Introduction - Some hints - Ingredients - Dough - The stages - The actions - Baking - A tribute to home made bread - Conclusion

Introduction

You will find on this site a list of bread recipes, but before you get started, maybe you'd like to know more about the subject, or would like some tips, or know how to avoid the usual beginners' pitfalls? If so, this page is for you.

To start with, I suggest you to watch this short movie "from flour to flavour" which (I hope) will encourage you to try it. Note: there's no sound, apart from strategic moments.

Few foods are more heavily charged with symbolism than bread, there is so many expressions in French which use it: "Du pain et des jeux" (bread and games, an expression from the Roman Empire), "Manger son pain blanc" (to eat one's bread white, meaning "enjoying a period of prosperity"), "Lui faire passer le goût du pain" (make him lose the taste for bread, meaning "to kill him"), etc.

And yet bread is so simple: flour, water, salt, something to make it rise, (leaven or yeast) and there you have it. This is the basic principal, but from here on it's a little more complicated because:

1. Each of these ingredients can vary in proportions, quality and temperature.
2. The way of preparing and working the dough is as least as important as the ingredients.
3. Cooking also influences the end result with different times, temperature and type of oven.

Well, all that to say that if the principle of bread-making is quite simple, doing it can be a rather tricky operation. I think it's very hard to succeed the first time, it needs perseverence, experience, know how...

But if you eventually succeed, what a joy to taste crusty bread, made with your own hands, straight from the oven! This happiness is even greater when shared, and this is when you will find that everyone loves your fresh crusty bread.

Some hints

Here is some advice for beginners if you'd like to embark upon the adventure of making your own bread, which I strongly recommend you try.

1) Dont be be discouraged

You will probably not acheive complete success first time, but the important thing is to persevere: next time it will be better. If you only knew what awful bread I made to start with: burnt, undercooked, flat, hard, etc..

2) Baking is not an exact science

Like a lot of cooking, and unlike pastry, bread baking improves from "hands on" experience for cooking time, proportions, temperature etc. I mean that you will quickly get the "feel" of what's happening to your dough, what's or right wrong, what needs changeing, reducing or increasing.

3) Quality ingredients are essential

Don't neglect the quality of the ingredients you choose for your bread, especially water and flour. Using tap water with a lot of chlorine, or industrial flour, full of chemical additives will reduce your chances of success.

4) Essential stage: working dough

Mixing the ingredients is easy, but after that, working (or kneading) the dough is essential. It's this working, stretching and turning which gives the consistancy and improves the flavour of your bread. That's also why a recipe without photos/videos is more difficult to follow successfully.

5) Cooking: hot!

Whatever type of oven you use, kitchen or wood-fired outside, it would be very dissapointing to ruin your lovingly made dough in the cooking. Take care at this stage like the others: not too hot, not too cool, and plenty of steam.

6) Removing from oven: a moment of pure joy

When you reach this stage, and your bread is beautifully baked, you will enjoy a magical moment: removing a golden brown crusty loaf from the oven, delighting in its colour and wonderful smell, cutting the first slice to taste right away - even it's still very hot, you'll be in heaven!

Ingredients

Water

Beware of tap water, if it contains too much chlorine, it can act as a sterilizer and so kill the leaven or yeast. Use use filtered water if possible (e.g. Brita system), or spring water. It's indicated in recipes, but do remember not to add water that is too cold, it should be warm, and make sure that flour is at room temperature (if stored in a cool place, bring it into the kitchen a few hours before using). A gold rule in baking says that: flour temperature + water temperature + kitchen temperature = 75°C or 167°F, so use your electronic thermometer...

Flour

For flour, please see this dedicated page.

Salt

Its origin is less important than for water and flour, but it's always better and surely safer to eat bread made with natural coarse grey sea salt (e.g. Guérande) than industrial white salt. Please note that in all the bread recipes, salt measures are given for coarse salt.

Leaven and yeast

See also this dedicated page for yeast, and leaven.

Summary: If possible, make your first bread with organic flour, spring water, sea salt and your own leaven.

Dough

Once the ingredients are mixed you have bread dough. With good ingredients you're off to a good start, but from there on there's the difficulty of getting the right proportion of water to flour. French bakers say "you should have a very hydrated dough", which means that you need more water than flour. This over 100% hydrated dough has two main advantages:

1. It produces a light bread, if you know how to work it
2. The bread made with it keeps longer

And also two main disavantages for beginners:

1. It's a very soft and sticky dough, difficult to work.
2. It needs a lot of delicate work to produce good bread

Well, it's not very easy to manage, which is why the leavened bread recipe on this site is easier for beginners, because the dough is less hydrated (if you have been following me, that means a denser bread) and can be worked easily.

Summary: Make bread the first time using the leavened bread recipe, then when you are familiar with it, try french baguettes or new leavened bread.

[Translator's note: In the USA and UK bread dough made with strong flour is sometimes only hydrated to 75-80%. The French hydration over 100% gives a much softer dough than you might expect, more like a batter, so needs to be worked quite differently.]

The stages

Once dough is mixed and kneaded, it starts a long cycle of preparation before reaching the oven. It rises (or proves) slowly in a warm place, or it needs to be worked in a precise way. Here are the different stages that you might find in the various bread recipes on this site.

Autolysis

After the dough has just been mixed and kneaded, it needs to stand for 10 minutes or longer. During this time the gluten starts to build the structure which will form the soft "crumb" of the bread.

Structuring

The dough, after autolysis, should be formed into a ball, with a rounded top and a seam with all the folds underneath. To do this, fold the dough on itself, from edges inwards, several times to get the desired shape.

