Pulled from the ether, the bakery lay kicking and screaming at my feet. Self-indulgent days of pity were numbered. Cultures fermenting. Wood stacked. Oven hot. Fresh rhythms of life established themselves along with weeds in the garden. The smell of bread was resurrected over the hillside to the sound of cattle giving birth. The early dawn hours found me sloshing in buckets of bread. Elbow deep in dough, I surrendered. The only machine in the bakery was an old food processor for pulsing herbs. Lining up giant tubs, I mixed by hand down the bench one dough at a time, reciting an ancient language. We know how to make bread deep in our being. That is why it calls to us. The labor is the labor of coming home. The fragrance of flour passing between two stones and the suppleness of bubbling dough wake us to intuitive knowledge. It is important to relax the classifying mind while baking. Engage with the dough in front of you, not the idea of it. Work with a loving attitude. To love in baking is to remain present. Herein lies the health benefit: the practice of caring. The quality of care you can extend to the bread is related to the quality of care you provide yourself.
Bread is a mix of flour and water, activated with leaven and controlled by salt, fermented and baked in a hot environment. Not much more than four ingredients are necessary to create a pleasing loaf. I mix one base dough, the Ploughman, adding in black pepper, herbs, olive oil, and seeds for variation when the salt is incorporated. Learning one simple dough well and practicing it repeatedly will lead to swift progress.
If you are new to bread, you will need to follow a time line until you develop your intuition. Once you grasp the overall process, it becomes apparent that at any juncture you could choose from several courses of action. As you gain experience, muscle memory will develop, and your senses will guide you. What this tells us is that bread making is flexible, not rigid. Bakers strive for correct textures, smells, and tastes regardless of what the formula says. Let’s talk about the basics first, and then we’ll explore the recipe itself….
Culture.
What I refer to as the culture is the base mixture of flour, water, wild yeast, and bacteria that is maintained and refreshed.
Leaven.
Leaven is a separate and/or larger mix of culture, flour, and water that goes directly into the bread. Creating a leaven allows for experimentation in flour types, hydration levels, and fermentation times without endangering the root mixture of yeast and bacteria.
A liquid leaven is equal parts flour and water. It ferments quickly, is comfortable to mix by hand, and dissolves easily in water. Liquid leavens encourage bacterial growth, imparting a milky, floral quality that balances the acidity that develops in long, overnight fermentations. When started with a healthy culture, a liquid leaven may be usable in as little as two hours. Lengthening the fermentation pulls out a pungent flavor. I use mine at the eight-hour mark. The leaven is ready when it has a bubbly surface and has doubled in volume. It should smell yogurt-like and fresh. Drop a thumbnail piece into water: if it floats, you’re good to go.
The flour, the water, and salt.
The Ploughman is made here at the bakery using type 75 bread flour from Carolina Ground. The “75” refers to the sifted nature of the flour—25 percent of the overall bran was removed in the bolter. This flour is generally milled from a hard red winter wheat and I often blend it 50/50 with flour made from a soft red winter wheat, honoring the kind of grain the South is known for. The blending of the fours makes the bread structurally sound while lending a creamy texture to the crumb. You may order both flours online from www.carolinaground.com or use any reputable bread flour from your region.
Water that you would drink is fine for our purposes here, although steer away from chlorinated water. The amount of water, or hydration, in this recipe is 75 percent. The resulting dough will be wet enough to have a pleasing, custard-like crumb, but stiff enough that shaping isn’t a nightmare for the beginner. As your comfort level improves, increase the hydration for a looser dough and more open crumb. I use pink sea salt in the bakery, but most salt will do. If the only salt accessible is large, coarse crystal, dissolve it in a little warm water first.
Hand mixing.
This bread is intended to be mixed by hand. The goal is to bring together a dough with as little work as possible, meaning that each pinch, stroke, fold, or squeeze must be done with confidence and intentionality. Use firm, whole body motions. Your arms are your tools. The way you hold your body while making bread has very direct results in the overall volume, shape, and interior structure.
Keep a sense of mindfulness about yourself. Are your feet rooted on the floor? Are you breathing? Commit to the motion and follow through. Hesitating while handling dough causes inefficiencies; doubt sets in, and your hands linger, fusing to the bread. The difficulty of mixing or shaping, once flustered, only increases. Anticipate each step, and when you begin, sink into your body and let it do the work. The cleanliness of your hands is a representation of the focused nature of your mind and the relaxed quality of your body.
Temperature.
Our goal is a dough with final temperature between 75 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. This climate promotes the growth of strength and flavor in tandem. Too warm, and the bacterial benefits are hindered; too cold, and the yeast struggles to gain momentum. Imagine the bread as your body. What kind of bath would you like to get into? If it’s cool, add warm water. If it’s hot out, add cool water. Lukewarm water is suitable in most situations.
A word about baskets.
The forms and materials you use to proof your bread with can have noticeable effects on the final crumb and volume. I prefer using simple wicker baskets that can be purchased cheaply from restaurant supply companies. They typically come in sets of twelve and referred to as bread baskets, often used for rolls and butter in a table setting. I use cut-up flour sack towels to drape inside the baskets. You may use a variety of materials to line the baskets as long as they don’t have an excess of lint. Over time, a crust will build up on the cloths. I prefer this, it’s like seasoning on a cast-iron skillet. I only launder them once a year. Use your bench knife to scrape cloths clean after each use.
When to start.
Think backward from when you want your bread to be baked. Let’s assume a bake on Saturday night (if you bake your loaves as soon as they’re proofed) or Sunday morning (if you refrigerate them overnight before baking): remove your culture from refrigeration and refresh it on Friday morning and Friday afternoon (Remember: if it has been in the fridge for weeks, it might need more refreshments). Friday night, before bed, mix the leaven as described in the following section, then refresh the leftover culture and return it to the fridge after a few hours. (Details on how to refresh your culture are here.)