain) helps develop even more flavor.
Use less yeast: If you plan to use a preferment and allow time for a long first rise, you can use less yeast. Using less yeast allows the dough to develop slowly, leaving time for all the enzymatic and chemical changes that lead to flavorful bread.
Use more water: Wetter is usually better. A slack dough allows for a more active fermentation and complete development of the gluten structure. A hydration of 65% or more based on total flour weight is a good place to start. (Consider the weight of the flour is 100%, then divide the weight of the water by the weight of the flour to find the hydration level. For example, if your flour weighs 336g, using 168g of water would give you 50% hydration.)
Mix (knead) less: Mix and knead your dough less than to full development. The gluten continues to develop during fermentation, so if you knead the dough fully it will be hard to handle after fermentation; it will be too strong to shape properly and won’t rise to its full volume in the oven. Full development is reached when your dough is very smooth, cleans the sides and bottom of the bowl, and will stretch—without tearing—to make a transparent “window,” that is, you can see light through it. Dough at less than full development will be slightly sticky to the touch, won’t be totally smooth, and will tear after stretching a small amount.
Handle with care: Handle dough gently during shaping. When you’re deflating dough at any point during its fermentation process, simply fold it over gently onto itself. And when you’re shaping, you don’t want to expel all the air; just make the dough smooth, without huge air pockets.
Baking with steam: Bake breads directly on a baking stone with steam in the oven for the first 10 minutes. It’s nearly impossible to get the amount of steam in a home oven that a professional steam-injected oven has. That said, a good home approximation is putting a cast iron skillet into the bottom of the oven, preheating the oven for at least 30 minutes on the highest heat possible, and pouring boiling water (1/3 to ½ cup, 75g to 113g) into the hot pan just after the bread is put in. This method should allow you to keep the outside surface of the dough moist enough to let the loaf expand. Spritzing the loaves with water just before baking also helps.
Thorough baking: Bake the loaves until they’ve reached an internal temperature of 190° to 210°F and the crust is medium to dark brown. Much of the flavor of bread is concentrated in the crust, and the darker the crust (within reason, of course; don’t let it blacken), the more flavorful the bread.
Adding Dried Fruit
When making a yeast bread with fruit, be aware that the fruit will inevitably release some of its sugar into the dough, which will change the sugar ratio and may slow your bread’s rise. To impact rising time as little as possible, do the following:
- If you’re using raisins or other fruits that can remain whole (currants, dried cranberries, etc.), don’t soak them first; it isn’t necessary and it allows their sugar to begin leaching out.
- When adding fruits that need to be chopped (dried apricots, large pieces of dried pineapple, etc.), leave the fruit pieces as large as possible; the finer you chop the fruit, the more sugar it will release into the dough.
- Don’t add fruit to your initial dough; let it go through its first rise, then briefly knead the fruit in before shaping. This gives the yeast a good strong start before you add the fruit.
Raisin Pecan Rye Bread
1 loaf
There’s something very right about the combination of rye flour, raisins, and pecans. The subtle earthy flavor of rye, the nuttiness of the pecans, and the sweetness of raisins combine to make a bread whose flavor seems to hit all the high notes at once. This dense, moist bread is delicious spread with butter (toasted or not); or serve it with Roquefort or another assertive cheese.
Biga
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup (120g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (76g) water
Dough
1½ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons (40g) brown sugar
½ cup (56g) rye flour
½ cup (56g) pumpernickel flour
1 cup (120g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup (170g) water
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (28g) butter
½ cup (53g) chopped pecans
1 cup (147g) currants or raisins
To make the biga: Stir together the yeast, flour, and water. The dough will be quite stiff. Place it in a lightly greased bowl, cover it, and let it rest at room temperature overnight.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: The next day, combine the biga with the remaining ingredients (except the pecans and fruit) in a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, mixing to form a shaggy dough. Knead the dough until smooth, then place it in a lightly greased bowl and let it rest for 1 hour; it will become quite puffy, but it may not double in bulk.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface, gently deflate it, and knead in the nuts and fruit. Shape the dough into a slightly flattened ball and place it on a lightly greased baking sheet. Cover the pan with a reusable cover or lightly greased plastic wrap. Let the loaf rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it’s puffy.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for about 40 minutes (tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 15 minutes) until its interior registers 190°F on a digital thermometer. Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 79g
236 cal | 6g fat | 6g protein | 38g complex carbohydrates | 3g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 9mg cholesterol | 214mg sodium
Variation
Raisin Rye Crisps: The preceding recipe makes a very nice sandwich or toasting bread. But, to make rye crisps—delightfully crunchy slices of oven-toasted bread—we use more rye and less wheat flour. This makes a denser bread, so it’s easier to slice into crisps. In addition, we shape the breads differently: The bread for crisps is formed into two baguettes, to be sliced crosswise. These small, oval slices show less tendency to crumble, and also toast more evenly than would a large sandwich slice.
Prepare the biga as directed above. The next day, when making the dough, change the flour amounts to 2/3 cup (70g) each rye and pumpernickel flours, and 2/3 cup (81g) unbleached bread flour. Reduce the amount of yeast from 2 teaspoons to 1½ teaspoons. Prepare dough as directed up to the point when it’s ready to shape.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled work surface and divide it in half. Shape each half into a thin baguette about 15″ long. Place the baguettes on a baking sheet and cover them with a dough cover or lightly greased plastic wrap. Let the baguettes rest for 1 hour. They won’t appear to rise very much; that’s OK.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the loaves for about 30 minutes, or until they’re brown and their interior registers 190°F on a digital thermometer. Remove them from the oven and place on a rack to cool. When the bread is cool, wrap each loaf loosely in a clean dish towel and let them rest overnight.
The next day, cut the bread, making slightly diagonal cuts (as if you’re making biscotti) into ¼″ slices. Place the slices in a single layer on ungreased baking sheets.
Preheat the oven to 275°F. Bake the slices for 25 to 30 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown and very crisp. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheets. When the crisps are completely cool, store them in an airtight container.
Currants vs. Raisins
We like to use currants in place of raisins in bread that will be served in medium-to-thin slices; the smaller currants are more likely to remain embedded in the bread, rather than being ripped out by the knife as it cuts.
Baguettes
3 baguettes
The first goal of every budding artisan bread baker is a crusty, flavorful baguette. Let this recipe be the starting point on a journey that may last for quite a long time—the “perfect” baguette is a serious challenge for any home baker.
This recipe makes use of a poolish (see description, page 185) to enhance the baguettes’ flavor. Notice the symmetry of the ingredient amounts: nearly equal amounts of flour and water (by weight) in the poolish; in the dough, the same amount of water again and double the amount of flour. These are the classic French proportions for a baguette.
Poolish
1¼ cups (150g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup (152g) water, cool (approximately 60°F)
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
generous 2½ cups (300g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2/3 cup (152g) water, cool (approximately 60°F)
To make the poolish: Combine the flour, water, and yeast in a medium bowl and mix just until blended. Let the poolish rise for 12 hours or so (overnight is usually just fine). It should dome slightly on top and look aerated and spongy. Try to catch it before it starts to fall, as it will be at its optimum flavor and vigor when it’s at its highest point. On the other hand, don’t make yourself crazy about this; we’ve used plenty of starters that are either pre- or post-prime and they work fine.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Place the flour, yeast, and salt in a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the poolish and water and mix the dough until it just becomes cohesive, about 30 seconds. (It’s OK if there’s still flour in the bottom of the bowl.) Cover and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. This resting period allows the flour to absorb the liquid, which will make kneading much easier.
