Crumb

The reason I suggest leaving the dough to rest until ‘just under’ rather than double in size, which is the usual instruction, is that I find it helps people to pay attention and guard against reaching this deflating stage.

Put the flour in a large bowl, break up the yeast on one side of the bowl and place the salt on the other side. It is important to keep them apart as they are both powerful and if mixed together the salt will suck all the moisture from the yeast and they will both ‘die’.

As a rough rule of thumb, for a plain white dough I would use 720g of water per 1kg of strong bread flour (this is more than some recipes, but will give you the nice soft dough that you need to use my technique). However if you substitute very strong flour, I would use up to 800g water.

You can experiment with most of the yeasted recipes in this book by substituting some of the fresh commercial yeast with some ferment, in a ratio of 10g of ferment to 1g of fresh commercial yeast. So if a recipe calls for 20g of commercial yeast, try just using 10g and adding 100g of ferment, then, as you feel more confident you can keep increasing

The top of the dough will have a natural smooth skin forming over it, and by ensuring the top is always on top and the bottom on the bottom you are in control. It is a small detail, but a huge step in understanding the way that dough behaves.

tell people to forget the terminology and just think of wet water, which everyone finds very funny. But what I actually mean is that it is completely neutral. You feel nothing in particular when you put your fingers into it. This is the temperature you need your water to be when you mix dough by hand. In the recipes in this book, if the ingredients

In my classes I call this technique taking the dough for a walk, because it really helps if you walk up and down as you do this.

If you bake simple white bread (using the foundation dough) every few days, one way to gradually reduce the quantity of fresh commercial yeast in your dough and edge towards bread leavened by natural yeasts, is to keep back 400g of dough when you reach the dividing stage, ready to prove it. Place the portion of dough in a bowl, covered, in your fri

| BAKING CLOTHS Invest in a stack of these as you will use them constantly. They are different from tea towels, being heavier and made of a natural linen fibre. They are the traditional alternative to freezer bags to cover dough while it is resting in the mixing bowl and, unlike a cotton tea towel, the cloth won’t stick to the dough. You can also u