Practical Tips for Nourishing a Bread-Baking Obsession
For the last several months, I’ve been obsessed with baking bread. There’s something really satisfying about making yeast breads. It feels like rediscovering a lost art, and a science. I’ve noticed a trend among people my age and younger to take an interest in things our grandparents did out of necessity. (Note the preponderance of knitting hipsters, for example.) Then again, on another completely different level, it’s just about pleasure. There’s nothing that compares to the smell and taste of fresh-baked bread, and it’s very satisfying to have made that bread from scratch.
For many years prior to my recent obsession, I’ve enjoyed cooking, including baking. But I believed that yeast breads were beyond my ability. After returning from a trip to New York City, I decided that I needed to try my hand at pizza dough. This morphed into a full-blown preoccupation with yeast doughs and bread baking that took hold and hasn’t yet let up, and will probably carry me through at least until Lost begins again next month. What follows are a few practical tips and tricks I’ve learned over the past several months.
1. Yeast. For me, baking bread has everything to do with yeast. Yeast is alive and almost magical, and learning to work with it means the difference between success and utter failure. 
It’s a source of wonder to me that although humans have been baking leavened breads for literally thousands of years, dry and cultured yeast has only been around for about a hundred and twenty five years.
Although there are actually many different types of yeast, for practical purposes, there are only two that the home baker needs to be concerned about: active dry yeast and instant (sometimes called “bread machine” or “rapid rise”) yeast. Both perform the same function, but active dry yeast (what I use mostly) usually needs to be activated in a liquid before it is usable, whereas instant yeast can be mixed with the dry ingredients (flour, salt, etc). Pay attention to which type of yeast your recipe calls for. Although it is possible to substitute one for the other, after making adjustments, putting the wrong type of yeast into the dough without noticing can lead to an epic fail.
Yeast is available in single-use packets and little jars at your local grocery store. If you buy packets, or even jars, and you plan on baking more than a couple loaves of bread you are paying way too much for your yeast. Instead, buy 2 lbs. vacuum-packed blocks of yeast from a big-box store for about $4 (or online for slightly more). For economic reasons that I don’t quite understand, a 2-pound block of dry yeast costs about the same as a 4-oz. jar of yeast, which costs the same as four or five 1/4 oz individual packets. So yeast can either be one of your cheapest ingredients in bread baking, or one of your most expensive, depending on your method of purchase. Empty the vacuum pack into a airtight canister and keep it in the fridge or freezer and the yeast will last a year or so (or, if you bake bread as much as I have been, until it runs out). One packet is equal to two and one-forth teaspoons of yeast.
To proof (or activate) active dry yeast, you simply mix it with warm water. Various recipes give various temperatures and amounts of water for proofing dry yeast, but the important thing is to make sure the water is warm, but not too hot: a nice, warm bath is the perfect temperature. Too hot to the touch and the water will kill the yeast. Just sprinkle yeast over your warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes or so. Cooking guides will say watch for it to foam or bubble to see if the yeast is still good, but a much easier and quicker way to tell is to smell it. If it immediately gives off that distinctive yeasty, beery odor, you’re usually in business.
2. Other ingredients. The most basic breads are made with just flour, salt, yeast and water. There are many types of flour available for baking in most grocery stores, but unbleached all-purpose white flour does the trick for most recipes. Even whole wheat, or rye, or multigrain loaves are almost never use 100% whole grain flour. The honey wheat bread recipe I most frequently use is only about 5/8 whole wheat flour, for example. Like yeast, flour is cheapest when purchased in bulk. I keep a 5 gallon bucket in my pantry and it holds about 25 lbs of flour. An alternative to all-purposed flour is so-called “bread flour,” which is basically all-purpose flour with a high-gluten level. Gluten is the protein in flour that makes the dough strong and allows the bread to rise tall. For most recipes, all-purpose and bread flour are interchangeable.
You’ll also want a good supply of sweeteners, used to feed the yeast. I’ve used sugar, honey and molasses in my breads and each produces a slightly different flavor. Dry milk is used in a lot of recipes and so it’s good to have that on hand. Malted milk is also good to have around. I also like to keep some nuts and dried fruits around in case the mood strikes.
You might also try some specialty products. I really like adding a tablespoon or two of vital wheat gluten to my doughs. A friend of mine swears by soy lecithin, an emulsifier that speeds up dough rising. There are several other commercial products available and it seems like amateur bakers are getting more and more sophisticated.
