Most yeast bread recipes don’t highlight the importance of each step, and illustrate the “why behind the what” when you do things like wait for dough to double in size, or why you mix yeast in water until it gets foamy. Therefore, it makes it hard to feel compelled to follow bread recipes precisely, and this is when errors occur.
- Scaling of Ingredients
This seems like a given, but taking the time to measure ingredients before you start half-hazardly mixing ensures that no mistakes are made, and that you have the right ingredients and equipment to proceed. I know you’ve heard this before, but weighing your ingredients, particularly your flour and liquid (such as water or milk) in the recipe, is extremely helpful as it eliminates any variance in volume. It’s just more consistent.
I typically divide my bread recipes by wet and dry ingredients. In bread, dry ingredients are always flour and salt and any seasonings or spices (if used), such as cinnamon.
Wet ingredients include sugar (if used)- which might be confusing, but that is because sugar is hydroscopic (meaning it absorbs moisture), any fat in the mixture, and egg (if used), and the yeast. My recipes all include instant yeast because it is simply the easiest to use and the easiest to source.
However, technically speaking, instant yeast was designed to be mixed with the flour in industrial bread production- making it much cleaner and easier to use than fresh yeast. However, bread proofing goes faster when you “bloom”, or hydrate and activate, the yeast in the liquid the bread recipe uses. That’s why some recipes say “mix yeast with water until foamy, 5 minutes” or things like that. Warm water is best, hot will kill the yeast, and cold water will just activate the yeast quite slowly. - Mixing
Recipes will typically address kneading the dough, either by hand or with a dough hook in a stand mixer. I mix all my bread recipes with the “straight dough mixing method”, which is fancy talk for put all the ingredients, doesn’t matter what order, into the bowl all at once and start kneading. The only time I deviate from this model is when a starter or poolish is involved- but even then, you typically just add the completed starter to the other ingredients and mix away.
This process takes longer than most mixing for baking projects because your objective is to DEVELOP as MUCH gluten as possible. When you make cake, cookies, brownies, etc, you are trying to inhibit gluten development. You want your bread chewy and to have a “bready” texture, whereas any other unyeasted baked good, you want a tender result. This is also why it’s SO hard to create a gluten free bread, whereas other gluten free pastries are much much easier by comparison.
Bread dough is a lot more forgiving than people think it is. You really should expect to mix, or “knead” the crud out of it for quite a while. In addition, bread dough texture changes depending on the weather and humidity because flour absorbs moisture in the air, changing the volume but NOT the weight- which is why weighing at least your flour is imperative to bread making.
Gluten development can happen when dough rests, sits overnight (this explains why no knead breads work), but the quickest way to develop gluten is by mixing/kneading the dough. You can check your gluten development by conducting the “gluten window test.” This is the best way to check that your bread has been kneaded enough. There are other visual cues that can warn you that your dough is almost done; it should look smooth, not shaggy, and some recipes give you a time estimate such as 5-6 minutes, that should get you almost to the gluten window point. To conduct the gluten window test, grab about a tablespoon sized amount of dough out of the bowl and pinch it with at four fingers and your thumbs, spreading it with even pressure from each corner. Remember to spread the dough slowly and hold it toward the light. If the dough tears, the gluten is not fully developed; keep mixing. If you can see light through it and it’s elastic enough to hold that window shape for a few seconds, that means your gluten is fully developed. - Bulk Fermentation (1st Proof)
When a recipe says something like “let the dough rest in a warm place until it doubles in size”- this is the process it is referring to. The first fermentation, which occurs when the dough is one large unshaped mass, is when the yeast does a majority of its work. Yeast eats the starches in the flour, emits gas, and adds flavor through the by product of it continuing to break down flour.
Sometimes the dough won’t quite double in size, due to the heaviness of ingredients like butter or fat. But you typically want to see at least a 50% increase in size. The warmer it is (up to a certain point, you won’t want to accidentally kill the yeast and cook the dough), the faster it will rise. You’ll know your dough is ready if you can poke it and a light indent remains. It shouldn’t spring back- that’s underproofed. It shouldn’t completely collapse- that’s overproofed.
