Ingredient

Bread

Bread is four ingredients and a great deal of time. Almost everything that distinguishes a good loaf from a poor one is a decision about hydration, fermentation and heat rather than about skill.

What each ingredient decides

Flour

The protein content decides the structure. Strong flour at 12 to 14% protein gives a chewy, well-risen loaf; plain flour gives a softer, denser one.

Water

Hydration decides the crumb. A wetter dough — 70% or more of the flour weight — gives an open, irregular crumb and is harder to handle. A drier one at 60% gives a tight, even crumb and is easier.

Salt

Flavour, and it tightens the gluten and slows the yeast. Bread made without salt is flat-tasting and rises too fast then collapses. Around 2% of the flour weight is standard.

Yeast

Produces the gas. How much you use is really a decision about time: less yeast and a longer ferment gives far more flavour than more yeast and a fast one.

Time

The fifth ingredient. Long, slow fermentation develops flavour, improves texture and does much of the gluten development for you.

Heat

A hot oven for the spring, and steam for the first stretch so the crust does not set before the loaf has finished rising.

The shape of a loaf

Whatever the recipe, the sequence is the same.

1. Mix flour and water and leave them for twenty to forty minutes. This autolyse hydrates the flour and starts gluten forming with no work.
2. Add salt and yeast and bring the dough together.
3. Develop the gluten — by kneading, or by stretching and folding every half hour for the first two hours, or simply by time.
4. Bulk ferment until the dough is visibly risen and airy. This is where the flavour is made, and it depends on temperature far more than on the clock.
5. Shape it, building surface tension so it holds its form rather than spreading.
6. Prove until it is puffy and a gentle press springs back slowly and incompletely.
7. Bake hot, with steam for the first ten to fifteen minutes, then dry to crisp the crust.

Why a loaf comes out dense

The commonest complaint, and it has a short list of causes.

• Under-developed gluten. The network cannot hold gas. Knead further, or use stretch and folds, and check with a windowpane test.
• Under-proved. The dough had not risen enough before baking. Judge by how it looks and behaves, not by the clock — a cold kitchen doubles the time.
• Over-proved. The structure exhausted itself and collapsed. It will be flat and coarse rather than dense and tight.
• Too much flour. Added during kneading because the dough felt sticky. Wet dough is meant to be sticky.
• Weak flour. Plain flour makes softer, denser bread than strong flour.
• Oven not hot enough, so there was no oven spring.
• Wholemeal or rye, which are denser by nature — the bran cuts the gluten strands.

The changes that improve a loaf most

• Bake it in a preheated covered pot. The trapped steam gives the crust and the spring a domestic oven cannot otherwise produce. This is the single biggest improvement available.
• Use less yeast and more time. An overnight ferment in a cool place transforms the flavour.
• Weigh the water as well as the flour, and think in percentages.
• Wetter dough than feels comfortable. Handle it with a scraper and wet hands rather than adding flour.
• Let it cool completely before cutting. The crumb is still setting; cutting hot bread gives a gummy texture.
• Store it cut-side down on a board, or frozen sliced. Never in the fridge, which stales bread faster than anything else.

Common questions