3. Information. As you might expect, there is a ton of information available on the internet on bread baking. Community websites, such as The Fresh Loaf, provide a wealth of information to home bakers. I’ve long been a fan of All Recipes because of the user comment and rating system. There are lots of good bread-baking blogs available. Wild Yeast is one of the best I’ve found. Chef Peter Reinhart, author of the Bread Maker’s Apprentice, is sort of the spiritual guru to American bread makers and bread bloggers. I haven’t read his book yet, but I have checked out his blog from time to time.
King Arthur Flour’s website is a great source of recipes and cooking tips, even if you don’t buy any of KAF’s products. (It’s good flour, but it’s also more expensive than most.)
Bread making is one of those things you learn mainly by doing, but reading blogs and a wide collection of recipes will help you along the way.
4. Tools. By far the most useful tool for bread making is a standing mixer. You certainly can make bread without one, but it’s much more work. With a standing mixer and a dough hook, the mixer can do as much or as little of the work as you wish. Personally, I usually have the mixer combine the ingredients, then I like to do the kneading myself by hand. It’s fun and marginally good exercise. But most standing mixers can do almost all the kneading for you.
Bread making requires the usual assortment of measuring spoons, cups and mixing bowls that you might expect. I recommend a very large bowl to use for the first rise, big enough to allow the dough to rise without bumping against the cover or spilling over the sides.
I’m not a huge fan of bread machines because, for me, they take most of the fun out of baking bread. If you like your bread machine, keep in mind that you can always use the “dough cycle” to let the machine mix, knead and do a first rise for your dough before you shape your loaves and bake them in a conventional oven.
You might also want a baking stone. Properly heated, a baking stone will even the temperatures in the oven and can also give flat breads (read: pizza) a nice crust on the bottom. Rather than use a baking stone, I just purchased a couple of pieces of unglazed travertine tile from a big-box home improvement store and stuck them in my oven. (Unfortunately, the 18″ square tiles were too big for my oven, so I did need to trim about an inch off of one side with a tile saw first.)
I almost always bake with parchment paper. I’ve become very down on non-stick cooking spray. It smells like the propellant, which is horrible, and I think it can make the bread taste bad. Parchment achieves the same purpose without any bad smells/tastes.
Another tool that is fun and worth investing in is a pizza peel. It really helps to move your loves (or pizzas, naturally) in and out of the oven without the bread losing its shape. And there’s really no need to spend a lot of money. I got mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond for under ten bucks.
5. The breads. I recommend starting out with a very basic loaf recipe, either white or wheat. Don’t give up if your first loaf fails. Even experienced bread bakers have a bad loaf now and then. Work your way up to some of the more difficult breads (artisan french breads or sourdoughs, for example).
A common mistake is not kneading the dough enough to allow the gluten to form properly, and as a result not support the rise. This is why I recommend that beginning bread bakers knead by hand for a while. Kneading by hand, you start to get a feel for that moment when the dough turns from a gooey mess to something alive, smooth and strong.
Another mistake is to not allow the dough to rise long enough. Lots of conditions can effect the amount of time it takes for the dough to rise, including room temperature, the amount of yeast that was activated, and the amount of sweeteners, fats and salt. Recently, I was making this kugelhopf recipe and the dough was not rising as quickly as the recipe indicated it should. I had to give it an extra whole hour (kugelhopf is a slow rising bread anyway), and then it was fine and, in the end, tasted great.
The third common mistake for breads that fail to rise is killing your yeast. Usually the culprit is too high temperature, but the yeast might be no good to start with. If the yeast has been sitting around for a year, it might be dead.
A great beginner recipe is challah. Challah rises quickly and challah dough is difficult to mess up. I’ve made challah several times and haven’t had a failure yet. Learn the six-strand braid and you’ll impress your friends. Foccacia bread is actually easier and quicker than pizza dough, and very tasty.
Feel free to tweak recipes, just keep in mind that with bread, you want to maintain the important proportions: hydration (water or other liquids) to flour, sugars to salt (sugars encourage rapid yeast growth, while salt inhibits it), and fats in proportion to other ingredients.
Bellow are two of my most trusted and tested recipes: challah and pizza dough. Feel free to add some of your own recipes and tips in the comments.
