Josey Baker Bread

firmly believe in the benefits of a “bold bake.” By baking your bread until most of its crust is a deep, dark brown, you coax out all of the possible flavors from the dough, create a glorious contrast between crunchy outside and soft inside, and also protect the loaf against quickly drying out. This can be a little unnerving at first, as it require

Possible Bread-Baking Schedules (PBBS) WHAT YOU’RE DOING PBBS #1: “AFTER DINNER” PBBS #2: “EARLY BIRD” PBBS #3: “LUNCH BREAK” mix pre-ferment (step 2) after dinner, say 8 P.M. before you go to work/school, say 8:30 A.M. during your lunch break, maybe 12:30 P.M. mix dough (step 4) before breakfast, say 8:30 A.M. after dinner, say 8 P.M. about 10 or

6. Shape your loaf. Sprinkle a handful of bread flour on your counter, and pour the dough out. If you’re making more than one loaf, cut your dough into equal-size pieces. Be nice and gentle with the dough—it has gas in it, and you want to keep most of it there. Gently grab a corner of the dough and fold it up and over into the middle. Do the same thin

It’s helpful to think of the gluten in the dough as a system of balloons. You want the gluten to be stretched enough so that there are some nice-size air holes in your bread, and in order for this to happen the gluten has to be good and stretchy. But just like a balloon, the gluten will pop if it is stretched too far. And once it is popped, there’s

When the bread first comes out of the oven it is actually still baking, so you simply must give it time to cool down.

The bread is too dense! Awww man, I hate it when that happens. This is tricky—it could be happening for a bunch of different reasons. Bottom line: The dough didn’t trap the gas made by the yeast, or the yeast didn’t make enough of this gas.

THIS IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE BREAD DOUGH I’VE BEEN MAKING—WHAT’S UP? Indeed, if you’re paying super-close attention, you will notice that this dough is almost exactly the same, just a little bit stiffer (more flour) than the bread dough you’ve been making. Using a touch more flour will lead to a pizza dough that’s essentially stronger, making it muc