Intimate Look at Steam in the Oven

See postscript below for additional suggestions from freshloaf members.

Last night, I ruined a perfectly good dough, a dough waiting to turn into a beautiful bread, by forgetting to provide steam. The bread turned out flat and sad, like an emoticon in gray with a frown and tired eyes. This was a valuable lesson because it is pretty simple to make sure that the oven has steam, in fact, steam sufficient to fool your dough into feeling like it is baking in a professional oven or even a backyard brick oven or in an oven reminiscent of the Roman ovens.

This can get expensive. Easier strategies involve some money, but there are alternatives.

Foundation
Buy a baking stone or use oven-safe tiles to put the dough (or parchment paper) on. I have heard of using a baking sheet, preferably with parchment paper, but my breads improved significantly when I started using a baking stone. The bottoms of your breads will be equivalent to that produced by the best bakeries.

Perhaps this did not fit in a "steam" essay, but it has to do with crust and, further, what will go on the stone, if anything. I consider a baking stone a must. It needs little cleaning and no other maintenance. Just preheat before baking and keep it in the oven until it cools down. I generally just leave mine in.

Easiest
Pay the money, about $60, and buy a la cloche. The Wild Yeast blog has instructions to make a DIY la cloche top that will cost a lot less than buying one. Advantage: You get a Roman oven within your oven. The clay bell-shaped contraption covers the dough and becomes a small enough oven that the moisture from the one dough is sufficient for nice oven spring. Disadvantage: Only one bread at a time can be baked, versus maybe two to four without such a space-consuming accouterment. The DIY la cloche mentioned above is small enough for two to fit on an oven rack.

I just use the top of the la cloche over the baking stone. The exception is that I sometimes use an oblong la cloche, the top of which also works well over loaf pans to ensure that sandwich breads get a good rise as well.

Dutch ovens
As far as steam, dutch ovens do the same thing as the la cloche. They create a small oven within the oven and use the moisture from the dough to produce oven spring during the first 10 minutes of baking. Four caveats: (1) Check the maximum oven temperature for the dutch oven. Mine has a maximum of 475 degrees, but cast iron ones can go higher. (2) Aim seems to be everything: The dough has to be dropped into an incredibly hot receptacle. I have done terribly at this, getting my dough all over the side of the dutch oven, and somehow the breads and their shapes turned out fine. (3) Put flour, seeds, and/or parchment paper at the bottom of the dough so that it does not get stuck in the dutch oven. If it does, wait a few hours for the dutch oven to cool before fighting to liberate the bread. (4) Be careful. The dutch oven gets way hotter than anything else I've put into my oven at the same temperature. I use an oven mitt and a kitchen towel when handling it. Stay calm, breath, and be confident.

The dutch oven produces magnificent results in turns of steam. It retains heat like nobody's business and, in a very small space, efficiently converts moisture to steam to get a rise out of a dough while it turns into a bread. The only disadvantages are the intense heat and the spacial aspect as only one bread at a time can be baked.

Ice or water
Most bread books recommend that either ice or water be used to produce steam in the oven for those first crucial 10 minutes of bread baking. The advice will be to put a pan on the lower rack, underneath the baking stone. Preheat the pan with the oven before baking. I always preheat for an hour to make sure everything I am using - whether a baking stone, a dutch oven, or whatever - is sufficiently hot when the dough goes in the oven.

Immediately after placing the dough on the baking stone, pour a cup of water or ice cubes into the pan. Quickly close the oven door!!! The quicker the H2O is poured and the oven door is closed, the more steam that stays inside the oven and the more steam available to the dough for a lovely oven spring burst of rising.

Beware
The advantage of ice is that it is a solid and easier to throw quickly into the pan. It also will not turn to steam - in your face - as quickly. Water can drip. Be VERY careful not to let the water drip onto the oven door because it can crack the glass. Also, the steam from the water can be dangerously hot. These are the reasons why I have only used ice cubes, which, by the way, work quite well.

