The Handmade Loaf

The adage here must be to bake with what you have; make the best of what is around you. For some, there is no choice

A better result will be achieved if you upturn the loaf on to a thin semolina-dusted board (what bakers call a peel or a pizza shovel), and then deposit the loaf on to the hot stone or tray. When cold dough is placed on a hot stone, there is a sudden outward push from the steam created inside the dough, which improves both the loaf’s internal textu

look for the purest salt you can find, without anti-caking agents, and go to the bother of grinding it yourself. The best and easiest way is with a large mortar and pestle. Weigh the salt in a small cup, then tip this into the mortar and grind it in a circular motion with the pestle.

Many experienced bakers use a system of measurement based on percentages. If the total amount of flour in a recipe equals 100 per cent, then every other ingredient can be described as a percentage of that quantity.

DAY 1 50g water at 20°C 2 rounded tsp rye flour 2 rounded tsp strong white flour 2 rounded tsp currants or raisins 2 rounded tsp live low-fat yoghurt Mix all the ingredients in a 500ml Kilner jar. Cover and leave at room temperature (approx. 20°C) for 24 hours.

I’ve found a marked improvement in the results I achieve when baking with fresh yeast. To replicate the results in this book, I would recommend that you seek out and use fresh yeast where required. However, in many instances this is difficult, usually because the demand isn’t there to warrant local availability. In many northern European countries,

When you need to replace the fresh yeast in the recipe with dry active yeast, do the following. Take 25 per cent of the water from a recipe and heat it to 38–40°C. Whisk in the dry yeast (half the weight given for fresh yeast), together with 2–3 tbsp of flour from the total amount. Leave this for 20 minutes, then use in the recipe as if using fresh

quick spray on to the cut surface of the dough just before it goes into the oven, and again after 5 minutes, seems to help produce a dramatic tear in the loaf. This can be done in addition to ice-cubes tossed into a hot tray, or water sprayed around the sides of the oven just before the bread goes

After mixing flour with water, a short pause of 10–20 minutes allows the particles of flour to swell with moisture, and gives the protein strands of gliadin and glutenin time to hydrate. If the addition of leaven, which is already fully hydrated, is delayed until after this has occurred, the effect on both the dough’s resilience, extensibility, and