Challah Bread
• 1-3/4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 8 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 4 eggs, plus one for egg wash
Proof yeast by sprinkling it over one cup of warm water for about five minutes. Warm honey, ¾ cup water and butter. Combine with flour and salt, then add yeast, mix. Add eggs one at a time while mixing. When all is mixed, knead for 10 minutes. The dough should become smooth and elastic.
Let rise for about 30-45 minutes (until doubled). Divide and braid into desired amount of strands/loaves. Braid the pieces, and tuck the ends under. Place on parchment paper on a baking stone or a pan. After forming loaves, let it rise again for about 30 minutes.
Before putting in the oven, brush an egg wash (made from a beaten egg and about 2 tablespoons water) over the dough.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Bread is done when the crust is golden brown and glossy and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom.
Consider sprinkling sesame seeds or poppy seeds over the egg-washed dough just before baking. You can also mix nuts and/or fruit into the dough just before kneading. This is a very hearty dough that will take lots of abuse and bounce back.
Makes 2-4 loaves of challah bread.
BTD Greg’s Pizza Dough:
• 3 C very warm water
• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• ¼ C honey
• 6 ½ C unbleached all-purpose flour (or 5½ all-purpose and 1 cup semolina flour, if available)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional)
• Olive oil (a few tablespoons)
Add honey to half of the water (1.5 cups) and dissolve. (I usually just stick it in the microwave for a minute, but be careful not to overheat the water.) Pour the water in a mixing bowl, then sprinkle the active dry yeast over top of it and let it sit a few minutes. Mix 4 cups of flour (3 cups all-purpose and 1 cup semolina, if you have it) with the vital wheat gluten and salt. Mix or sift the dry ingredients, then add the other half of the warm water and mix. Add the honey/water/yeast mixture and mix some more. Then add about a two cups more flour, about a half cup at a time. After mixing, the dough will still be slack, but should be coming off the edges of the mixing bowl. I put the other half cup flour on a flat surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes. Alternately, you can leave it in the mixer for kneading for another 10 minutes. The dough will remain slack (loose), but should get less sticky as you knead in more flour. After 10 minutes, add to a large mixing bowl that has either been coated with cooking oil or olive oil. Let the dough rise for 45 minutes to an hour at room temperature (or 2-3 hours in the refrigerator). After rising, take out and divide, then deflate, stretch and shape into the desired thinness/size.
Top as desired. For the sauce, I usually use canned tomatoes (either whole, diced or chopped) and add fresh garlic (if available) and Italian herbs, then blend. Brush the top of the crust with olive oil if you like, then a thin layer of sauce, then cheese and toppings. I’ve found that I don’t need to time the pizza making exactly with dinnertime. The prepared pizzas can be covered with plastic wrap and sit in the fridge until we’re ready to cook them.
Bake at 500 degrees until the desired doneness. A pizza stone (or a piece of unglazed travertine tile) is recommended, but not essential.
Makes enough dough for 4 very large pizzas or 6 medium-sized pizzas.
Posted on January 7, 2010, in Food. Bookmark the permalink. 35 Comments.
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My mother used to make whole wheat bread. She did this for many years and my friends always wanted to come over when the bread was coming out of the oven. We would devour it with butter and honey. There is nothing better in the world.
Some time ago I begged her to dig up the recipe she used. Here, only somewhat edited, is the text of the email she sent me (sorry this is so long – but it is loaded with tips):
danithew, thanks for that. Good stuff.
Okay, a few more thoughts on danithew’s mother’s whole wheat bread recipe:
* Putting on my amateur cultural anthropologist hat for a moment, I love how this recipe demonstrates that bread baking is a folk art. I also love the mystical aspect of putting your spirit/emotions into the bread as you knead it.
* And speaking of kneading, that’s some very impressive kneading! 45 minutes! I feel like I’m doing good when I do a full 10 minutes.
* I like her thoughts on experimenting and tweaking the recipe. One of the things about baking bread is that you can’t always follow the recipe exactly and expect it to turn out perfect. Flour is going to absorb different amounts of water depending on the weather (temperature and relative humidity), so you need to be prepared to add more or less flour than the recipe calls for, as needed.
* I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I tend to shy away from recipes that call for scalding the milk. It seems like a lot of work. I generally use my microwave to heat any ingredients that need to be warmed, because I’m impatient like that.