Rocks
Disclaimer: I have not tried this. Just intrigued. Many sources recommend preheating lava rocks, the kind used for barbecue, in a pan. They are available at local hardware stores or Home Depot. Pouring water over the rocks just after putting the dough in the oven provides sauna-quality steam. Some recommend pouring a cup of water right before loading the dough as well. Just google "lava rocks bread" and plenty of information will appear at your fingertips.

Dont' cry; eat
The ending to the ruined bread story is a happy one. The freshly ground whole wheat flour infused the bread that hardly rose with such a good taste that I enjoyed the bread and learned my lesson. The bread was dense and not very pretty, but delicious. 

P.S. Suggestions from the freshloaf that I have not yet tried - go at your own risk
These are quotes from a freshloaf (bread forum) conversation.

Steamed towel strategy - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20162/oven-steaming-my-new-favorite-way   I can get an oven fully steamed five minutes before the bread goes in and then only need to add 1/2 cup of very hot water to the pan once the bread is loaded onto the baking steel.  The time the oven door is open is minimal and I don't have to remove a heavy, hot cast iron skillet full of lava rocks after the first part of the bake.

I wonder at the safety of putting towels, wet or otherwise, into a hot oven, but there are a few people who have tried this method and they have lived to proclaim its wonders.

Another hot-water-in-the-oven strategy - I find it helpful to preheat the water for two minutes in a Pyrex vessel in a microwave oven before putting it in the oven. It then turns to steam more quickly.

Using an aluminum roasting pan - Inverting an aluminum turkey roasting pan over the loaf "on the stone" with parchment underneath will yield perfect steam results every time (the baking bread creates its own steam).

Spritz the inside of the roasting pan with water before inverting over the loaf - bake the loaf for 10-15 minutes before removing to allow the crust to brown. Cheap roasting pans that come three or four-to-a-pack work great and they're reusable. Center it on the loaf and pooch up the middle of the roaster a bit if your loaf has that much spring (make sure the rim still sits flat on the baking stone's surface).
Wild-Yeast  

I love this idea; it's cheap, easy, and requires no hot water or heavy equipment. Plus, unlike my la cloche, with its two long, thin cracks, the roasting pan can be replaced for very little cost and will not fall apart when it goes quickly from hot oven to cold kitchen. Cheap and effective go well together.

Bread #64: Barley & Cornmeal Twist on a Whole Wheat Bread

A nice bread, a good bread, but not a wowsa experience. Still, a good bread for a breakfast with butter or jam and some tea or coffee. In my opinion, the barley flour perhaps muted the taste of the whole wheat. I'd be interested in any opinions about the addition of unusual flours and whole grain ingredients.

This bread was fashioned on Reinhart's multigrain hearth bread from his book Whole Grain Breads. I say fashioned because I got discombobulated (the Yiddish word fottottled is really more accurate) with all of his do-this-wait-five-minutes- and-do-that instructions. I literally took this dough into my own hands, and a nice bread resulted.

Instructions

Soaker
57g whole wheat flour
100g barley flour
70g cornmeal
171g water
5g salt

Biga
50g starter
197g whole wheat flour
150g water

In separate bowls, of course, mix up the soaker and the biga. Cover each and let each sit out on the kitchen counter all day or overnight. I let these sit for 14 hours as I am off from work all week - woo hoo! The biga had very little rise due to the cold kitchen, which is why I let it sit for extra hours after I turned on the heat in the morning.

Dough
16g whole wheat flour (because I ran out)
41g bread flour
5g salt
Add soaker and biga

Mix well. There was optional sugar - in the form of agave or honey - and fat - in the form of butter or oil - in the recipe, but I went plain. Truth be told, I think this bread would have been tastier with a wee bit of sugar substance. Another caution, if you will, is that the 86 percent of whole grains did not allow for the satisfying use of the windowpane test, which is a much better experience with a 70 percent-and-higher white flour dough.