Knead the dough, using your hands or a stand mixer, for about 6 to 8 minutes by hand, or 4 to 5 minutes at medium-low speed in your mixer, until it’s cohesive and elastic but not perfectly smooth; the surface should still exhibit some roughness. You’ll want to knead this dough less than you think you should; while it will shape itself into a ball, it won’t have the characteristic “baby’s bottom” smoothness of fully kneaded dough. You aren’t kneading this dough all the way because you’ll give it a nice long rise, and during that rising time the gluten continues to develop. If you kneaded the dough fully before rising, the gluten would become unpleasantly stiff during the long rise.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl (or oil your mixer bowl and leave it in there). Cover and let it rise for 2 hours, folding it over after the first hour (or more frequently if the dough is very slack or wet; folding helps strengthen the gluten). To fold the dough, lift it out of the bowl, gently deflate it, fold it in half, and place it back in the bowl; this expels excess carbon dioxide and redistributes the yeast’s food.
Divide the dough into three pieces and gently form them into rough logs. Let them rest for 20 minutes, then shape into long (13″ to 14″), thin baguettes. Let the baguettes rise, covered, in the folds of a linen or cotton couche (see Tools, page 531) until they’ve become noticeably puffy, 30 to 40 minutes. If you don’t have a couche, place them in a perforated triple baguette pan, or on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, and cover them lightly with a reusable cover or greased plastic wrap.
Preheat the oven and baking stone to 500°F. (Baguettes baked on a stone will have a crispier crust, but those baked on a pan will be just as tasty, if not equally crunchy.) Just before putting the loaves into the oven, use a lame (see Tools, page 532) or sharp serrated knife to gently make four diagonal cuts in each loaf. These cuts should angle into the dough at about 45º (in other words, don’t cut straight down) and should be a good ¼″ deep. Be gentle but quick; if you hesitate and drag your lame or knife through the dough, it will stick rather than cut.
Spray the loaves heavily with warm water; this will somewhat replicate a steam oven. (For other ways to create steam, see page 227.) Put the loaves in the oven. Reduce the oven heat to 475°F and bake the loaves for 20 minutes or so. Remove the loaves from the oven when they’re a deep golden brown and transfer them to a rack to cool. Listen closely just as you take the loaves out of the oven; you’ll hear them “sing,” crackling as they hit the cool air of your kitchen. Let the loaves cool completely before slicing; if you can’t wait, understand that the texture of the loaves where you cut them may be gummy as they still contain moisture, which will migrate out as they cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 2 slices, 39g
76 cal | 0g fat | 2g protein | 16g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 16g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 214mg sodium
Vollkornbrot
One 13″ loaf
This traditional whole grain loaf is deeply rye-flavored with a fine-grained, dense texture. It requires very little in the way of hands-on time or kneading. Enjoy thin slices with smoked salmon, fruit preserves, or a simple pat of butter. It will keep for weeks wrapped tightly in the refrigerator, or for months in the freezer.
Starter
3¾ cups (398g) pumpernickel flour
1¾ cups (397g) water, lukewarm
2 tablespoons (21g) ripe (fed) sourdough starter or ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
Soaker
2 1/3 cups (283g) rye chops
1¼ cups (284g) water, lukewarm
Dough
2 cups (212g) pumpernickel flour
¼ cup (57g) water, lukewarm
1 tablespoon (16g) salt
½ cup (71g) sunflower seeds
2 teaspoons instant yeast
To make the starter: Mix all the ingredients until smooth. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.
To make the soaker: Combine the rye chops and water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.
The next day, lightly grease the inside of a 13″ pain de mie (Pullman loaf) pan, then dust with pumpernickel flour.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: In a large bowl, combine the starter, soaker, and dough ingredients. Mix the dough, by hand or using a stand mixer, until it becomes dense and sticky, but still loose; it won’t require a lot of mixing.
Transfer the dough directly to a lightly greased work surface and form it into a 13″ log. Place the log in the prepared pan.
Sprinkle a thin layer of pumpernickel flour over the surface of the dough, cover with plastic wrap or a reusable cover, and allow the dough to sit for 60 minutes, until just slightly risen. You’ll see cracks in the flour on top as the dough expands.
Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 450°F.
Uncover the bread and bake the loaf (without the lid on the pan) for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 425°F and bake for 50 to 60 minutes longer, until the surface is cracked and dark brown.
Remove the bread from the oven, take the bread from the pan, and transfer it to a baking sheet. Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the loaf’s internal temperature reaches at least 205°F on a digital thermometer inserted into the center.
Remove the loaf from the oven and transfer it to a rack to cool completely. Wrap the cooled bread in a towel, or place it in a paper bag and let it rest for at least 24 to 48 hours before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 53g
105 cal | 2g fat | 4g protein | 19g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 4g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 226mg sodium
Crusty Italian Bread
1 braided loaf
The term “Italian bread” is as uninformative a term as, say, “American soup.” There are as many types of Italian bread as there are regions in Italy and bakers within those regions. The following recipe will make what many would consider a typical bakery-style Italian loaf: a golden brown, buxom braid, sprinkled with sesame seeds, with a crisp and crunchy crust.
Biga
1 cup (227g) water, cool (about 65°F)
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
½ cup (114g) water, cool (about 65°F)
2 to 2½ cups (240g to 300g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
Topping
1 egg white lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon (14g) water
sesame seeds
To make the biga: Combine the biga ingredients in a large bowl, mixing just until a cohesive dough forms. Cover and let the starter rest for 12 to 16 hours at room temperature. When the biga is ready, it will be filled with craters and large bubbles.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Add the water to the biga and mix until smooth. Add the flour, yeast, and salt and knead the dough until it’s fairly smooth but not necessarily elastic, about 3 minutes by stand mixer, or 5 minutes by hand. (The gluten will continue to develop as the dough rises, so you don’t want to develop it fully during the kneading process.)
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let the dough rise at room temperature for 1½ hours. To help develop the gluten and distribute the yeast’s food, gently deflate the dough and turn it over every 30 minutes during the rising time (see illustration, page 195).
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Divide the dough in thirds and roll each third into a 20″ long rope. Braid the ropes. Set the braid on a lightly greased baking sheet, cover, and let rise for 1 to 1½ hours, until just puffy. Gently brush the braid with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Put the bread in the oven and bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until golden brown and its internal temperature reaches 190°F. Take the bread out of the oven and cool it on a rack.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 56g
102 cal | 0g fat | 4g protein | 23g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 204mg sodium
Ciabatta
2 loaves
This airy white hearth bread from Italy’s Lake Como region receives its name from its appearance: the finished loaf, a fat oval, looks like a homely, comfortably broken-in slipper. It takes a slack dough to make light bread: This dough is so slack (wet) that it must be kneaded by machine, not hand.
The texture of this bread is what sets it apart. The interior is soft and porous, with large irregular holes, while the crust is crunchy and crisp, rather than chewy. Serve ciabatta with pasta, where it’s great for soaking up sauce. Or use it to make a delightfully overstuffed sandwich.