First rising or proving ("Pointage")

During this first resting period the dough is left to rise slowly in a warm place. It should normally double in volume.

"Knocking back ("Dégazage")

After the first proving, we gently press on the dough to remove all the carbon dioxide gas which made it rise. The dough is then shaped before the second resting period

Shaping ("Façonnage")

This is the stage where pieces of dough are cut from the lump and shaped into rolls or loaves.

Second rising or proving ("Apprêt")

The second and final resting period, again the dough is left to rise slowly in a warm place, covered with a damp cloth.

Slashing ("Grignage")

The top of the dough is cut with a sharp blade just before putting it in the oven. These cuts help the bread to rise and swell during baking, and give that "professional" look. See this page for more on the subject.

Baking

See lower for this.

Removing from oven ("Défournement")

The loaf, yes it really is one now, is removed from the oven. Its base is brushed to remove excess flour, ash and bits of charcoal. It is then left on a rack or in a special bread crate to cool slowly.

Cooling ("Ressuage")

This is the final stage, when the bread is allowed to cool slowly before being eaten. Only one small problem, during this stage some of the water still contained in the soft inside of the bread moves outwards into the crust, so your bread will be less crusty afterwards.

Summary: For a simple loaf, the stages might be: mixing - kneading - autolysis - structuring - first rising - knocking back - shaping - second rising - slashing - baking - removing from oven - cooling - eating.

The actions

You will find two particular gestures in the bread recipes that are needed for working a soft, well hydrated dough.

"Rabattre" (to give a rabat, or stretch and fold)

This operation is repeated a number of times, usually three for a well hydrated dough, followed each time by a resting period. It's done to "strengthen the dough", which means to make it firmer in spite of the quantity of water it contains. To give a rabat, you should stretch and fold the dough over on itself. One way of doing this: put your hand under the dough, raise and stretch, then fold it over. See french baguettes or new leavended bread for more details, photos and videos.

Turning

This operation is also repeated, usually done three or four times, after the rabat, with resting time between each turn. It's done to give volume to the dough, so it eventually looks like a pillow. One way of doing this is like for making croissants: stretch the dough and fold 1/3 inwards, then fold the last 1/3 on top. Turn the dough 90 degrees (¼ turn) and repeat. See french baguettes or new leavended bread for more details, photos and videos.

Note: this way of working dough, rabat and turn followed by resting is the baker's closely guarded secret for well hydrated dough.

Summary: For a more sophisticated bread, the stages might be: mixing - kneading - autolysis - rabat + 20 minutes resting (3 times) - first rising - turning + 20 minutes resting (3 times) - shaping - second rising - slashing - baking - removing from oven - cooling - eating.

Baking

This a delicate moment for the dough, it leaves the warmth of the place where it has been rising for the oven and its burning hot (240°C or 460°F minimum) moist (with the steam) atmosphere. In this environment, many physical and chemical reactions take place, especially the famous "Maillart reactions", which transform the white dough into a brown, crusty and tasty loaf.

Steam

The introduction of water into the oven is vitally important for golden brown bread. It's another bakers' closely guarded secret, and an odd paradox: you need water to produce the golden brown crust! Without this water your bread will cook, but will remain pale with a very hard thick crust, edible of course but not very sexy. There are different ways of producinge this steam in your oven.

If you use a conventional oven

This is unlike a wood-fires oven because the temperature remains constant. In a wood-fired bread oven the temperature is initially very high, then drops once the bread is put in.

Preheat your oven to 240°C (464°F) with the lèchefrite (large oven tray) directly on sole. Put your dough on a baking sheet on the middle shelf. Pour a glass of water into the tray underneath and quickly close the door to keep in the steam. Add another glass 10 minutes later.

If you have a wood-fired bread oven:

See this page.

Importance of oven temperature

The oven temperature when you put in the dough influences the crust thickness. The hotter your oven is, the thinner the crust will be. Nonetheless, be careful not to have it too hot, otherwise you will produce charcoal instead of bread.

At 280°C or 530°F, bread cooks very fast, and makes a thin crust that does not stay crisp very long. At 240°C or 464°F bread cooks more slowly, and makes a thicker crust which stays crusty longer. So it's a question of temperature to produce the result you prefer.

Summary: An oven at the right temperature with plenty of steam.

A tribute to home made bread

I do love cooking, maybe you've seen that surfing on this pages, but doing bread is much more than being an amateur baker.

Kneading, working dough, making, putting in the oven, and most of all removing from the oven, are extaordinary moments that I really appreciate even after all that time (I started in 2004). I've notice that I'm alaways learning, in each batch, in each small success or mistakes. From time to time, my bread become better, I discover new gestures, products, tricks, and it's really a pleasure.

It's a bit difficult to explain, but doing is own bread keep a small magic side, probably coming from the high symbolic of bread for a part, and also because there is only a few things that are as good as crusty and golden bread coming from the oven !

I finish by a secret: in cooking, to double happiness you should share, but with bread it's better. Be with good friends, around a table, fresh bread, some good things to eat, some bottles of wine... Believe me, it's good to be the king...

Conclusion

I hope that all you've read on this page give you the idea to start this adventure, most of all don't be worried if you think it's a lot of information in one time and that you're going to miss something, all the recipes on this site are made for absolute beginners.

Of course, if you find a mistake or you need more information, don't hesitate to tell me, it will be a pleasure to answer you.

Note: This roman empire citation, and is variation that I've always heard my father translate by: "What's people want's ? bread ? hoops ? " (when he was happy of something he was just finishing to make or repair, beloved me).

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