* I also like the huge portions. 5 loaves is a lot to make at once (most recipes yield two). I generally like to over-bake, assuming that if my family won’t eat it, we can easily find a friend to give the rest to.
There is nothing more satisfying than baking bread. I scoff at bread machines!
I’ve done a couple of different recipes, and I think I have everything how I like it except the crust. All the recipes I try either say “bake until the top is golden brown and hard when you tap it”, or don’t say this, but when I bake the desired amount of time it is hard when I tap it. How do I make soft crust on the top? When I try to just bake it less the middle is gooey. Are there just recipes that have a soft crust, or a certain ingredient I’m missing?
Also, for those that don’t have a stand mixer, many Kitchenaid food processors come with a dough blade now, or have one available.
Great post with fantastic information and perfect timing!
My New Year’s resolution is to practice frugality this year, so every Saturday, I will bake bread to last for (hopefully) the week. I will also go exercise while the dough rises, so I’m trying to get a two-fer out of the activity.
I’ve made bread in the past with about a 75% success rate. Your advice on kneading is well taken, I think that’s where I’m lacking.
Re-reading the post I just saw your tip on parchment paper. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We use parchment paper for cookies all the time, I don’t know why I never thought of it for bread.
King Arthur’s Flour is a phenomenal source. Also try anything by Peter Reinhart.
And if you’ve never made french toast from homemade Challah, you haven’t truly lived.
Sorry, somehow I missed that you had already linked to Reinhart. You really should check out his Bread Baker’s Apprentice book.
Awesome post. First part of last year I did a lot of bread baking. I still make pizza about every other friday, but I got out of the general bread making rhythm I used to have.
By combining a few different recipes, I came up with a multi-grain wheat bread recipe that I just love. I’ll post the recipe later.
The greatest revelation for me as I was learning was the value of the pre-ferment. When I was starting to bake bread, I liked the results but it was missing that homemade bread flavor that I remembered from the few times in my life that I had had fresh homemade bread. Then I discovered the sponge starter method. Basically, you make a relatively dry dough of just flour, water, and a tiny bit of yeast and let it sit overnight. That gives the yeast time to digest sugars in the flour and deepen the flavor. The starter puffs up and gets this boozy aroma. Then you add the rest of the flour, water, salt, sugar, and fat to the starter and proceed. The flavor of the finished loaf is so much better than you get from relatively quick rise/shape/proof method. Of course, you can’t always plan ahead, and a pre-ferment isn’t appropriate for every type of bread, so I have nothing against using quicker methods when circumstances call for it.
Case in point, my pizza dough method. I can have a pizza on the table about 1 hr. from the time I start making the dough. The flavor isn’t amazing, but I make my crust thin and have strongly flavored sauce and toppings, so I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the subtle flavors of a truly great bread anyway. Here’s what I do:
To a stand mixer bowl with dough hook, add 2 C flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 TBSP sugar, 1 tsp. instant yeast. Add 7/8 c. warm water and 2 tsp. oil. Bring together with dough hook. Add flour until the dough starts becoming a cohesive mass on the hook (it usually takes around another 1/2 c. flour), but is still very tacky. Knead on medium speed for about 10 min. or until dough windowpanes nicely. Add flour if the dough is still very wet. Turn dough out onto counter, split in two, shape into balls, allow to rise until doubled, about 30 min. or so. Shape into pizza shape. 500 degree oven, pizza stone, pizza peel, toppings, etc. Makes two medium-ish sized thin crust pizzas.
What I really need is a brick oven for high high heat pizza and bread cooking. If I ever get a back yard, I want to build one.
I’ve been thinking about doing my own sourdough for a while now. Keeping a sourdough starter alive and happy is like a science experiment. Maybe I’ll get the kids involved. My science-obsessed son would dig it.
The other thing I’ve been meaning to try is Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Cooks Illustrated has a recipe in the most recent edition that purports to mimic the real thing. I’ve never had the real thing, but I like the idea of it.
jjohnsen,
When I make wheat bread, the crust on the outside is hard when it comes out of the oven, but it softens as it cools. It gets even softer if you store it in a plastic bag after it cools.
If the crust is too thick and hard to soften as it cools, maybe your oven is too hot?
jjohnson asks:
There are probably a few different solutions here. Here are a couple:
Putting oil over the surface of the bread before the second rise will keep the dough supple, and you could add a little bit more before putting it in the oven. It might affect the flavor of the bread though.
