F.A. Farm

Bread baking is more of a contact art than many people realize. You don't need to slavishly follow a recipe and you don't need to measure. Here are some mechanical instructions for basic whole wheat bread. With the economic downturn and the continued low prices for wheat, making your own bread is probably the most value-laden action you can take in the kitchen. First of all, use good ingredients. I use olive oil, whole wheat flour, sea salt, and dry yeast. A five pound bag of whole wheat flour is less than $5.00 in my local store and it will produce 4 big loaves. First thing is to take a handful of flour and put it in a bowl. Run the water in your sink until it is blood temperature, as measured on your wrist. Put enough lukewarm water into the flour until it is soupy. Stir it up and then add the yeast. Give it a quick stir, put a plate on top, and leave it on top of your refrigerator for a couple of hours or until it is frothy. When your yeast starter is ready, pour about half of the flour into a giant bowl, or even a clean pail. Add a couple shakes of salt and about a half cup of oil into the flour and mix with your hand or a big spoon. A couple of turns is all you need. The key here is to mix the dry ingredients together (except the yeast) and then add the oil to the dry ingredients. Now you add your yeast starter and then more lukewarm water (just pour some into your starter bowl to get the last bits of yeast and flour and then pour into the dry mixture). Stir the mix and keep adding lukewarm water until it mixes well and is the consistency of a thick batter. The key here is to mix the batter to develop gluten. This is most easily done at this stage when you can stir it rather than knead it. Some of the old recipes called for you to stir the batter a hundred times or more.

Now roll the mixture out onto a large cutting board or a clean counter. I use a cutting board because our kitchen counters are tile and the dough gets in the cracks. Start rolling the doughy mixture up and adding more dry flour until it has a nice dry feel. Also keep adding oil. If you flatten the dough out and drizzle the oil and then roll up the corners, it is easy to knead the oil out into the mixture. The key here is that you are working the dough by kneading and adding enough flour and oil to get the consistency you want. This develops the gluten again and you decide how much flour to keep adding, based on how the dough looks and feels. If you don't use up all your flour, you can keep it until next time or just add more water and oil to get the dough where you want it. By the second or third time you will be an expert at judging dough. For the first time, try getting it so it stretches easily and has a nice sheen.

Now wash out your big bowl and dry it. Add some oil and wipe it around the bowl with your fingers. Take your dough ball and place it in the oiled bowl and rub it around. Lift it up and turn it upside down. Now you have an oiled bowl with a nice round piece of oiled dough in it. Take a clean, damp towel and place it over the top of the bowl and place the whole thing somewhere it can rise for an hour or so. Most kitchens are warm enough that the top of the refrigerator is just right. I sometimes put it in the oven and turn the temp to warm if I am in a hurry or the house is too cold. You can also leave the dough to rise overnight, but this sometimes makes a crust on top. This is not a problem, though, as you will be working the dough soon enough.

When the dough has about doubled in bulk - remember this is 100% whole wheat so don't expect a light, fluffy rise - put it back on your lightly floured board or counter. Punch it down and knead it some more. The texture should be firm but have a silky feel. If it doesn't, don't worry - it will still be an excellent bread even if it is a bit flat. Now cut the dough into four loaves and roll each one out and knead a bit more. Roll up into loaves and place into oiled pans. You oil the pans the same way you did the bowl earlier and you also place the loaf in and turn it upside down so the top is oiled, just as you did earlier. You can push the loaves down a bit so they conform to the pans - it won't hurt the loaves. Let the bread rest until your oven warms up to 350 degrees and then put the loaves in. Set the timer for one hour. About halfway through the process, take a half cup of water and throw it on the floor of the oven. Close the oven door quickly as you are introducing steam into the oven to make the tops of the bread soft. You can even do this a second time if you like.

When your timer goes off, take one loaf out and shut the oven door quickly. Turn out the loaf and see if it has a satisfying "plunk" on the bottom when you tap it with your thumb and forefinger. If so, it is done. If not, give the bread another 10 minutes or so. Even if it is done, it won't hurt it to bake some more. Since this bread has no sugar, it doesn't burn very easily and is very forgiving on overbaking.

When your bread is done, turn all the loaves out on screens or a bunch of table knives. The key here is get air circulating all the way around the bread. Let the bread get almost cold before you bag it. This will make it moist in the bag. When I worked in a bakery, we used to bag the bread warm (not hot) and then leave it on racks with the ends of the bags open until it reached a critical temperature. Then we put on the twist ties. When your bread is bagged up, freeze three loaves and put the fourth in the refrigerator. At our house, 5 pounds of flour makes 4 loaves and that lasts the 2 of us for about a month. It takes very little time to make bread and it is an enjoyable pursuit. I have been making bread like this for over 30 years and it is just routine. Bread is more about the mechanics of texture and feel than about exactitude. That is why it is an art. Also, this is an art that can provide you with solid food on a daily basis for very little money. Bon appetit!