Biga
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
½ cup (114g) water
1½ cups (180g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons nonfat dry milk
1½ teaspoons salt
¾ cup plus 3 tablespoons (213g) water*
1 tablespoon (11g) olive oil
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
To make the biga: Mix all the ingredients in a medium bowl, cover the bowl, and let rest for about 12 hours, or overnight.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Use your fingers to pull the biga into walnut-size pieces, and place the pieces in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add all the dough ingredients to the biga and beat slowly with a flat beater paddle or beaters for about 3 minutes. Replace the beater paddle with the dough hook(s), increase the speed to medium, and knead for 10 minutes. The dough should be very sticky and slack. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket, cover the bowl or bucket, and let the dough rise for 2 to 3 hours, gently deflating it and turning it over every 45 minutes or so.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and use a bench knife or dough scraper to divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into a rough log. Transfer the log to a parchment-lined baking sheet, or one sprinkled with cornmeal or semolina, and flatten it into an irregular 10″ × 4″ oval. Use your fingers—your entire finger, not just the tip—to indent the surface of the dough vigorously and thoroughly. Repeat with the remaining piece of dough. Cover the loaves with heavily greased plastic wrap or a reusable cover, and set them aside to rise until very puffy, 2 to 3 hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen.
Half an hour before you want to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 425°F. Spritz water into the oven with a clean plant mister for about 5 seconds. Place the bread in the oven and spritz water into the oven three more times during the first 10 minutes of baking. Bake the loaves for a total of about 25 minutes, or until they’re a deep golden brown and their interior temperature measures 210°F. Remove the loaves from the pan and return them to the oven. Turn off the oven, crack the door open a couple of inches, and let the loaves cool completely in the oven. Dust the loaves generously with flour.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 51g
103 cal | 1g fat | 3g protein | 20g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 1g dietary fiber |0mg cholesterol | 269 mg sodium
* Use an additional 2 to 3 tablespoons of water in the winter, or in very dry weather conditions.
Swedish Limpa
1 loaf
This orange- and spice-scented Swedish rye is a Scandinavian favorite. It’s especially good toasted and spread with sweet butter.
2 cups (240g) unbleached bread flour
½ cup (57g) whole wheat flour
½ cup (53g) pumpernickel flour
¼ cup (78g) dark corn syrup
2½ teaspoons instant yeast
1½ teaspoons each: caraway, fennel, and anise seed
1 tablespoon (3g) orange zest
1½ teaspoons salt
¼ cup (32g) nonfat dry milk
1 to 1¼ cups (227g to 284g) water
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter or ¼ cup vegetable oil (50g)
In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients until a rough dough forms, then knead (about 10 minutes by hand, 5 to 7 minutes by machine) until the dough is smooth and satiny. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let the dough rise for 1 hour. It will become somewhat puffy, but probably won’t double in bulk.
Shape the dough into a slightly flattened ball and place it on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with a reusable cover or lightly greased plastic wrap and let it rise for 1¼ to 1½ hours, until it’s puffed up noticeably.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the bread in the oven and bake for 35 minutes, tenting it with aluminum foil for the final 10 minutes if it appears to be browning too quickly. When the internal temperature reaches 190°F, remove the bread from the oven and place it on a rack to cool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 54g
139 cal | 4g fat | 4g protein | 20g complex carbohydrates | 4g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 9mg cholesterol | 220mg sodium
No-Knead Crusty White Bread
3 or 4 loaves
The most basic of all no-knead loaves, this is a wonderful way to get into baking yeast breads. The easy stir-together dough rests in your refrigerator, developing flavor all the time, until you’re ready to bake. About 90 minutes before you want to serve bread, grab a handful of dough, shape it, let it rise, then bake for 30 minutes. The result? Incredible, crusty artisan-style bread. If you’re a first-time bread baker, you’ll never believe this bread came out of your own oven. And even if you’re a seasoned bread baker, you’ll love this recipe’s simplicity.
The flour/liquid ratio is very important in this recipe, so measure carefully. Your best bet is to weigh the flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess.
When we say “lukewarm” water, we mean about 105°F, but don’t stress over getting the temperatures exact here. Comfortably warm is fine; “ouch, that’s hot!” is not. Yeast is a living thing; treat it nicely.
7½ cups (900g) unbleached all-purpose flour
3 cups (681g) water, lukewarm
1 tablespoon (18g) salt
1½ tablespoons (14g) instant yeast
Mix and stir everything together to make a very sticky, rough dough. If you have a stand mixer, beat at medium speed with the beater blade for 30 to 60 seconds. If you don’t have a mixer, just stir aggressively with a big spoon or dough whisk until everything is combined.
Next, you’re going to let the dough rise. If you’ve made the dough in a plastic bucket, you’re all set—just let it stay there, covering the bucket with a lid or plastic wrap; a shower cap actually works well here. If you’ve made the dough in a bowl that’s not at least of 6-quart capacity, transfer it to a large bowl; it’s going to rise a lot. There’s no need to grease the bowl, though you can if you like; it makes it a bit easier to get the dough out when it’s time to bake bread.
Cover the bowl or bucket, and let the dough rise at room temperature for 2 hours. Then refrigerate it for at least 2 hours, or for up to about 7 days. (If you’re pressed for time, skip the room-temperature rise, and stick it right in the fridge.) The longer you keep it in the fridge, the tangier it’ll get; if you chill it for 7 days, it will taste like sourdough. Over the course of the first day or so, it’ll rise, then fall. That’s fine; that’s what it’s supposed to do.
When you’re ready to make bread, sprinkle the top of the dough with flour; this will make it easier to grab a hunk. Grease your hands and pull off about 1/4 to 1/3 of the dough—a 392g to 532g piece, if you have a scale. It’ll be about the size of a softball, or a large grapefruit.
Plop the sticky dough onto a floured work surface, and round it into a ball, or a longer log. Don’t fuss around trying to make it perfect; just do the best you can.
Place the loaf on a piece of parchment if you’re going to use a baking stone, or on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Sift a light coating of flour over the top; this will help keep the bread moist as it rests before baking. Drape the bread with greased plastic wrap, or cover it with a reusable cover.
Let the loaf warm to room temperature and rise; this should take about 60 minutes (or longer, up to a couple of hours, if your house is cool). It won’t appear to rise upward that much; rather, it’ll seem to settle and expand. Preheat your oven to 450°F while the loaf rests. If you’re using a baking stone, position it on a middle rack while the oven preheats. Place a shallow metal or cast iron pan (not glass, Pyrex, or ceramic) on the lowest oven rack, and have 1 cup of hot water ready to go.
When you’re ready to bake, take a sharp knife and slash the bread 2 or 3 times, making a cut about ½″ deep. The bread may deflate a bit; that’s OK, it’ll pick right up in the hot oven.
Place the bread in the oven—onto the baking stone, if you’re using one, or simply onto a middle rack, if it’s on a pan—and carefully pour the 1 cup hot water into the shallow pan on the rack beneath. It’ll bubble and steam; close the oven door quickly.
Bake the bread for 25 to 35 minutes, until it’s a deep, golden brown.
Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 50g
100 cal | 0g fat | 4g protein | 20g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 220mg sodium
No-Knead Harvest Bread
1 loaf
Plan ahead for this easy bread, which gets its incredible flavor from an overnight or all-day rise. Packed with whole grains, dried fruit, and nuts, it uses bread flour to guarantee a strong rise and satisfying chew. For the best crust, bake in a ceramic bread crock or a covered clay baker.
