One of my (formerly) dear friends once lamented at how difficult it is to make homemade bread. She had recently received the Professional 6 — the most robust of KitchenAid’s commercially available stand mixers — for a wedding present and was looking forward to, one day, making her own bread. “Mmm,” she’d grinned, “someday.” This seems to be a widely held belief, that homemade bread is especially difficult to make, but in fact, it’s quite easy. Flour, salt, water and yeast. These minimal and, if you know where to look, inexpensive ingredients are all you need to make what is known as a lean bread (that is, a bread without any fat). But, you might be thinking, I can get this bread at the grocery store for only slightly more than what it could cost to make it at home, and in a fraction of the time it would take to made a loaf from scratch. Why bother?
Is the welcoming aroma of fresh baked bread enough to justify spending the time it takes? Or is experiencing truly fresh bread that isn’t pumped full of preservatives a good enough reason? In truth, lean bread, like that pictured above, won’t keep. Because there are literally no preservatives — either natural ones like fat or eggs or chemical ones found in everyday bread at the grocery — this bread will only keep for two days, max. I’m reminded of my sophomore year in high school when I learned, with some surprise, that French people visit le marche everyday for fresh bread for that night’s dinner. Once I started baking bread at home, I understood why. Last night’s bread won’t be as fresh. That is, as moisture moves out from the crumb and is absorbed by the crust, the contrast between the crisp of the crust and the elasticity of the crumb won’t be as significant. It just won’t be as good. But that’s not to say we should chuck last night’s bread. French toast, for instance, is a perfect way of using up last night’s stale bread. Actually, French toast is best when made with stale, lean bread (more on this in a future post).
What worries me most about the sweeping assumption that bread is so difficult to make, and I suppose the reason I’ve decided to start this blog, is that as more people fall into believing cooking to be the most difficult thing in the world, I worry we will lose some of the most basic and beautiful customs in our culture. Knowing how to bake bread used to be one of our most important skills. The need for such knowledge has dried up as technological advancements have made the mass production and distribution of bread both easy and cheap. But, consider what we lose if we allow such seemingly unnecessary knowledge to simply rot away. Does it matter that I know how to bake bread? I can make an artisan loaf of bread for about 60 cents, so I save maybe $1.50 every time I bake bread. That’s all fine and dandy, but I think knowing how to feed ourselves — I mean really knowing, not just depending on our local grocer to provide what we need — is a basic human need. In a sense, I guess the purpose of this blog is to touch on that issue, but it is also a space where I can reminisce on the very special ways food and cooking have touched my life in ways a trip to the grocery never could.
Lean bread (for two 18 oz. loafs):
21.5 oz. flour (bread or AP)
14 oz. spring water (the 80 cent gallon at the grocery will suffice)
1 tsp. instant yeast (I keep mine frozen — you can use it right from the freezer)
2 tsp. salt
Heat water in glass measuring cup in microwave for 1 minute (or until water is approx. 105 degrees). Whisk yeast into water until dissolved. Add water mixture, flour, and salt to mixing bowl. Using a stand mixer (like KitchenAid’s Artisan) with dough hook in place, mix dough on Speed 1 for 3 minutes. Increase to Speed 2 for 4 minutes (this is the kneading stage). Shape dough into ball and place in buttered glass bowl (I used glass so I can watch the dough develop), turning the dough to cover it fully with butter.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in moderately heated room (around 70-75 degrees) for 1 1/2 hours. Turn down out onto slightly floured cutting board and flatten dough with your palms. Fold the top down into the center of the loaf. Fold the bottom up. Fold the left side in. And finally, fold the right side in. Reshape into ball and place back in bowl. Cover and let sit for 1 1/2 hours.
Turn out onto slightly floured cutting board and shape into two loaves. Place loaves pretty far apart of a cookie sheet, cover and let rise for an hour. Thirty minutes before the proofing stage is complete, preheat oven to 400 degrees. At end of proofing, place loaves into oven and cook for 18-21 minutes. They should be golden brown. To test, turn loaf over and thump its bottom. If it’s cooked thoroughly, it should sound hollow. Let cool on rack. Do not cut until the loaf is completely cool — cutting before will prevent the acids from dispersing and the flavor of your loaf will be slightly off.
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