Quarantartine: Resources for End Times Baking
I know nearly nothing about baking bread. I’ve made fewer than 50 batches of sourdough, and it’s never quite right. In the time it takes me to produce a mediocre loaf (boule, if I may be so bouled), I could easily walk a few blocks to a nearby bakery and bring home something far, far better than what I burn my fingers trying to flip out of a dutch oven. And yet I continue to orient my life around a few jars of yeasty sludge, stopping just shy of giving it a name and its own instagram handle.
Mine and our interest in bread rises and falls, though it does seem we are just about always nostalgic for ‘good’ bread. I remember once looking through my grandparents’ books and finding a food-relevant section, with 2 of 7 Ulysses S. Grant biography volumes stuck between several Barefoot Contessas (Contessi). My grandpa, a cabin-building physician whose cooking I thought started and stopped with handfuls of salt on everything that came his way, apparently went through a bread-baking phase himself, with a few books on the subject. Right next to his books about the Atkins Diet.
Today, interest is at an all time high. The world remains on pause. Great jobs at strong companies are gone with a sneeze and many of us have had (for the first time) a moment where we can’t go out and buy what we actually need. There’s less control, less connection, and more noise than any time worth comparing. Not to mention we’re all bored as hell while saving the world from our couches.
The return to something simple, self-reliant, and self-determined makes sense, and so we have come to sourdough. We have not come slowly –– just a glance at Google interest in “sourdough starter” shows more than a 10x jump in the past two weeks. Compare that to Google searches for “hand washing” and you can see people have given up on hygiene as they know they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. A good exponential curve!
So, while I am a neophyte to the world of homemade breads, my 16 weeks and < 50 loaves put me in the 0.1% of most experienced sourdough home bakers. I hope to share the very, very little I know to help one or two hit something enjoyable soon enough to keep on the path. First, let’s walk through a few core concepts before I share two great resources to learn breadmaking techniques and then explore sourdough.
Bread Basics
As a very brief crash course on a topic I know little about, when making bread we're really focused on building two things:
Gluten: two proteins in flour, gliadin and glutenin, combine when worked into gluten, an elastic macromolecule which forms a springy matrix which traps carbon dioxide and steam to help your loaf expand upwards instead of just pancaking outwards. A gluten network builds the strength of the bread, which is a balance of extensibility (how far can you stretch the dough), elasticity (how easily can the dough return to its original shape), and tenacity (how hard is it to stretch the dough).
Flavor: as microbes like yeast digest their food source (starch), they excrete carbon dioxide and ethanol, transforming the flavor of flour into a more complex, cereal flavor profile. When you ferment the starch with microbes alongside yeast (like those in a sourdough starter), the other byproducts rapidly diversify beyond those left behind by consistent industrialized yeasts.
During the bake, a strong gluten network and range of fermented byproducts help the loaf rise outwards and develop caramelized, browned flavors in the crust. It’s vital to start the bake in a steamy environment, so that the crust doesn’t set until the bread is well-expanded.
These concepts are complicated and there’s no silver bullet method to develop great gluten and flavor, and then bake it all for perfect texture. I do however have two earnest recommendations to get started: first, a yeasted bread which introduces key techniques, and second, a sourdough savant whose videos and guides can help lead you to success.
Technique: Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread
Interest in homemade bread rises and falls, but one of the most aggressive springs came in 2006, when Mark Bittman covered a method of home bread baking based on the Sullivan Street Bakery. This loaf introduced scores of readers to a few dependable, accessible methods for homemade bread:
No-knead bulk ferment: more water brings more steam, which helps make a lighter, open loaf. However, higher water content makes for a sticky dough difficult to knead. By keeping the dough in the same container and occasionally, gently working it, you let the starch molecules hydrate which helps build gluten with less work. All this to avoid countertop kneading.
Slow fermentation: fermenting slowly and in cooler temperatures allows you to use less yeast and for the yeast to naturally multiply, resulting in a richer flavor.
Dutch oven baking: by baking a boule in a dutch oven and removing the lid halfway through baking, you replicate the humidity of a professional steam-injection oven which keeps the exterior of the bread moist. This inhibits the crust forming, allowing the bread to continue to oven spring.
Sourdough: Full Proof Baking
These three techniques are good for any bread, but if you crave the tangy funkiness of sourdough (and the hippy self sustainable vibes that come with it), Full Proof Baking’s YouTube and Instagram are a great place to start. FPB’s videos and guides do a great job emphasizing the importance of controlling ferment temperature and building dough strength. The $5 I spent on her PDF guide for an open crumb sourdough has paid dividends in lighter, more consistent loaves.
If you’re in Berlin, send me a message and I’d be happy to lend you some active sourdough starter to jumpstart your sourdough journey!
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As you embark on a carby, quarantine-inspired journey, feel free to reach out to me as well for the little counsel I can provide!