3¼ cups (390g) unbleached bread flour
1 cup (113g) whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon instant yeast
1¾ cups (397g) water, cool
¾ cup (86g) dried cranberries
½ cup (75g) golden raisins
1 cup (113g) coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts
Mix the flours, salt, yeast, and water in a large bowl. The dough will rise quite a bit, so be sure your bowl is large enough. Stir, then use your hands to bring the sticky dough together, making sure to incorporate all the flour.
Work in the fruits and nuts.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest at room temperature overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a log or round loaf to fit your 14″ to 15″ long lidded stoneware baker; 9̋ x 12″ oval deep casserole dish with cover; or 9″ to 10″ round lidded baking crock.
Place the dough in the lightly greased pan, smooth side up.
Cover and let rise at room temperature for about 2 hours, until it’s become puffy.
Using a sharp knife or lame, slash the bread in a crosshatch pattern. Place the lid on the pan, and put the bread in the cold oven. Set the oven temperature to 450°F, and put the bread into the oven.
Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes (start the timer when you place the bread into the cold oven). Remove the lid and continue to bake for another 5 to 15 minutes, until it’s deep brown in color, and a digital thermometer inserted into the center registers about 205°F.
Remove the bread from the oven, turn it out onto a rack, and cool completely before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 77g
196 cal | 5g fat | 5g protein | 26g complex carbohydrates | 7g sugar | 3g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 293mg sodium
Pane Bianco
1 loaf
Combining a stunningly impressive appearance with the comfortingly familiar flavor of pizza, this uniquely S-shaped loaf has wonderfully soft texture. The technique is actually quite simple, and although we fill it with fresh basil, tomatoes, garlic, and cheese, you can swap in other ingredients (such as mozzarella or fresh oregano). The recipe comes by way of Dianna Wara of Washington, Illinois, who took first place with it in the first-ever National Festival of Breads. We’ve since simplified it a bit, while retaining its award-winning characteristics.
Dough
3 cups (360g) unbleached bread flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 large egg
½ cup (113g) milk, lukewarm
1/3 cup (75g) water, lukewarm
3 tablespoons (37g) olive oil
Filling
¾ cup (85g) grated Italian-blend cheese
½ cup (113g) oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes or oven-roasted tomatoes
3 to 6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil, green or purple
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine all the dough ingredients in a bowl and mix and knead—by hand or using a mixer—to make a smooth, very soft dough. The dough should stick a bit to the bottom of the bowl if you’re using a mixer.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise until it’s doubled in size, about 45 to 60 minutes.
Meanwhile, thoroughly drain the tomatoes, patting them dry. Use kitchen shears to cut them into smaller bits. Shears are also useful for slicing / chopping the basil.
Gently deflate the dough. Flatten and pat it into a 22̋ x 8½″ rectangle. Spread with the cheese, tomatoes, garlic, and basil.
Starting with one long edge, roll the dough into a log the long way. Pinch the edges to seal. Place the log seam-side down on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
Using kitchen shears, start ½″ from one end and cut the log lengthwise down the center about 1″ deep, to within ½″ of the other end.
Keeping the cut side up, form an “S” shape. Tuck both ends under the center of the “S” to form a figure 8; pinch the ends together to seal.
Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size, 45 to 60 minutes.
While the loaf is rising, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Uncover the bread, and bake it for 35 to 40 minutes, tenting it with foil after 20 to 25 minutes to prevent over-browning.
Remove the bread from the oven and transfer it to a rack to cool. Enjoy warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 41g
100 cal | 3g fat | 5g protein | 14g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 10mg cholesterol | 190mg sodium
Watch the Dough, Not the Clock
When making anything with yeast, it’s best to let the dough rise to the point the recipe says it should, e.g., “doubled in bulk,” rather than watching the clock. Rising times are only a guide; there are so many variables in yeast baking that it’s impossible to say that bread dough will always double in bulk in a specific amount of time.
Yeasted Flatbreads
Yeasted flatbreads are a familiar sight in cultures all over the world. From Middle Eastern pita to Italian focaccia to that universally beloved flatbread—pizza—these loaves are short in stature but broad in their appeal. Flatbreads come in two types: those that are given yeast and encouraged to rise, and those that aren’t. These flatbreads have the unmistakable flavor and texture that comes from yeast, which is different from cracker-style flatbreads.
Flatbreads are often topped with seeds, herbs, and spices, or any of a wide array of vegetables, cheeses, and even fruit. Or, like pita, they’re designed to be split and filled once they’re out of the oven. One thing all these breads have in common is their suggestion of community; when you serve a big, table-dominating flatbread, it demands a crowd, pulling off pieces, reaching across one another, talking and laughing and enjoying the meal—and one another.
The Easiest Pizza You’ll Ever Make
four 12″ pizzas
This is, hands down, the simplest path to homemade pizza. It’s perfect for a weeknight (in fact, we recommend prepping some ahead and keeping it on hand for a speedy dinner) and also makes a fun base for a “do-it-yourself-party”—just mix up the dough, set out plenty of toppings and cheese, and let everyone do the rest. The recipe makes three or four 12″ pizzas (depending on how thick you like the crust). For a larger party, you can double it.
1 tablespoon (12g) sugar
1 tablespoon (9g) instant yeast
1 tablespoon (18g) salt
2 tablespoons (25g) olive oil
2 cups (454g) water, lukewarm
5½ to 6 cups (660g to 720g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dissolve the sugar, yeast, and salt in the lukewarm water (and olive oil, if you’re using it).
Add the flour, starting with 5½ cups (660g) flour and adding more as necessary to make a soft, smooth dough.
Knead the dough (with your hands or a mixer) until it’s smooth and elastic, about 7 to 10 minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or other container, cover it, and let it rise for 1 to 2 hours—whatever fits your schedule.
Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 4 pieces, for medium-crust pizza; or 3 pieces, for thicker crusts. Use a rolling pin to roll each piece, on a lightly greased surface, into a circle to fit a 12″ pizza pan. Let the dough rest several times to relax it and make it more cooperative. If you prefer a more artisan look to your crust, with scattered random air pockets throughout, hand-stretch the dough to size. Again, letting it rest periodically makes the job easier.
Place the rounds on pizza pans; on baking sheets; or, if you have a pizza stone in your oven, on parchment.
Preheat the oven to 450°F. While it’s heating, get out your toppings, which you’ve prepared ahead. Good options are sliced pepperoni; sautéed mushrooms, onions, or peppers; cooked meats; olives; anchovies; and grated or shredded cheese.
Brush each crust with a bit of olive oil; spread sauce lightly over the surface, and add your favorite toppings. Sprinkle the top with grated cheese.
Bake the pizzas for 15 to 20 minutes, until they’re golden brown, the toppings are hot and bubbly, and the cheese is melted. Remove the pizzas from the oven.
Immediately transfer pizzas to a cooling rack, so their bottoms don’t get soggy. After about 10 minutes (to allow the toppings to set), slice and serve; a pair of scissors is a great cutting tool.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice without toppings, 40g
90 cal | 1g fat | 3g protein | 16g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 270mg sodium
Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza
One 9″ or 10″ pizza
With its crispy golden edges, gooey layer of cheese (right to the edge!), and thick yet delicate crust, this pan pizza has a texture and taste that makes you want more. Plus, the crust has just five simple ingredients, making it easy to pull off in a home kitchen. Our recipe incorporates four baking “tricks.” An untraditional, nearly no-knead method of folding the dough creates airy pockets in the crust. An overnight refrigerated rest allows the dough time to develop maximum flavor. Baking in a cast iron pan makes an audibly crispy crust for your flavorful assortment of toppings. And finally, the unique layering of cheese beneath the sauce acts as a barrier to minimize sogginess.
