Yes, Crazy-Hot Melissa, Here's How To Make Bread

For those of you who don't know, I went to Culinary School for both Professional Cooking and Pastry. It was a bucket-list thing, but I did open and sell a restaurant/bakery. 

That's where I first met Crazy-Hot Melissa (Yes, Melissa Hughes, I know more than one hot Melissa). 

I'm not the one who gave Melissa her "Crazy-Hot" moniker. 

That's how her husband introduces her, as in, "This is my Crazy-Hot wife, Melissa." 

The adjective is completely unnecessary for anybody but the blind. That woman is so beautiful it hurts the eyes to look at her.

That's a simple statement of fact, not a creepy old man thing. Well, maybe it's just a little creepy.

It also turns out that Melissa and Alain (her hubby) are neighbors of mine.

Last Thursday, Crazy-Hot Melissa knocked on our door. 

I answered.

"I need you!" Melissa exclaimed panting and all out of breath.

Now, I already mentioned Melissa is Crazy-Hot. 

I'm not. 

You can forget about a quasi-erotic liaison thing. Not gonna happen. (sob)

The thought never entered my mind (sob again). 

I don't know what's sadder. The fact that it's impossible, or the fact that I didn't even consider the possibility.

Anyway. . .

In my oh, so suave manner, (I am a professional wordsmith, don't you know?) I replied, "Huh?"

In my defense, Melissa panting and breathing deeply is very distracting.

"I promised my mother-in-law fresh home-baked bread. She loved the rustique loaves you made at the bakery. I need the recipe."

"Whoa, Mel, when?"

"Sunday"

"Mel, the original recipe is a six-day process. Neither of us have the equipment, time or inclination to pull it off"

"I'm screwed!"

Never let it be said that I failed to succor a Damsel in Distress. 

Chivalry is not dead. It may be terminally ill, but it ain't dead.

"Okay. Let's think this through, Mel. We have a few days. We have no mixer (mine died). We have artisanal whole wheat flour. We have yeast. We have salt. We have water. We can do this. C'mon in"

You see, everything most people think about when they think of bread baking is a shortcut. 

Kneading to develop the dough? Shortcut.

Using a mixer? Even bigger shortcut.

Poolish, Preferments, Bigas, Sour Dough, Levain? All shortcuts.

The shortcuts have different purposes. Kneading and mixing develop the dough. They speed up the process. Left to its own devices the dough will develop on its own.

Things like poolish, preferments, bigas, sourdough, and levain are different types of shortcuts.

 Bread is either solid beer, or beer is liquid bread. Probably the former since beer predates bread by about 2000 years. That's human nature for you.

Unfermented bread dough is flavorless. These shortcuts work on the principle of averages. Start with an over-fermented dough, add it to unfermented dough, mix, and, on average, you get a properly fermented dough.

They're shortcuts just the same.

They just speed up a process that Mother nature is very capable of doing on her own.

Here's what you'll need to make your own bread.

A kitchen scale. 

Get one that goes to 5kg/11 lbs and has a switch for lbs/oz to grams. It's a lot easier to scale metric recipes up or down. Americans, you don't need to learn the metric system. Just set your scale to grams, and load up to the number. Here's a good example that's available on Amazon. 

Note to self: get a freeking affiliate code!

Most professional cooks and all professional bakers work with weights. Cups, teaspoons, tablespoons are horrible measures. For that matter so are milliliters.

Anything that measures by volume will kick you in the privates sooner or later.

Don't believe me? Measure out a cup of flour. Weigh it on your new kitchen scale. It should weigh between 123 and 128 grams. How off were you? In culinary school, the closest to reality was 142 grams. Some were over 190.

Baking is applied science. Accuracy is important. Professional cooking is a game of watching pennies to make dollars. Accuracy is important there too.

A big container that fits in your fridge

It should hold at least 8 quarts/liters. I use a 12qt Cambro with its lid that I kept from my bakery. (picture) Rubbermaid also makes some suitable ones, like this one here on Amazon.

An old, but really big ice cream container should do the trick too. In a pinch, use your spaghetti pot.

If you're lucky enough to live somewhere where there's a restaurant supply house nearby, you'll have a ton of styles and shapes to choose from. 

Just make sure it fits in your fridge!

A digital thermometer

If you make roasts, you probably already have one, if not what the Hell are you thinking? Bread cooks to an internal temperature of 207F/95C. At least that's how I like it. Many people prefer 200F. 