After mixing, I kneaded for two minutes, rested for 10 (covered), and briefly kneaded again for one or two minutes.

Let rest covered for 30 minutes and did a stretch and fold, with three stretch and folds each 30 minutes apart. I then covered the dough and put it in the fridge. My daughter, home from school, wanted to shop and have lunch - with me. Ah.

Resting and dough preparation
Five hours in the fridge and I took out the dough and placed the cold bowl in a large bowl with very warm water. That heated up the cold bowl. I only left the bowls this way for 10 minutes or so, but I left the dough untouched for an hour.

I then did another stretch and fold, left the dough covered on a board for 15 minutes. I shaped the dough, put it on a well-floured kitchen towel, in a small wicker basket, and covered. I let the dough rest for an hour while the oven heated up for an hour.

A crack - oh no
At this point, I preheated the oven to 500 degrees for one hour with the top of the la cloche on the baking stone. I noticed a small crack in the top of the la cloche. More on that below. Reinhart advises a lower temperature, but I had already departed significantly from his process.

Just prior to placing in oven, I turned the dough onto an oven peel and did a cross slash on the top with a lame. A sharp knife will do. The lame is fancier, and not expensive, but I admit it was a gift from a dear friend; I did not run out to buy it.

At 30 minutes, I reduced the temperature to 460 degrees and removed the top of the la cloche. I let the bread bake for another 10 minutes. Total baking time of 40 minutes.

Result
Nice oven spring. Small loaf. Great crust. Good taste.

Post script
With my next bread, essentially a repeat of bread #35, but with cornmeal and whole wheat, the crack in the top of the la cloche went from hairline and about two inches long to about six inches long and a bit more than hairline at the bottom, where it started. I don't know what happened. I always preheat this clay object with the oven. I do remove it and I have never just let it cool down inside the oven. I'm a bit anxious to use it again, but also sad, honestly, because it is such a divine tool for making wonderful breads. I will have to seek out advice about whether it can be repaired.

Bread - Number Eight

Bread - Number Eight: Mostly White Whole Wheat
Unexpected Baking

Dedicated to my younger daughter and my husband, who saw no reason for a holiday season pause in wonderful homemade bread. Indeed, my daughter is asking for sourdoughs.

Ingredients
1 cup bread flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/4 to 1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups purified water (use filtered water)

Instructions
During a break from preparing for the annual Chanukah family get together of making an apple crisp, which did not turn out well, latkes, which were just right, contributing to the deviled egg taste testing, and a salmon dish, which cannot go wrong when the fish is fresh, mixed together the bread dough. Either this process is becoming sufficiently routine to do while busy with other things, or I am somewhat distracted person, or both. 

Mix the dry ingredients and add water. Mix well. Cover loosely with plastic for 12 to 18 hours. With this amount of flour, mixing takes about three or four minutes. Indeed, could mix a little more, but still easy to do with a busy day in the kitchen happening all around.

Let my dough sit for 15 1/2 hours. Seemed to have flattened out. Should research this a bit as completely ignorant about what dough should look like at point when the first rise should end. 

Put in the refrigerator, but took out soon after to prepare for baking.Could probably last in fridge for five days. Or, can bake right away, though even an hour in the fridge will make the dough easier to handle.

Baking preparation
When ready to bake, leave at least an hour and a half for preparation.

Prepare board with flour and lightly dust top and sides of dough, as well as hands. Stretch dough on board in as much of a rectangle as possible (think 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper) and then do a tri-partite envelope fold. After, fold in the other direction in half. Cover loosely with plastic. Let sit for 15 minutes.

At this point, let sit in a bowl, proofing basket (which has not moved, and might not move, from my wish list to my kitchen), or on a kitchen towel. Make sure any receptacle the dough is placed in or on is well floured, perhaps even spraying a layer of non-stick spray first. This time, used a wooden bowl with non-stick spray and rice flour, which supposedly is more absorbent than regular flour, but did not seem to make any perceptible difference.