Our base cheese of choice is a block of low-moisture mozzarella, coarsely grated. If you experiment with other cheese, choose ones that melt well: Fontina, cheddar, Jack, provolone, and Gouda are all good candidates. For an extra hit of flavor, sprinkle freshly grated hard cheese (such as Parmesan) and/or fresh herbs (oregano, basil, thyme) over the hot pizza just before serving. This recipe can easily be doubled to feed a larger crowd—simply divide the dough between two pans.
Crust
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon instant yeast
¾ cup (170g) water, lukewarm
1 tablespoon (13g) plus 1½ tablespoons (18g) olive oil for the pan
Topping
6 ounces (170g) grated mozzarella (about 1¼ cups, loosely packed)
1/3 to ½ cup (74g to 113g) tomato sauce or pizza sauce
Place the flour, salt, yeast, water, and 1 tablespoon (13g) of the olive oil in the bowl of a stand mixer or other large mixing bowl.
Stir everything together to make a shaggy, sticky mass of dough with no dry patches of flour. This should take 30 to 45 seconds in a mixer using the beater paddle; or about 1 minute by hand, using a spoon or spatula. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to gather the dough into a rough ball; cover the bowl.
After 5 minutes, uncover the bowl and reach a bowl scraper or your wet hand down between the side of the bowl and the dough, as though you were going to lift the dough out. Instead of lifting, stretch the bottom of the dough up and over its top. Repeat three more times, turning the bowl 90° each time. This process of four stretches, which takes the place of kneading, is called a fold.
Re-cover the bowl, and after 5 minutes do another fold. Wait 5 minutes and repeat; then another 5 minutes and do a fourth and final fold. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest, undisturbed, for 40 minutes. Then refrigerate it for a minimum of 12 hours, or up to 72 hours. It’ll rise slowly as it chills, developing flavor; this long rise will also add flexibility to your schedule.
About 3 hours before you want to serve your pizza, prepare your pan. Pour 1½ tablespoons (18g) olive oil into a well-seasoned cast iron skillet that’s 10″ to 11″ diameter across the top, and about 9″ across the bottom. Heavy, dark cast iron will give you a superb crust; but if you don’t have it, use another oven-safe heavy-bottomed skillet of similar size, or a 10″ round cake pan or 9″ square pan. Tilt the pan to spread the oil across the bottom and use your fingers or a paper towel to spread some oil up the edges, as well.
Transfer the dough to the pan and turn it once to coat both sides with the oil. After coating the dough in oil, press the dough to the edges of the pan, dimpling it using the tips of your fingers in the process. The dough may start to resist and shrink back; that’s OK, just cover it and let it rest for about 15 minutes, then repeat the dimpling / pressing. At this point the dough should reach the edges of the pan; if it doesn’t, give it one more 15-minute rest before dimpling / pressing a third and final time.
Cover the crust and let it rise for 2 hours at room temperature. The fully risen dough will look soft and will jiggle when you gently shake the pan: think soft marshmallow.
About 30 minutes before baking, place one rack at the bottom of the oven and one toward the top (about 4″ to 5″ from the top heating element). Preheat the oven to 450°F.
When you’re ready to bake the pizza, sprinkle about three-quarters of the cheese (a scant 1 cup) evenly over the crust. Cover the entire crust, no bare dough showing; this will yield caramelized edges. Dollop small spoonfuls of the sauce over the cheese; laying the cheese down first like this will prevent the sauce from seeping into the crust and making it soggy. Sprinkle on the remaining cheese.
Bake the pizza on the bottom rack of the oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and the bottom and edges of the crust are a rich golden brown (use a spatula to check the bottom). If the bottom is brown but the top still seems pale, transfer the pizza to the top rack and bake for 2 to 4 minutes longer. On the other hand, if the top seems fine but the bottom’s not browned to your liking, leave the pizza on the bottom rack for another 2 to 4 minutes. Home ovens can vary a lot, so use the visual cues and your own preferences to gauge when you’ve achieved the perfect bake.
Remove the pizza from the oven and place the pan on a heatproof surface. Carefully run a table knife or spatula between the edge of the pizza and side of the pan to prevent the cheese from sticking as it cools. Let the pizza cool very briefly; as soon as you feel comfortable doing so, carefully transfer it from the pan to a cooling rack or cutting surface. This will prevent the crust from becoming soggy.
Serve the pizza anywhere from medium-hot to warm. Kitchen shears or a large pair of household scissors are both good tools for cutting this thick pizza into wedges.
Nutrition information per serving: 2 slices, 186g
380 cal | 11g fat | 20g protein | 49g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 10mg cholesterol | 980mg sodium
Double-Crust Pizza
1 pizza
Pizza comes under the heading of Things We Never Get Tired Of, just like chocolate cake or warm biscuits or ice cream. But how can you most easily enjoy homemade pizza at a picnic or for lunch? By making it portable. This pizza has a top crust to keep the filling soft, delicious, and contained.
This double-crust pizza is spectacular right out of the oven, the bubbly filling nesting inside a crisp, chewy crust. Later, it becomes more like a sandwich—less crisp, but still chewy and delicious.
Poolish
1 cup (120g) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup (112g) water
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
Dough
2¼ cups (270g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup (170g) water
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (13g) olive oil
To make the poolish: In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, water, and yeast. Set aside, covered, to rest at room temperature for 6 to 12 hours (overnight is fine).
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Add the flour and water to the poolish, mix well, and let it rest for 20 minutes. Add the remaining dough ingredients, mixing and kneading briefly to form a semi-smooth dough. The dough should be slightly sticky and soft—and may still have a rough surface. We recommend kneading about 5 minutes in a stand mixer, or 6 to 7 minutes by hand. Cover and let the dough rise for 45 minutes; gently fold the edges to the middle, turn it over, and let it rise an additional 45 minutes. Prepare your choice of fillings (see below) while the dough is rising for the second time.
To assemble the pizza: Divide the dough in half. Roll one half into a 14″ circle. Place it in a lightly greased round pizza pan, or on a lightly greased or parchment-lined pan big enough to hold it. Top with the filling of your choice, leaving a ½″ margin around the edge of the dough. Roll the second piece of dough into a 14″ circle. Place it over the top of the filling, pressing down all over. Pull the edges of the bottom dough up and over the edges of the top dough and press together to seal. Cut several small holes in the top to allow steam to escape while baking. Let the pizza rest and rise for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Bake the pizza for 30 to 35 minutes, until it’s golden brown all over. Let it cool for about 5 minutes before cutting so the filling has time to settle.
