Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

Tools: Baking Bang for Your Buck

People often ask me what I recommend as the most important tools to get first, if you have a limited budget for baking equipment. These items are listed in roughly the reverse order in which you could pry them from my hands. It’s also not a bad list of gift ideas for any bread baker in your life.*

  • Baking stone. It’s hard to get good crusty hearth loaves without one (and here’s why). High-end is the Fibrament, but a less expensive stone, or even unglazed terra cotta tiles, will do the job, although they’re more prone to breakage. $10 – $100.
  • Steam set-up for your oven. This is not an item you can buy; it’s rigged from inexpensive components. Steam is essential for most crusty breads. Read more about the why and how of steam here. $15 – $25.
  • Bench scraper (aka bench knife, dough scraper, or dough cutter), like this one. Cuts ciabatta dough into pieces, lifts sticky pieces of dough off the counter, and cleans your counter of tenacious dough bits and loose flour. About $12.
  • Digital scale. It is my personal mission in life to see that everyone measures their baking ingredients by weight, not volume. More about that here. I like the My Weigh i5000 and the Escali Primo. $25 – $50.
  • Instant-read thermometer. Dough temperature is important for proper fermentation. Read more about temperature here. A thermometer is also useful if you don’t know whether your loaf is fully baked yet. The Thermapen is wonderfully fast but pricey; this Taylor Digital Thermometer works fine for much less money. $15 – $90.
  • Small ingredients scale. Ingredients like yeast and salt that are usually called for in amounts of 10 grams or less are best weighed on a scale that has precision to a tenth of a gram. However, these  ingredients also measure fairly well by volume, so this is not an essential tool. It’s nice to have, though. $20 – $40.
  • Stand mixer. Although nice to have, especially for certain doughs like bagels and brioche, most breads can be mixed just fine by hand, so a mixer is a lower priority. Mine is a KitchenAid 6-qt. and I recommend it. About $400.

*Note to my male friends on the appropriateness of these things as gifts to wives/girlfriends: For birthdays and other occasions, it might depend on the woman in question, and on the gift — mixer, probably; scale, perhaps; lava rocks, doubtful — but for anniversaries, just don’t do it! Trust me on this one.

Seed Grissini

I have sung the praises of grissini (thin crisp bread sticks; literally “little snakes”) many times before, but let’s review:

  • simple to make
  • easy to vary with different flours, toppings, etc.
  • look striking in a bouquet or bundle
  • great party food; no slicing!
  • lots of dough hands-on time, and much more satisfying than Play-Doh
  • disappear quickly
  • satisfy the “crunchy” food group daily requirement

Sesame and fennel seeds are classic for grissini, but I find I have trouble making mine stay on. I solved that problem here by putting the seeds into the dough rather than on top. (Coarse salt, however, always belongs on top!) Mixing the dough in the food processor, as I’ve done here, chops the seeds, so if you prefer them whole, mix by hand or in a stand mixer.

Buon appetito!

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Soda Bread With Herbs

It seems we Bread Baking Babes were a busy bunch this month, so Ilva kindly provided us with a bread that is ever-so-quick but oh-so-delicious.

I love yeast, but it’s a slowpoke, so soda bread (leavened by baking soda, imagine that!) can save the day if you need a bread fix fast. I got home from a busy work day at 5:30, and by 6:30 this fragrantly herby loaf was out of the oven, even though I had to take time to figure out the volume of a dessert spoon. (It’s 2.4 teaspoons, but I used a tablespoon of each herb; other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.) The bright combination of sage, rosemary, and chives is perfect, but other herbs could work just as nicely.

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Video: Preshaping a Boule

Before shaping a boule or batard loaf, dough is often preshaped into a boule (ball). This preshaping allows the final shape to achieve a tighter surface tension, which helps the loaf maintain its shape through proofing and baking, and helps cuts to open nicely during baking.

This video demonstrates my method for preshaping a boule.


(If you can’t see the video here, view it on YouTube.)

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Chewy Sourdough Granola Bars

And how was everyone’s long weekend? Here’s a brief account of mine:

Saturday morning: I feed and build up my sourdough starter for baking later in the day. I take off for points north, to my sometime-house, starter and dog in tow, for a peaceful and barbecue-free weekend.

Saturday afternoon: I check the weather report before heading out for a late walk: cloudy; chance of precipitation: 10%. 30 minutes from home, I observe that the chance of precipitation is actually 100%. I arrive, soggy and chilled, back home to a power outage. The starter sits on the counter, all happy and bubbly with anticipation. “Oh, go to hell,” I mutter, and toss it into the darkened refrigerator before peeling off my waterlogged clothes and crawling under a blanket.

Sunday: Sunshine and electricity are both restored to working order. I avoid forlorn and accusing glances from my now-flat starter by avoiding the refrigerator altogether.

Monday: Confrontation cannot be averted forever. I open the fridge. “Bake with me.” “You’re sounding pretty chipper for old and tired starter. But no. The weekend is almost over, we have to head back in a bit. There’s no time for baking.” “Bake with me!” “I said no.” “You are evil and the baking gods will rain upon you forever.” “Anyway, you’re too cold and weak right now to raise bread.” “Pancakes, then.” “We have no eggs. Too bad.” “We have a bunch of odds and ends of nuts and dried fruits.” “I don’t know what to do with those. I don’t have a recipe.” “Make something up.” At this point, it just seems easier to start throwing things randomly into a bowl than to keep arguing with the damn thing.

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Seeded Sourdough with Multigrain Starter

This is a variation on Seeded Multigrain Sourdough, one of my favorite breads for its reliability and versatility. It’s a great one to play around with, and playing around with your bread is highly encouraged!

For this one, I bumped the overall proportion of whole grain flour up to about 75% by using whole grain flours (equal parts spelt, wheat, and rye) instead of white flour in the final feeding of the starter, and increasing the amount of whole grain flour in the final dough as well. Because whole grain flours are extra thirsty, I also increased the water in the final dough.

Do not expect to get very good gluten development with this dough, because the gluten in spelt and rye is not very strong compared to wheat. Do expect, however, to get a chewy and flavorful bread that will keep well for several days!

(Continue to the recipe…)

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