Ingredients

Bread is among the simplest of foods. You can't hide behind exotic flavors or ingredients. It's just water, flour, salt, and yeast. 

I still have my costing spreadsheets from the restaurant days. The recipe here, which made all the breads in the header image, costs C$3.96.

If I still had the bakery, these breads would retail for just over C$20.

Yes, the measures are in grams. Set your scale to grams and weigh to the number. You can also pop these numbers into a spreadsheet to scale it up or down as you like. 

That's why even American bakeries use grams. Doubling a recipe is easy. Taking a recipe (Called a formula in baking. Kitchens are "labs." Go figure.) for 50, 375g loaves and converting it to 100, 90g buns is much easier with grams and a spreadsheet.

• Flour: 1675g (any type of wheat flour. Try not to use 100% whole wheat. It's too strong. I went with 1200g artisanal whole wheat plus 475g white. That makes very dense loaves. Next time I think I'll go 50/50)
• Water (lukewarm): 1100g 
• Yeast Instant/Rapid Rise: 30g (go to 45g if "active" type instead of instant. Use 90g if fresh yeast) Note: There's no benefit to any yeasts over the others. . . yeast is yeast.
• Salt: 30g (If you feel you must cut salt, don't go below 25g. 30g of salt in this quantity is already cut way down.)

Method

1 - Set your big container on your scale. Hit "zero" or "tare" on your scale to remove the container's weight.

2 - Add most of the water. Hold some back. You will need more water in dry climates, less in humid ones. It's easy to add water. It's hard to remove it. The same recipe won't work in Dubai as in Abu Dhabi. I had a client who found that out the hard way. Adjust with water, not flour.

3 - Hit "zero" or "tare." Sprinkle the yeast on the water. It's a good habit to dissolve the yeast by stirring. It's a "must-do" if using fresh yeast, or if your yeast is very old.

4 - Hit "zero" or "tare." Add the flour(s)

5 -  Hit "zero" or "tare." Add the salt. It's a best practice to never let the salt touch the yeast. Many bakers argue that's unnecessary. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I don't care. Why chance it?

6 - Remove the container from the scale. Mix with a strong wooden or plastic spoon. Mix it well. It's okay if there are a few dry spots, but try not to have any.

7 - Cover loosely and leave at room temperature (+/- 70F, 20C) for about two hours. It will nearly double in size.

8 - After two hours, scrape the dough down from the sides. Grab a chunk and stretch it over. It's like folding it. Repeat a few times. Let it sit at room temperature for another hour.

9 - Cover and refrigerate for at least two days to let Mother Nature do her stuff.

Two days Later

Find a work surface about the size of a stove top. LOL, I actually do use my stove top covered with a huge cutting board.

Using your trusty new kitchen scale, weigh out four pieces of dough about 700-710g each.

Pick each one up and shape into a loose ball by stretching it and folding it over.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, here's a video from Ciril Hitz (a baker's baker) on how to shape various types.

Pre-shape. Let rest for a half hour. Shape and let rest again for its final rise. How long that rise needs to be, depends on room temperature. Let it grow and get puffy. 

Give it at least an hour. 

If you have one of those ovens with no visible element on the bottom, great. If not, lower one of your racks as low as it goes and put an empty roasting pan on it.

Preheat your oven to 450F.  When it's ready, put on an oven mitt and pour a cup and a half of water (350ml) into that empty roasting pan, or directly onto the oven bottom if you don't have a visible element. The idea is to make some steam, lots of it.

If you do have a visible element but forgot the empty roasting pan, DO NOT pour water in anyway. You WILL ruin your oven. Put the empty roasting pan in now and wait 20 minutes for it to heat. Then steam.

Slash the loaves with a very sharp knife or a lame. What am I saying? Who the heck has a lame? Just use a super sharp knife, and cut with the blade at a 45-degree angle from vertical.

Traditionally, a boule is cut deeply in three vertical lines. You can cut parallel or in a fan shape. A baguette is cut in three or five cuts lengthwise, straight lengthwise, not diagonally. A format Belge or batard (bastard) is a cross between a baguette shape and a boule shape. They usually have a single deep cut lengthwise.

Bake in your steamy oven, (get a grip, that just sounds dirty, it isn't) for twelve minutes, six for baguettes, just to let them set up. 

Stick your thermometer's probe in (stop it, still just baking talk). Set the thermometer to anywhere between 200F and 207F/95C. 

Bake until it beeps.

Set on a rack or a towel to cool. 

Tahhh dahhhh! You made bread!