Spinach and Cheese Filling
about 8 cups (280g) fresh spinach, cleaned and torn, or two 10-ounce packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and thoroughly squeezed dry
3 tablespoons (37g) olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 cups (312g) cleaned, sliced mushrooms
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 cup (114g) crumbled feta cheese
½ cup (71g) pitted and sliced kalamata olives (optional)
Clean and remove the stems from the spinach. Heat a large skillet until hot, add the oil and garlic, then immediately add the mushrooms. Stir with a heatproof spatula; the mushrooms will begin to give off their juice. After about 2 minutes, add the spinach, salt, and pepper. Cook just enough to wilt the spinach. Add the feta and olives (if using). Remove the pan from the stove and set aside until you’re ready to use it.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 215g
356 cal | 15g fat | 12g protein | 44g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 4g dietary fiber | 25mg cholesterol | 991mg sodium
Ricotta and Basil Filling
1½ cups (340g) ricotta cheese
1 lightly packed cup shredded fresh basil
1 large (about 224g) green or red pepper, seeded and chopped
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
¾ cup (84g) grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup (112g) grated cheddar cheese
1 cup (77g) French-fried onions (optional)
Mix the ricotta with the cleaned and shredded fresh basil. Add the diced peppers, salt, black pepper, garlic, cheeses, and onions (if using). Set aside until you’re ready to use it.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 187g
359 cal | 12g fat | 17g protein | 43g complex carbohydrates | 0g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 35mg cholesterol | 743mg sodium
Pita Bread
8 pitas
Pita bread is one of those things (like English muffins and soft pretzels) that most people simply don’t think of making. “It’s too hard. It won’t work. They won’t puff up.” Forget all that! This is just a simple white bread recipe cooked in an unusual way. They’ll puff up, and fresh, golden pita bread, hot from the oven, is a revelation. It makes those packaged pitas pale (literally) by comparison.
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1½ teaspoons salt
1 cup (224g) water, lukewarm
2 tablespoons (25g) vegetable oil
In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine all the ingredients, mixing to form a shaggy dough. Knead the dough by hand (10 minutes) or by machine (5 minutes) until it’s smooth. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and let it rest for 1 hour. It will become quite puffy, though it may not double in bulk.
Turn the dough onto a lightly oiled work surface and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll 2 to 4 of the pieces into 6″ circles (the number of pieces depends on how many rolled-out pieces at a time can fit on your baking sheet). Place the circles on a lightly greased baking sheet and let them rest, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 500°F. (Keep the unrolled pieces of dough covered. Roll out the next batch while the first batch bakes.) Place the baking sheet on the lowest rack in the oven and bake the pitas for 5 minutes; they should puff up. (If they haven’t puffed up, wait a minute or so longer. If they still haven’t puffed, your oven isn’t hot enough; raise the heat for the next batch.) Transfer the baking sheet to the oven’s middle-to-top rack and bake for an additional 2 minutes, or until the pitas have browned. Remove the pitas from the oven, wrap them in a clean dish towel (this keeps them soft), and repeat with the remaining dough. Store cooled pitas in an airtight container.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 pita bread, 83g
187 cal | 4g fat | 5g protein | 33g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 401mg sodium
Golden Focaccia
1 large focaccia
With its roughly dimpled surface and craggy interior, focaccia has become mainstream American, even appearing in some fast-food restaurants. While Americans may be used to soft, thick focaccia, this version is closer to the classic Italian bread: a rustic, everyday loaf that’s usually a bit thinner than American-style. It can be crusty and chewy, thin and crisp, or whatever style the family prefers. If you want, you can use 1 cup (227g) of ripe (fed) sourdough starter rather than making your own as part of the recipe.
Starter
½ cup (113g) water, cool
1/16 teaspoon (a big pinch) instant yeast
1 cup (120g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough
2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
½ cup (113g) water, lukewarm
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons (25g) olive oil
Topping
2 tablespoons (25g) olive oil
fresh or dried rosemary
coarsely ground black pepper
coarse sea salt or kosher salt
To make the starter: Mix the water and yeast, then add the flour, stirring until the flour is incorporated. The starter will be paste-like; it won’t form a ball.
Cover and let rest at room temperature for about 14 hours; the starter will be bubbly. If you make this in the late afternoon, it’ll be ready to go by the next morning.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the overnight starter with the remaining dough ingredients, and mix and knead to make a soft, smooth, elastic dough. If you’re kneading in a stand mixer, it should take about 5 minutes at second speed.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1 hour, or until it’s noticeably puffy.
Use nonstick vegetable oil spray to lightly grease a large baking sheet (e.g., 18̋ x 13″). Drizzle about 2 tablespoons (25g) olive oil over the spray; the spray keeps the bread from sticking, while the olive oil gives the bottom crust great crunch and flavor.
Gently pull and shape the dough into a rough rectangle and pat it into the pan. For thinner focaccia (½″ to ¾″ thick), pat it all the way to the edges of the pan. For thicker focaccia (¾″ to 1″ thick), don’t pat all the way to the edges of the pan; leave an inch or so free around the perimeter.
Cover the pan and allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes. Use your fingers to make irregularly spaced dimples, pressing down firmly; your fingers should reach the bottom of the pan without actually breaking through the dough.
Re-cover the dough, and let it rise until it’s noticeably puffy, about 1 hour. The dough should have expanded, but shouldn’t seem fragile, or look like it might collapse. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F. If you have a pizza stone or baking stone, set it on a middle or lower-middle rack.
Spritz the focaccia heavily with warm water, and drizzle with the olive oil (enough to collect a bit in the dimples). Sprinkle with rosemary (or the herb of your choice), black pepper, and coarse salt, to taste.
Place the pan of focaccia onto the baking stone, or onto a middle oven rack. Bake the focaccia until it’s light golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the focaccia from the oven, and immediately turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool.
Enjoy focaccia hot from the oven, or warm; focaccia is best the same day it’s made. But leftovers can be successfully reheated in a 350°F oven just until warmed through.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 piece, 58g
150 cal | 5g fat | 4g protein | 22g complex carbohydrates | 1g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 0mg cholesterol | 270mg sodium
Dimpling Dough
What does it mean to dimple dough? It’s simply using your fingertips to poke fairly deep indentations in the dough; it’s a technique used on both ciabatta and focaccia, to give them their distinctive craggy appearance (see illustration, page 195).
The trick is to be firm, yet gentle. You’ll be poking risen dough; you don’t want to deflate it. Don’t punch the dough with your fingers; rather, lay a fingertip against the dough and press down until it’s about half to two-thirds of the way to the bottom of the dough. Repeat until the dough is marked all over with indentations (not holes) at about 1½″ intervals. Don’t worry if the dough loses a bit of its loft during this process; it’s almost inevitable. What you don’t want is total deflation.
Celebration Breads
In many of the world’s cultures, the signature holiday baked good is a traditional yeast bread. In Sweden, for instance, “dipping bread” is a centerpiece of a Christmas smorgasbord. Italians and Greeks are famous for their Easter breads, and come Christmastime in Germany, you’ll find fruit-studded butter- and sugar-gilded stollen in shops everywhere. The following recipes represent a small sampling of the many ways the world’s cultures use bread to celebrate. And although many of these breads originated as holiday-centric traditions, they are all wonderful ways to make any celebration more special. Who wouldn’t welcome a warm loaf of chocolate babka at a birthday or an intricate cinnamon star bread at a graduation brunch?
Classic Challah
1 loaf
This deeply golden, light-textured bread is traditionally served on the Jewish Sabbath and other holidays. The dough for this loaf is wonderfully smooth and supple, making it an ideal candidate for braiding. The simplest way to go is a three-strand braid, but feel free to try the slightly more complex four-strand braid, or even a six-strand braid, which makes a striking presentation.
Dough
½ cup (113g) water, lukewarm
6 tablespoons (74g) vegetable oil
¼ cup (85g) honey
2 large eggs
4 cups (480g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (10g) instant yeast
Egg Wash
1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon (14g) cold water
Combine all the dough ingredients and mix and knead until you have a soft, smooth dough.
