Tips and tricks to getting the perfect loaf of bread, with patience for your yeast
Who knew being home all the time would lead to running out of propane for your home range? There’s another thing the pandemic has taught me. Normally, we fill our tank once a year. Instead, I was recently left waiting for a delivery in order to get to work on some carbohydrates.
Three days later, I baked my three-day-old dough that just sat in the fridge, and it was delicious. This makes me ask some questions.
Why does that loaf from the artisan bakery down the street taste better than what you make at home? Is it time? Better ingredients? A more comprehensive knowledge of the baking arts? To be honest, it’s usually a little of all three.
What can the average home baker do about that? Patience. Time is your friend here. We are looking for flavor development from the yeast and a little patience is all it takes. (Que up some Guns N’ Roses.)
What is yeast and how does it make our bread better?
Yeast are single-celled fungi. Similar to mushrooms, but microscopic. And they absolutely love to eat sugar and convert it to carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. That’s why it is so beneficial to us. We use it to make breads and cakes and also beer and wine. Plus a multitude of other things.
There are many types of yeast, so to clarify, for baking we are talking about saccharomyces cerevisiae. Also known as baker’s yeast. It can be purchased in many different forms. Cake, active dry, instant, bread machine, and rapid-rise. These are all the same yeast strain, but all have been modified in some way to better suit a certain application. The biggest differences between the yeast types is a flavor, how they are stored and also how easily they dissolve into water and then incorporate into your dough. They all perform the same task, which is to leaven our baked goods.
Yeast go about this by metabolizing sugars (in the case of bread, glucose from the honey and maltose from the starch in our flour) into carbon dioxide, different types of alcohols, organic acids and esters. This is fermentation, the method yeast uses to reproduce. Carbon dioxide gives our bread its rise. Alcohol doesn’t play a huge part in baking, but combined with organic acids, which lower the pH of our dough, they create esters. The yeast reproduction and the ester creation are the two major contributors to flavor development in dough.
For starters, the yeast have reproduced, so we have more yeast cells in our bread. More yeast equals more yeast flavor. We obtain flavor development right out of the gates. Without getting into too much chemistry, acids are created during the fermentation process chemically react with the alcohol and develop flavor compounds called esters. This is where we get a lot of diversity in bread flavor. Controlling the time and temperature at which our dough ferments allows us to control the reproduction rate of the yeast, the acidity and the rate at which esters are formed.
More time and lower temperature equals more flavor. Less time and higher temperature equals less flavor. It all has to do with a balance of alcohol production to the reletive pH of the dough and overall ester production. It’s actually simple.
The idea for this recipe came about by accident. It has since been fine-tuned to make a delicious and easy loaf that any baker can make and impress their friends and family with. All it takes is just a little patience.
Semolina Bread
Active time: 1 to 1½ hours
Passive time: 2 to 3 days
Yield: 1 loaf
Starter:
250 grams AP flour
450 grams water, 105 degrees
45 grams honey
8 grams active dry yeast
Directions:
▪ In your mixing bowl, mix the water, honey and yeast together and let sit for 10 minutes or until a froth develops on top. (This activates the dry yeast)
▪ Add flour and whisk together
▪ Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours
Dough:
250 grams AP flour
70 grams semolina flour
30 grams olive oil
18 grams Kosher salt (I use Diamond brand)
Directions:
▪ In your mixing bowl with your starter, add the AP flour and the semolina flour. Mix with a dough hook on medium-low speed until combined and a dough is formed (about 1 minute)
▪ Slowly add the kosher salt and the olive oil
▪ Turn speed up to medium and mix until the dough looks smooth and glossy (about 10 minutes) and you can always check gluten development by using the window pane test
▪ Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and form into a smooth ball, place the dough back into the mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap
▪ Bulk ferment the dough in a proofing drawer or a slightly warmed oven (Looking for about 90 degrees Fahrenheit) for 1 hour
▪ Punch down the dough, reform into a smooth ball and place back into the mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
▪ Place the dough in the fridge to continue fermenting at least 8 hours or up to two days
▪ Remove dough from the fridge and place on a lightly floured counter
▪ Flatten out the dough with your hands and push out as many bubbles as you can
▪ Roll the dough up and tuck the edges in to form a smooth and elongated football shape
▪ Prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper and a light sprinkle of semolina flour
▪ Place the shaped loaf on the pan seam-side down
▪ Lightly sprinkle the loaf with some semolina flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap
▪ Proof in a proofing drawer or a slightly warmed oven until doubled in size
▪ Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and place an empty sheet pan on the bottom rack of the oven. Place the other rack in the slot directly above the first. The top rack is the rack you will bake on
▪ Once the oven is preheated, score the bread with a lame (bread razor) or knife. Make three or four cuts about 4 inches long and an inch deep at a 30-40% angle to the loaf
▪ Place bread in the oven and and add a handful of ice cubes to the bottom sheet pan. This creates steam in the oven and will give the bread a nice crust
▪ Bake the bread until golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees Farenhiet
▪ Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack
▪ Enjoy your carbs
