This isn’t a recipe (though I’ll give you one) so much as it’s a timing and procedure that works for me. Making bread on the weekend has usually caused me problems: I have to stop what I’m doing to knead the dough, I want to go somewhere but the dough is still rising, it gets into the oven late and pushes back dinner time. My wife helped me by volunteering to get some fresh tomatoes for one of my co-workers and also volunteered, “Paul will make you a loaf of herb bread to go with them”. The idea being that he would be able to make tomato sandwiches for his wife. All well and good but to deliver tomatoes and bread Friday morning meant baking Thursday night, that much was clear but how to handle the rest? I was looking through Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot at their “Fail Safe” bread (a focaccia) when I read this, “Adjusting the temperature of the environment around the dough is an easy way to make the yeast work on your schedule“. That’s when I figured out my timing – make the bread one evening and place in fridge overnight. Next morning give the bread a second kneading and put back in fridge. After lunch at 1 PM pull dough from fridge and allow for a long slow first rise (since the dough is starting from a cold temperature). At 6 PM when I get home shape dough and bake at 8-9 PM (after dinner). Deliver bread triumphantly the next morning. This process uses the fridge to slow down the fermentation and first rise of the dough to fit my schedule. Baking books are written by bakers who are at work, I needed baking at home when not at work. Each step can be done quickly if necessary except the final baking. If no one is home at lunch, have a neighbor pop in, take the dough from the fridge and put it on the counter for you. The bread recipe is from here (with the usual procedure for baking) http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/ ... ead-recipe
My modifications were to add some whole wheat flour, some herbs (optional) and to use a weekday procedure.
All purpose flour 400 g
Whole wheat flour 47 g
Water 285 g
Mix and allow flour to hydrate for 15 minutes
Salt 9.7 g (1 ½ t)
IDY 5.7 g (1 ½ t)
Sugar 9.8 g (2 t)
NFDM 9.3 g (4 t)
Butter 28 g (2 T)
Mix in bowl then turn out onto floured counter. Start kneading; after a minute or so the dough will seem to become wet and sticky, add a small amount of flour if necessary. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and slightly sticky. Put in bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning knead the cold dough briefly on a floured counter. Add chopped herbs at this point if using. Return to bowl, cover and refrigerate. At 1:00 PM remove from fridge. At 6:00 PM gently flatten dough into rectangle about 5X8. Roll up and put into buttered bread pan seam side down. Cover pan with plastic wrap and allow to rise over edge of pan, about 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350F then bake bread for 40-45 minutes. Turn out from pan and allow to cool completely. The whole wheat flour can be increased or replaced with rye. The sugar can be changed or dropped. Add onions or cheese if you like. This procedure can be applied to other bread recipes as well.
What you get from the recipe above:
Herb mix:
Kneaded in:
Baked:
Toasted with butter:
Working is no longer a good excuse for not making bread.