Alternatively, most people who bake French or Italian loaves try to figure out a way to add steam to the oven. Some people recommend spraying the bread with a spray bottle immediately before you start to bake it, then every 10 minutes or so. The problem with this method is that you’re going to have a hard time keeping a constant oven temperature if you keep opening and closing the door. One method I’ve tried with okay success is to put a cookie sheet or baking pan in the oven on the bottom rack and let it heat up when the oven preheats. Then, right before you put the bread in, pour warm water into the pan and it will generate steam for the inside of the oven.
Tom said:
Starter sponges are pretty awesome. This is a little more advanced than I wanted to go with this post, but it’s really not that hard and can really make great bread. The usual problem I have is that I don’t think about making bread until I have a whole afternoon or evening to do it.
Tim J:
I made challah yesterday and gave a loaf to my neighbors. I recommended that they use it to make French toast. No joke.
Tom again:
Trying to learn to make the perfect pizza is like chasing the Holy Grail. I’m getting better and better at it, but it’s next to impossible to make the perfect brick-oven style pizza in a regular home kitchen. A brick oven in the back yard would be awesome.
I’m really happy to see that there are so many people who are interested in bread baking. I thought this post might go unnoticed.
I wish I could find where we got the recipe (either Reinhart or Cooks Ill.), but we make a sprouted wheat bread that is terrific. It’s also a great way to use wheat if you either don’t have a grinder or don’t want to bother with it.
JJohnson, if you want a softer crust, assuming you’re making regular sandwich bread and not a french or italian bread that’s supposed to be crusty, try brushing the top with a little butter as it comes out of the oven. Also, while it’s still warm, wrapping it in plastic right away softens the crust.
Thanks for the tips. I’m just making regular old white or wheat bread, so it’s not meant to be hard like French bread.
I’ve never scalded milk, either, and my bread works just fine. Someone (a mother or grandmother, I think) told me scalding is left over from days when you wanted to make sure the milk was good before you cooked with it.
I use Cook’s Illustrated’s challah bread recipe for all the bread in our home. I typically use a round braid. I also use silicone rubber baking sheets rather than parchament paper.
My two favorite bread recipes come from the NY Times: this one is amazing, especially if you let it rise toward the 20-hour side of things rather than the 14-hour. I make it in a Le Crueset dutch oven that I gave my wife, but an oven-proof stock pot would presumably work, too.
If you’re in more of a hurry, this one is almost as good, and has the added benefit of making 4 loaves; the dough can be stored in the fridge, and I generally make a loaf a day for most of a week. (We tend to eat a loaf a day, too.)
Both recipes give a nice crunchy crust, and the actual hands-on time required to make the bread is less than 5 minutes. The sole downside, IMO, is that they’re no-knead, and I love the feel of kneading bread. Though these days I generally use a stand mixer anyway, so I’m not really missing anything.
Between these two recipes, it’s been months since I’ve bought a loaf of bread from the grocery store. I do buy a lot of flour, though.
Sam, I wanted to look up that Le Crueset dutch oven you were talking about. It appears that it comes in different sizes and can be round or oval in shape.
If others are also curious, here’s a link to one version:
http://www.amazon.com/Creuset-Enameled-Cast-Iron-9-Quart-French/dp/B00005QFRP/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1263218712&sr=1-4
The reviewers overall seem very pleased with it. I like the various colors they come in too.
Sam, that simple crusty bread recipe looks really good. I’m going to have to give that a try.
For a more economical option, Tramontina makes a 6.5 Qt enameled cast iron dutch oven that, according to Cooks Illustrated, doesn’t quite perform up the the level of the Le Creuset, but does everything they want it to. I got mine for $50 at Wal-Mart and I’ve been happy with it. The only potential downside is that it’s not gigantic. I don’t know if you need a gigantic one for those bread recipes. But for most braising, stewing, and soup making the 6.5 Qt is plenty big.
Tom, I looked that one up too:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=13230075&findingMethod=rr
It looks a lot like the Le Creuset.
That’s really tempting. It’s just too bad that my wife’s birthday is so far away.
Also, just in case you need to impress your foodie friends, I recommend this optional accessory.