Place the dough in a bowl, cover it, and let it rise for about 2 hours, or until it’s puffy; it won’t necessarily double in bulk.
Gently deflate the dough and transfer it to a lightly greased work surface.
You may braid the challah the traditional way, into a three-strand braid. For a fancier presentation, make a four- or six-strand braid.
Once you’ve decided which braid you’re doing, divide the dough into the appropriate number of pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 20″ long. If the dough starts to shrink back as you roll, cover it and let it rest for about 10 minutes, then resume rolling. The short rest gives the gluten a chance to relax.
Braid the loaf.
Gently pick up the braided loaf and place it on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
Cover the loaf with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let it rise until it’s very puffy, 90 minutes to 2 hours at cool room temperature. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375°F.
To make the egg wash: Whisk together the egg and water. Brush over the risen loaf.
Place the baking sheet atop another baking sheet; this will insulate the bread’s bottom crust, and keep it from browning too much. Put the challah in the lower third of the oven, and bake it for 20 minutes. If it’s a deep golden brown, tent it loosely with aluminum foil. If it’s not as brown as you like, check it again at 30 minutes.
Once you’ve tented the challah, bake it for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the loaf looks and feels set and its interior registers at least 190°F.
Remove the bread from the oven and place it on a rack to cool.
While challah does tend to dry out after a day or so, it’s always good toasted, or made into grilled sandwiches or French toast.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 58g
180 cal | 6g fat | 5g protein | 24g complex carbohydrates | 4g sugar | 1g dietary fiber | 35mg cholesterol | 230mg sodium
Panettone
1 panettone
Ubiquitous at Christmas, this sweet bread from Milan is golden, high-rising, and traditionally studded with citron and citrus peel. Although using a starter to make a sweet bread is unusual, the use of a biga—a flour, water, and yeast starter the consistency of a firm bread dough—gives bread added flavor and keeping qualities. We often use a biga when making ciabatta or other Italian loaves to help bring out the wheat flavor in breads that might otherwise seem a bit plain. But in a sweet bread—loaded with sugar, butter, and fruit—who needs a biga?
Well, we both do. Panettone made with a biga has a moist, fine texture and rises better than anything with that amount of sugar and fat has a right to. Although the dough still needs a big kick of instant yeast, the biga gives it the strength to take off and rise, despite the sugar and fat doing their best to retard the whole process.
The use of a biga makes this panettone traditional. What separates it from the norm is the fruits we use to flavor the bread, and the pan we bake it in. For those of you who turn up your nose at candied peel—citron, lemon, orange—we offer this dried-fruit version using pineapple, apricots, and golden raisins. And for those who don’t have a traditional panettone pan—a tall, round loaf pan—or who’ve encountered difficulties using such a pan (raw center, burned crust), we suggest the use of a tube or angel food pan.
Biga
1½ cups (180g) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup (113g) water
½ teaspoon instant yeast*
Dough
3 large eggs
8 tablespoons (1 stick, 113g) unsalted butter, cut into about 10 chunks
2½ cups (300g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (66g) sugar
5 teaspoons (15g) instant yeast*
1¾ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon lemon oil or 2 teaspoons lemon zest
1½ cups (about 252g) dried fruit**
To make the biga: Combine the flour, water, and yeast, kneading briefly to make a stiff dough. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and let it rise overnight at room temperature, about 12 hours.
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the biga with all the ingredients except the dried fruit. (This dough is very difficult to make by hand; we suggest the use of a machine.) Knead the dough until it’s smooth and supple; it will seem very sticky at first but will come together nicely at the end. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.
Knead the fruit into the dough, by hand or machine; knead only until the dough accepts the fruit, as overhandling will cause the fruit to release too much sugar into the dough, slowing the rise. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then shape it into a log about 24″ long. Place this log in the bottom of a lightly greased 9″ to 10″ tube pan or angel food pan, cover the pan, and set the dough aside to rise for 2 hours or so. It probably won’t double in size but will puff up a bit.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the panettone for 45 minutes, tenting it with aluminum foil for the final 15 minutes of baking if it appears to be browning too quickly. The internal temperature of the dough should register 190°F to 205°F when it’s done. Remove the panettone from the oven, turn it out of the pan, and cool on a rack.
* Instant yeast formulated for sweet doughs (e.g, SAF Gold Label) is a good selection here. If you use regular instant yeast, you may need to increase the rising times a bit.
** We use a mixture of dried apricots, pineapple, and golden raisins; chopped dates, dark raisins, and toasted walnuts would also be appropriate, as would dried cranberries and cherries.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 52g
151 cal | 5g fat | 3g protein | 21g complex carbohydrates | 3g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 45mg cholesterol | 145mg sodium
Poticza
2 loaves
This traditional Slovakian bread (pronounced po-TEET-sah) features many thin, alternating layers of bread and sugar-nut filling. Each crosswise slice is an intricate combination of light and dark. Poticza is served at holidays, particularly Christmas and Easter, and on special occasions; while it’s a bit time-consuming to make, it keeps well and makes an impressive presentation.
Thankfully, this is a great, easy-to-roll-out dough that makes a wonderful base for any filling. And if you don’t want to do the folding and rolling required for the traditional loaf, make a simple wreath; we’ve included instructions for both shapes.
Dough
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter
¼ cup (50g) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup (170g) milk
2 large eggs
2½ teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups (360g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (46g) potato flour or ½ cup (43g) dried potato flakes
Filling
4½ cups (510g) chopped walnuts or pecans
¾ cup (149g) sugar
1 tablespoon (11g) Instant ClearJel
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 large eggs
¼ cup (57g) milk
¼ cup (78g) maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons orange zest (optional)
Topping
1 large egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons (28g) water
¼ cup (28g) finely chopped walnuts or pecans
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Place the butter, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Bring the milk to a simmer on the stove or in the microwave and pour over the ingredients. Stir briefly, then let the mixture cool to lukewarm.
When cooled, whisk in the eggs, yeast, and vanilla. Whisk 1 cup of the all-purpose flour with the potato flour or potato flakes and stir into the wet ingredients. Add the remaining flour, mixing to form a soft dough.
Knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes, until shiny and smooth. Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 hour, then refrigerate it for at least 1 hour, and as long as overnight.
To make the filling: Put the nuts, sugar, Instant ClearJel, salt, and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Process in short bursts to grind the nuts.
With the machine running, add the eggs, milk, maple syrup, and vanilla. Add the orange zest (if using) and pulse to incorporate.
To assemble: On a greased work surface, roll the dough into a 26̋ x 18″ rectangle, with a long side facing you. Spread the filling evenly over the surface, leaving 1″ of one long edge uncovered.
Roll the dough toward the uncovered edge, pinching to seal the seam and ends to enclose the filling.
Grease two 8½̋ x 4½″ loaf pans and line with parchment. Cut the rolled dough in half. Bring the ends of each half together to make a ring shape. Place each ring in a pan with the seam facing down. Press the dough down gently with your hand to fill in the corners.
Cover the loaves and let them rise until puffy, up to 1½ hours. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
When the loaves have risen, brush the tops with the beaten egg and water and sprinkle with the finely chopped nuts.