You can also conduct this first proof by “retarding” the dough, meaning a slow ferment at a much lower temperature such as inside your fridge. The yeast acts slower, so visually you don’t see the puffiness, but this gives the yeast more time to add flavor and more of a tang to your dough. This is great if you mix a batch of dough late and night and you don’t want to bake it the same day; just put it in the fridge! It will ferment beautifully there. Just be sure to let your dough come back to room temperature before the next step, otherwise it will be too hard to shape. - Punch Down
This might seem like another given, but properly punching down your dough after the 1st proof ensures that no weird air bubbles make it into the product after shaping, potentially causing an unsightly and oversized bubble to burst during the baking process. - Divide & Shape
Once your dough is free of pesky air bubbles, you can start portioning your pieces of doughs into the desired weight. Loaves most commonly weigh between 12-16 ounces, rolls are in the 2 ounce zone. Even weight is the most foolproof way to create even sizing and therefore an even bake.
You never want to tear your dough- this affects the integrity of the gluten. Cut it with a flat metal surface- such as a bench scraper, or knife. I like to use kitchen shears for certain tasks, such as trimming scraps or cutting rolls.
Shaping is where a lot of visual and historical context comes into play. Challah is traditionally braided, sandwich loaves are baked in specific pans, ciabatta is stretched into a long rectangular shape, baguettes rolled into snakes, I could go on. Shaping bread takes a lifetime to master, and know that a proper bench rest hides a multitude of sins.
At this point, you can freeze your shaped product, and thaw at room temp and pick up at the next step when you want a freshly baked bread product. - Bench Rest
Bench resting, or the second proof, is when the dough and gluten recover from all the work you just did, adding a little more air and fluff to your final product before baking. You can overproof your dough, risking a total collapse or structural integrity issues after your bread is baked. No more than doubling in size is a good rule of thumb at this stage. Much like in the first proof, the warmer it is the faster it will occur; a slow fermentation will not work well at this stage, though. Be sure to not mix up what order bench resting and scoring happens! - Scoring/Finishing
Breads receive finishing touches right before baking. Scoring, the act of delicately cutting the very top of the bread, is as decorative as it is functional. In ancient times, when villages would share one common oven, breads were scored to identify which family they belonged to. Scoring has also historically marked how much a bread weighed (12 ounce loaves got one design, 16 ounce loaves received another, etc.) Scoring also controls where the steam will escape from the bread, so it is scientifically so necessary unless you want little explosions to protrude through the crust. This is especially important in high hydration breads, where water is, by weight, a very high ranking ingredient.
Not all breads need a scoring, this is the case when steam can easily escape from the bottom or the bread hydration isn’t high, and therefore not a ton of steam is created in the first place. Sandwich loaves, challah, rolls, are all excellent examples. These breads can be expertly finished in another way- by eggwashing them. Not totally necessary, but adds finesse and technique. Eggwash is super thin egg, typically mixed with water (1 egg, 2 TBSP is a great place to start), brushed onto your unbaked bread AFTER the bench rest to add shine and color to your bake. The beauty of eggwash is that it can be easily manipulated to get the aestetic you want. Do you want more browning? Use milk instead of water. Worried about globby egg whites? Use egg yolks only. Lots of ways to tinker!
Even just a light sprinkle of flaky salt or raw sugar goes a long way when finishing your breads! - Bake
Lean doughs and enriched doughs bake very differently. Lean doughs (think sourdough breads, crusty baguettes, ciabatta, any bread with thick crust and bigger pockets of air in the crumb) bake on HIGH heat. This is because there aren’t any sugars or milk solids or anything that can burn. Just flour, salt, yeast, and water.
Enriched doughs encompass anything that have “enriching” ingredients, such as butter, oil, honey, sugar, milk, really anything outside the four ingredients lean doughs contain. There is a spectrum of enriched doughs. A pizza dough that contains a mere teaspoon of sugar and olive oil is much less enriched compared to a babka (made with sugar, butter, egg yolks, and milk), and so it’s a spectrum and generalization, but if you consider your ingredients, you can determine the baking technique in a general way.
Obviously, size comes in to play as well. Rolls, since they are small, no matter their contents, will bake more quickly than a larger loaf.
Bread is finished baking when the internal temperature reaches at LEAST 180 degrees, but ideally 200 degrees. Visually assessing the color is also a great way to ensure your bread is baked all the way through.
Lean crusty breads also often call for steam, to help develop an especially crispy crust. Enriched doughs don’t benefit from steam. In a home oven, the easiest way to replicate this is by putting a pan of water into your oven to evaporate as it initially bakes. - Cool
You might think a slice of hot bread sounds especially indulgent, but cooling is actually very important to the bread’s texture. If you cut open a loaf that is piping hot, steam will come pouring out, and no matter how baked your bread is, it will look slightly raw and feel doughy. Allow loaves 30 minutes to an hour to cool before slicing, and rolls or smaller units, such as cinnamon rolls, 10-15 minutes to cool before serving.