Note: according to the Amazon reviews, you’ll actually want the stainless still knob that I linked above because the resin knob that comes with the Le Creuset pot (and the cheaper ones from Lodge and Tramotina) will not withstand the high temperatures used in the no-need bread recipe that Sam linked and everyone loves. It fits the cheaper brands as well.
So you can be faux-stylish and functional!
BTDGreg: “That’s really tempting. It’s just too bad that my wife’s birthday is so far away.” <— this is a funny joke.
Wow. I can’t believe it’s now $35. That’s amazing. I may need another.
Tramontina also makes 3-ply stainless steel cookware that rivals All-Clad for functionality at a fraction of the price. I have their 12-inch skillet and it’s great. Bless Cook’s Illustrated for doing their equipment tests.
Tom (21),
I don’t remember how big my dutch oven is, but the 6.5 quart one you’ve linked to looks plenty big. (And I don’t mean to suggest that Le Crueset is necessary for the bread; I bought it as a present before I discovered the bread, but now all we really use it for is the bread.)
Tom (18): “If you’re in more of a hurry, this one is almost as good, and has the added benefit of making 4 loaves.”
I made this bread (Simple Crusty Bread) last night. It was good. Initially, I didn’t mix it well enough so parts were dry and powdery because it didn’t get hydrated all the way through. I actually took it out and kneaded it, then stuck it back in the bowl to rise another hour. It still worked out, though the loaves were kind of small. I was amazed how much the bread rose in the oven.
This recipe has the advantage of tasting like good artisan bread without much of the work. Thanks.
Credit where credit is due, it was Sam B. who recommended that recipe.
This thread has made my brain get thinking about bread again. I think I’ll make the Challah this weekend.
I like the idea of hand-kneading but I must be doing something wrong because whenever I’ve done it I either have to add way more flour than the recipe calls for to keep it from sticking to my hands and the table, which results in dry dough, or I get a really dense mass that won’t form a tight “skin”–the outside tears when I form it into a ball.
I’m wondering if I’m overdoing it. I think rather than stretching the dough I’m tearing it. When you hand-knead do you sort of fold the dough over on itself or is it more of just pushing the dough around? I’ve always done the former because I thought that’s how you do it, but if that’s not the way it could explain both of my problems.
What I do is the sort of the common double-over-and-push-down method, sometimes with two hands and sometimes with one. I think maintaining the right hydration is really important. With some kinds of bread, you want a really slack, almost sticky dough, and with others, it’s smooth and not very sticky. When I make challah, it gets to the smooth state pretty quickly (probably due to the eggs and butter), so I don’t have to add too much flour during kneading. French breads and pizza dough are the opposite. Wheat loaves are somewhere in between. I don’t think you can really knead too much, but then, I usually go all out and tire after about 10 to 15 minutes.
I’ve never really been able to do the “window pane” thing that so many bread recipes talk about, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.
And, yes, thanks, Sam!
Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Determine-if-Bread-Dough-Has-Been-Mixed-Long-Enough
I tried to make a dark brown rye bread yesterday, and it come out as a doughy brick–it didn’t rise much at all, even though I kneaded it plenty and gave it lots of time to rise. This is the problem with bread baking: even if you seemingly do everything right, you can get bad results sometimes.
I’m going to try another recipe. Brown bread won’t get the best of me.
I haven’t had the chance to bake bread loaves yet. But, I made your pizza dough recipe for dinner on Monday and we each made our own individual pizzas. It was a hit!
Great recipe. Next time we have pasta, I’m going to use this for breadsticks.
A couple of updates:
I picked up some soy lecithin at a vitamin/health food store. It was about $10 for a pound of granules–you add a tablespoon for every 3 cups flour. I’m pleased with it so far. It seems to make the kneading come together quicker (it’s an emulsifier) and also seems to help the loaves stay fresh longer (it’s a preservative). It’s also supposed to be healthy and might have beneficial effects on your body’s cholesterol. Maybe.
I also, on a whim, bought something called Fruit Fresh, which has ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and citric acid. Add it to the warm water you proof your yeast in and the yeast goes crazy. Dry active yeast thrives in a slightly acidic environment. Alton Brown recommends adding crushed up Vitamin C to the warm proofing water. This stuff seems to work even better.
I’ve got some dough working right now for 100% whole wheat bread using both Fruit Fresh and soy lecithin. So far, it looks good.