Let sit, covered with a kitchen towel, for 60 to 90 minutes. Make sure to preheat oven to 500 degrees at least 30 minutes prior to placing dough in oven. Place baking stone and top of la cloche in oven. My dough seemed ready at 72 minutes. Had risen and just had that plump look. 

Can dump dough onto heated baking stone; or dump onto well-floured baking peel, make a little design on top with a knife or razor, and slide onto baking stone. My dough dented a little when transferring from the peel to the baking stone. Cover with top of la cloche. 

After 30 minutes, reduce heat to 450 and take off top of la cloche. Heat for another 15 minutes. Take beautiful bread out of the oven. Make sure kitchen is quiet. Listen next to bread for little crackling sounds. Leave out on rack or on top of stove (unheated, of course) for two hours before eating. 

[Top of la cloche.]

[Baking peel with a bit of rice flour. Easy to imagine using that tool with a large wood-fired oven.]

Taste?
All agree this is a really, really good bread. Crust excellent. The mix of two-thirds white whole wheat flour to one third bread flour tastes more like a whole wheat than the mix with one-third regular whole wheat flour. All in all, though, a similar taste. Rose well in the oven also. Nice crumb. Should take a picture, but wondering if the first rise was overdone at over 15 hours (kitchen was somewhat warm) and whether crumb could have been a little airier - or whether with a majority whole wheat dough, this is maximum lightness possible.

[Notice the lovely design on top created by the one-motion slice into the dough.]

One can see that probably a bit too generous there with dusting the dough with flour as it appears rather thick on top of the crust. Absolutely no matter; tastes wonderful and adds to the character of the appearance.

Will have to start bread number nine at once as half this bread disappearing quickly.

Bread – Number Five – Part Two

Bread – Number Five – A second batch with minor variations. Like a concerto, but different. 

Dedicated to the la cloche, a miracle tool. Same recipe as bread number five.
 

Ingredients

2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (Used same proportions as breadtopia recipe used in bread number five)
between ¼ tsp. and ½ tsp. instant yeast (Up from ¼ tsp.)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups purified or spring water (Used filtered tap water because the first batch of Bread Number Five came out fine, indeed, wonderful, with it.)

Variation on Bread - Number Five - Part One 

This time using just a little more yeast for a guaranteed 12-hour rise and the same ingredients otherwise. Instead of making the bread after the dough is ready, will be storing it in the refrigerator for a day or two. Will be dividing the recipe into two batches as well because the first batch made such a large bread.

Also going to try using the top of the la cloche, the bell part, on the baking stone.

Instructions

1.  Mix dry, then wet ingredients. Cover bowl with plastic. Let dough rise overnight for 12 hours.

2.  Put in fridge during workday. Return home and take dough out of fridge. Easier to work with because not quite as warm and wet. Cut dough in half with shears, so cool, to make two small breads out of this batch.

3.  Put well-floured half of dough batch on well-floured wooden board with well-floured hands. Very easy because not as sticky as unrefrigerated previous batch. Flatten into approximate rectangle. Fold in tri-part envelope configuration and then in half. Cover loosely with plastic for 15 minutes.

4. Lay out well-floured kitchen towel. Put dough on towel and cover dough with rest of the towel as if inside a tri-partite envelope. Or, keep dough on well-floured board and cover with well-floured towel. Either way works fine.

5. Let sit for an hour to 90 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 degrees at least a half hour before placing dough in oven. Or, like me, dinner is taking up oven space prior to bread baking. So, make something that needs oven heat as close to 500 degrees as possible. This way, minimal time will be needed to bring the oven up to 500. After all, one may have foods to prepare other than bread, though that is apt to become an obsession.

