Flash in the Pan

I was baking another loaf of bread last night - using a bit of this, some of that, and really winging it. This morning I had the great idea to call what I was doing freestyle baking. Alas, others, although not many, have used the term before. I did a search on Google for "freestyle baking" and came up with 8 references. Searching for "freestyle bread" brought 20 matches. (Here's one listing for someone who apparently has been blogging a number of times about freestyle baking and who posted a potato bread recipe as one result.) If not the inventor, I can at least, for once, feel in the vanguard.

But the concept is obviously older. The idea is to grasp the essentials of some area of baking - the relationships of salt to flour, flour to water, percentages of sugar, and so on - and then to improvise. While writing the Complete Idiot's Guide to Pizza and Panini, I had to develop a lot of dough recipes. The exercise became one of bringing together what I knew and using basic relationships to develop new breads. Here are some principles that should help, if you have an itch to try:

• Necessary Versus Optional Bread baking traditions going back thousands of years point out that for a yeast dough, all you need is flour, water, salt, and yeast. (And the Tuscans, for one, sometimes omit the salt.) You don't need sugar, oil, or any other additive.


• Know What Additives Do I'm talking about optional additions. Fat helps preserve a moist texture and softens crust. Milk (in the form of dried skim milk - no need for the liquid, just add the right amount of powder for the volume of water you've used) adds a richness to taste and also softens crust. Sugar boosts the activity of the yeast and adds flavor and maybe a little color to the crust. (Honey or other sweeteners are fun substitutes.)


• Flour to Water For a loaf, I start with two cups of water and figured that I'll need about five to six cups, maybe a bit more, total of flour. Ultimately, I'll want the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl and stick lightly to the back of my hand when I press it, but it needs to come away cleanly. Some types of dough, like a ciabatta, are far wetter and stickier. In general, the wetter the dough, the more open the crumb and the bigger the holes you'll find in the bread when it's baked. However, I will only start with about 4.5 cups of flour, adding more a tablespoon or two at a time while mixing and kneading to get the consistency I want for that loaf.


• Salt to Flour To get the taste you probably expect, you'll need about a teaspoon of salt per 3 cups (about 1 pound) of bread or all-purpose wheat flour. You can use a bit more salt in volume if you want, particularly if you are using kosher salt (which is less compact than table salt and so you put less salt in if measuring by volume) or using whole grains in the flour mix, which, to my taste, need a touch more salt.


• Fat or Sugar I'll add a few tablespoons of fat to one loaf of bread, though you can go up to a quarter cup to try different textures and amount of moisture. I usually add a couple of tablespoons of sugar when I feel like using it, though have added up to a quarter cup of honey.


• Amount of Yeast You don't need to add as much yeast as many recipes suggest. The yeast will multiple over time. Adding more speeds rising, while adding less lets the yeast and resulting bread develop more flavor. If you have hours available, try using half an envelope of dry yeast (about 1 1/8 teaspoons) and see how it goes.


• Types of Flour Bread flour is high in gluten and will give you somewhat lighter loafs, but you can pretty freely mix all-purpose and bread if you want. I will often substitute up to 40 to 50 percent other flours or grains. For example, last night I used 3 cups of bread flour (the extra gluten helps dough structure when you add whole wheat or non-gluten flours), a couple of cups of whole wheat, and maybe a half cup wheat bran. Sometimes I'll add rye, buckwheat, or rice flours, oatmeal, corn meal - it depends on what I have on hand. When using other grains, let them soak in some water: enough to get the thoroughly wet, but not enough to have a layer of water on top. This will help preserve moistness of the final bread.


• Temperature If you're baking a loaf in a pan, set the oven to about 350 degrees F so it will cook through. For wetter free-standing loaves baked on a baking stone, try 400 or 425.

Now have some fun. Keep the whole grains in water to the side. Dissolve the yeast in the water (about 110 degrees F), add all the other ingredients, mix, and then add the whole grain mixture, if any. At this point you can get a sense of how sticky the dough is. If it adheres to your hand, add more wheat flour, bit at a time, until it's just slightly tacky. Form up into a loaf or rolls and bake.

Labels: baking, bread, freestyle, improvisation, improvising, technique