Bake the loaves for 50 to 55 minutes. Check the tops after 20 minutes, tenting with foil if necessary to keep them from over-browning. The breads are done when the centers read 190°F when measured with a digital thermometer.
Remove the loaves from the oven and let cool in the pans on a rack for 20 minutes before tipping out of the pans and returning to the rack to finish cooling completely.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 44g
173 cal | 14g fat | 4g protein | 1g complex carbohydrates | 7g sugar | 0g dietary fiber | 33mg cholesterol | 108mg sodium
Wreath Variation
Roll the dough into a 16̋ x 28″ rectangle and cut it into two 16̋ x 14″ pieces. Follow the directions above for spreading the filling then, starting with a long edge, roll each piece into a log. Place the logs on parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheets and shape each into a circle (wreath), pinching the ends together. Cover and let them rise for 1½ hours, or until they’ve grown by at least one-third.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Just before placing the wreaths in the oven, use scissors or a sharp knife to cut V shapes into them at about 3″ intervals. (Hold the scissors vertically above the loaf with the blades open about ½″. Stab down into the loaf about 1″, then bring the scissor blades together.)
Bake the wreaths for 30 to 40 minutes, until they’re golden brown and a digital thermometer inserted in the center reads 195°F. Remove them from the oven and drizzle with the sugar glaze or icing of your choice, or brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.
Cinnamon Star Bread
1 loaf
This pull-apart-style sweet bread is a show-stopping riff on a classic cinnamon bun. As it bakes, the cinnamon-sugar filling caramelizes and gives the bread a wonderfully sweet and crunchy coating, while the interior remains soft and tender. It’s a holiday breakfast treat that will disappear in a flash.
Dough
2 cups (240g) unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup (46g) potato flour or ½ cup (43g) dried potato flakes
¼ cup (32g) nonfat dry milk
¾ cup plus 2 to 4 tablespoons (199g to 227g) water, lukewarm, enough to make a soft, smooth dough
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (25g) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Filling
1 large egg, beaten
½ cup (99g) sugar
1 tablespoon (9g) cinnamon
Sift the flour, potato flour or potato flakes, and dry milk through a strainer; this is an important step to prevent lumps in the dough. (If you’re using instant mashed potatoes rather than potato flour you can skip this sifting step.)
TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine all the dough ingredients and mix and knead to make a soft, smooth dough.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 60 minutes, until it’s nearly doubled in bulk.
Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, cover the balls, and allow them to rest for 15 minutes.
On a lightly greased or floured work surface, roll 1 piece of dough into a 10″ circle. Place the circle on a piece of parchment, brush a thin coat of beaten egg on the surface, then evenly sprinkle with 1/3 of the cinnamon sugar, leaving ¼″ of bare dough around the perimeter.
Roll out a second circle the same size as the first, and place it on top of the filling-
covered circle. Repeat the layering process—egg, cinnamon sugar, dough circle—leaving the top circle bare.
Place a 2½″ to 3″ round cutter in the center of the dough circle as a guide. With a bench knife or sharp knife, cut the circle into 16 equal strips, from the cutter to the edge, through all the layers.
Using two hands, pick up two adjacent strips and twist them away from each other twice so that the top side is facing up again. Repeat with the remaining strips of dough so that you end up with 8 pairs of strips.
Pinch the pairs of strips together to create a star-like shape with 8 points. Remove the cutter.
Transfer the star on the parchment to a baking sheet. Cover the star and let it rise until it becomes noticeably puffy, about 45 minutes.
While the star is rising, preheat the oven to 400°F.
Brush the star with a thin coat of the beaten egg. Bake it for 12 to 15 minutes, until it’s nicely golden with dark brown cinnamon streaks; the center should register 200°F on a digital thermometer.
Remove the bread from the oven and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes before serving. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 92g
250 cal | 7g fat | 7g protein | 28g complex carbohydrates | 14g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 40mg cholesterol | 330mg sodium
Chocolate Babka
2 loaves
This overstuffed yeast loaf, filled with two kinds of chocolate, nuts, and cinnamon, is based on a traditional eastern European bread. A classic sweet bread, it’s usually shaped in a twist and topped with streusel. Babka is a perennial best seller at Jewish bakeries in many major North American cities. Our thanks to Maggie Glezer, and her book, A Blessing of Bread, for the inspiration for this recipe.
Dough
1 to 1¼ cups (227g to 283g) water, lukewarm
2 large eggs
6¼ cups (750g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (42g) nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons (18g) instant yeast
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup (99g) sugar
2½ teaspoons salt
10 tablespoons (142g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon (14g) vanilla extract
Filling
½ cup (99g) sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup (28g) unsweetened cocoa
½ teaspoon espresso powder
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (113g) diced pecans or walnuts, toasted if desired
1 cup (170g) finely chopped semisweet chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips, mini chips preferred
Topping
1 large egg beaten with a pinch of salt until well combined
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 57g) unsalted butter, melted
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup (76g) confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (60g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Combine all the dough ingredients (starting with the lesser amount of water), mixing until everything is moistened. Add additional water, if necessary, to bring the dough together. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. Then mix / knead it until it’s soft and smooth.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover the bowl. The dough is going to rise for about 1½ to 2 hours, until it’s quite puffy.
Gently deflate the dough and divide it in half. Set the pieces aside, covered, while you make the filling.
To make the filling: Combine the sugar, cinnamon, cocoa, and espresso powder. Stir in the melted butter. The mixture will look grainy and slick; that’s OK.
Shape each half of the dough into a 9̋ x 18″, ¼″-thick rectangle. If the dough “fights back,” let it rest for 10 minutes to relax the gluten, then stretch it some more. Don’t be fussy about this; 19″ or 20″ is as good as 18″.
Smear each piece of the dough with half the filling, coming to within an inch of the edges.
Scatter half the nuts and half the chopped chocolate or chips over each piece. If using standard-size chips, process them in a food processor first to create smaller bits of chocolate and a less chunky filling.
Starting with a short end, roll each piece gently into a log, sealing the seam and ends. Working with one log at a time, use a pair of scissors or a sharp knife to cut the log in half lengthwise (not crosswise) to make two pieces of dough about 10″ long each; cut carefully, to prevent too much filling from spilling out. With the exposed filling side up, twist the two pieces into a braid, tucking the ends underneath. Repeat with the other log. Place each log into a lightly greased 9̋ x 5″ loaf pan.
TO MAKE THE TOPPING: Brush each loaf with the beaten egg. Mix together the topping ingredients until crumbly and sprinkle half the topping over each loaf.
Tent each pan with plastic wrap, and let the loaves rise until they’re very puffy and have crowned a good inch over the rim of the pan, 1½ to 2½ hours. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 300°F.
Bake the bread for 35 minutes. Tent lightly with foil and bake for an additional 15 to 25 minutes (for a total of 50 to 60 minutes); the loaves should be a deep-golden brown.
To ensure the loaves are baked through, insert a digital thermometer into the center of one loaf. It should register at least 190°F.
Remove the loaves from the oven, and immediately loosen the edges with a heatproof spatula or table knife. Let the loaves cool for 10 minutes, then turn them out of the pans onto a rack to cool completely.
Slice the babka and serve it at room temperature; or rewarm individual slices briefly in a toaster, if desired.
Nutrition information per serving: 1 slice, 66g
250 cal | 11g fat | 5g protein | 21g complex carbohydrates | 12g sugar | 2g dietary fiber | 35mg cholesterol | 200mg sodium