Bread Snobbery

WhatChuTalkin’Bout

With no reference to Lloyd from The Shining suggested, I’ve been corrected.

I’m a bit of a bread snob. Whew, I said it. Admitting you’ve a problem is half the battle.

Seriously, though, like with so many things of knowledge, I accepted that the fine art of bread starts with the French and therefore, there is no need to investigate, no need to pursue more knowledge.

That was an error which took years to correct and in those many years, I didn’t know it was an error. Even in the face of lots of evidence to the contrary, I just went about my thinking.

So, here’s the deal. Bread is just about as old as the skill of growing and harvesting grain. That’s better than 5000 years. As Captain Smek said, “That’s a lot of years, Toni!”

Not Really A History Lesson

In his book World Sourdoughs From Antiquity, Ed Wood discusses the bread making and baking in Ancient Egypt. Among the images found in an old bakery were bakers kneading dough.

No-knead bread works with a few important qualifications: a high hydration, white flour, little (read none) commercial yeast, and low production quantities.

[amazon_link asins=’0393066304,0393247287′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’us-1′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’2a463b97-92e2-11e8-b646-97ac772d99d0′]

Sullivan Street Bakery owner Jim Lahey made no-knead bread something of a house hold term with the help of Mark Bittman and the New York Times. Lahey’s purpose, as he shares in this video with Bittman, Lahey says that the people who’ve baked the no-knead bread have internalized the process and made it theirs, “which was the objective.”

When Mark Bittman was investigating this idea and talking with Lahey, he asked famed food writer Harold McGee about the wisdom of no-knead breads. “‘It makes sense. The long, slow rise does over hours what intensive kneading does in minutes: it brings the gluten molecules into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff.’”

I’m A Convert And Still A Snob

Before there was Kamut, a cousin to modern wheat, there was barley which has no gluten at all and makes flat bread. And, flat bread was being made maybe even more than 5000 years ago.

Then Louis Pasteur and beer and yeast all had a meeting (a quick sum-up) and commercial yeast was available. With the ease of commercial yeast came lots more kinds of breads and shapes and densities and all at the cost of flavor. Sourdough, as it was invented and intended to be, was lost.

In that process, kneading became more popular, and as it happens, necessary for some kinds of breads. Sandwich breads, in particular, line up those gluten molecules and strands and also help keep the crumb nice and tight. Perfect for a cucumber sandwich.

Not Just The French

A controversial opinion, at least to the French, is that their greatest culinary contributions are bread and pastry and sauces. The Italians taught them how to cook but they perfected–and how–the sauce.

I had a perfectly fine dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Boston some many years ago. I have no idea what was for dinner, but I still recall the bread. It was the most amazing cornmeal bread. It had a lighter than should be crumb and thick crust and balanced corn and wheat flavor. I was so over the moon for that bread I set to creating my own version. I came as close as possible to make me happy (a high bar let me tell you) and here it is.

I really enjoy making focaccia and ciabatta. If you follow my recipe, that is a no-knead dough because it is so wet it cannot be kneaded.

You, and I, can name some excellent baked goods from places not French, but that does not mitigate the contribution the French have made.

Sometimes You Need To Knead

Sandwich bread needs kneading.  Biscuits, to a degree, need kneading.  Baguettes and ryes and most breads do need it.

No-knead has its place and mostly that seems to be at home. The advantage a baker has with dough at least substantial enough to portion is he can make a large quantity at once, ferment, portion, bench, shape, proof, and bake. No-knead bread defies such procedures and each loaf seems to need its own receptacle and baking pan, the Dutch oven. That’s a lot of space, time, and expense for Dutch ovens.

The baker achieves those large holes through time and kneading and an understanding of what the bread will do.

Those skills and efforts are meant to be substituted in no-knead bread and that’s perfectly okay. As we’ve seen from McGee, the time and hydration allow the gluten to do in slow time what the baker makes it do in quick time, so to speak.

I’ve come to enjoy the no-knead bread as a skill. I’m sharing my bread knowledge with a co-worker, one who doesn’t really bake and cares little for the dough on his fingers, and together we are learning about no-knead bread.

There is a lot of room for experimentation. Tweak the hydration, add some different flours, try some seeds. Once you find a base recipe you like, push those limits and see what else you can create.

Click here to see my YouTube video making no-knead bread at home.

 

No Kneed with a twist

My friend makes her own fresh cheese.  I make bread from the whey.  Use it as water.  I made this video talking about some of the minor twists.