The Bread Baker's Apprentice

As a general rule, a higher percentage of protein (gluten) in flour translates to more water absorption and slightly longer mixing times.

That is why the key step in shaping a boule is to press firmly on the bottom crease to tighten the surface (like getting the wrinkles out of a sheet).

Milling crushes wheat berries, which are the seeds or grains of mature wheat grass, into various degrees of powder. The three main components of a wheat berry are the outer skin, called bran; the oily, vitamin E–rich embryo, or germ; and the starch- and protein-laden nutritional cushion, called the endosperm. An analogy to this is an egg with its s

The other option is to save back a portion of every batch of French bread that you make to use as pre-ferment in future batches. The dough will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator and at least 3 months in the freezer if you store it in an airtight freezer bag.

Eighty percent of the quality of the finished bread will be determined during the primary fermentation stage (Stage 3), and the other 20 percent will be primarily determined during the baking, or oven, stage (Stage

When adding ingredients to the mixing bowl, it is a good idea to avoid placing the yeast and the salt in direct contact with each other, as salt will kill the yeast in such concentrated contact. Instead, you can stir the salt into the flour, and then do the same with the yeast, or simply place the yeast and salt on opposite sides of the bowl prior

The important difference between this dough and most others is that it is made by a delayed-fermentation technique caused by using ice-cold water to mix it, without yeast or salt, and then immediately refrigerating it. The dough is held overnight and then remixed with the yeast and salt and slowly awakened to begin its first, or bulk, fermentation.

few years after the original publication of this book, I became more interested in the effectiveness of what I call the stretch-and-fold technique. The method was included in that first edition but was not emphasized to the degree that I later used it. In many of the instructions that follow, I have suggested the stretch-and-fold technique in place

There are many ways to frame the classifications of bread, as you will see on the chart on this page. For instance, one classification system defines breads according to three categories based on hydration, or water content. These are the stiff doughs (bagels, pretzels—50 to 57 percent hydration of liquid to flour), standard doughs (sandwich bread,