6. Reminder: At 60 to 90 minutes beforehand, get oven well heated to 500 degrees. When oven and dough are ready, place dough onto baking stone and cover with top of la cloche. (Did not quite drop from the floured towel, but managed to keep its shape as eased the dough off and into 500-degree oven and onto hot baking stone.) Actually, the dough is really dropped onto the baking stone, which is much easier than employing the bottom of the la cloche; this way the top just goes wherever on the stone the dough happens to fall, or has been carefully placed, whichever best describes one's practice.

7. Baking time according to size of the dough. With dough half the size of the last batch, bake at 500 degrees for 22 minutes; remove top of la cloche and reduce temperature to 450 degrees for 13 minutes.

8. Admire the beautiful bread when removing it from the oven. Looking good.

[Restaurant in San Francisco that must be named for development in Brooklyn in Coney Island.]
 

Perfect breakfast

Amazing. Genius. And tasty. Relished the deliciousness of the bread with a little butter and tea for a simple breakfast. Divine.

In the evening, made the last half batch. This time it was easy as it was the third time through the process. Skipped the recommended folding because the half batch of bread made last night came out a little too spherical. Want a somewhat more pleasing shape – less soccer ball, more the top of a football. Nice part of the repeat performance is how much faster the process goes and with much less trepidation. A bit of a confidence boost, really.

Indeed, did not even do the entire wrap-in-a-kitchen-towel step and instead left the dough on the cutting board and covered with a well-floured towel. Really, what is the big reason for moving the dough unless one possesses an impressive proofing basket? (Hope not to receive my comeuppance with that comment.) Also convinced that placing the top of la cloche on the baking stone instead of the bottom of the la cloche works miracles as bottom of la cloche requires way better aim than I possess while handling sticky dough in a kitchen towel as entire body is suddenly confronted with open oven’s 500-degree heat. The baking stone makes for a very wide and generous target, with the bell-shaped la cloche fitting wherever the dough happens to land.

Another wonderful bread. Feel proud.

P.S. Have now made this bread yet again and comes out perfectly. Very easy and dough lasts at least a few days in the fridge after the 12+ hours first rise.

Visions of something other than sugar plums dance in my head

Of course, however, mind rushing to possible next steps. Already in pantry is the spelt flour. Visions of cold mid-winter Sundays with various sourdough starters on the dining room table like a third-grader’s science fair experiment in progress. On the horizon, videos to watch that demonstrate step-by-step kneading and rising.

[Pacific Ocean]

Bread - Number Five

Bread – Number Five: La Cloche

Written with a French accent.

Dedicated to my husband, who always support purchases that result in delicious bread.

Puchases

La Cloche $57 (bread making is addictive, though less expensive than other addictions).

Using another no-knead recipe, this time from the Breadtopia website, which provides a link to La Cloche purchasing possibilities and inspiring videos sporting an Iowa gentleman bread maker. The recipe and instructions are from Breadtopia.com, the basic no-knead recipe and the video on the recipe webpage. 

Ingredients

2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (Used same proportions as the above video: 1 cup whole wheat flour and 2 cups)
1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups purified or spring water (Used filtered tap water because had not bothered to read the recipe before early morning bread making while still in bathrobe)

Feel like a sell out with majority regular bread flour and only one third whole wheat.  Want to see how much lighter it is and, perhaps, generate a special-occasion bread. Yes, rationalizing.

Instructions

1.      Mix dry ingredients. Add water. Mix well.

2.      Cover with plastic and let sit to rise for 12 to 18 hours depending on the temperature of the room. Cooler rooms will require longer rising times. This time, made sure the kitchen was warm and stopped at 12 hours. 

3.      Cover a cutting board or flat surface with a generous layer of flour. Regular or whole wheat, cornmeal, or similar meal or flour will do fine. Cover the top of the dough in a sprinkled layer of flour. Rub a good bit of flour onto your hands.

4.      Keep flour right at your side. You will need it. Use a spatula and the flour to separate the wet dough from the bowl. We will see how this works out, but my choice was to use a nice amount of flour any time the wetness of the dough became an obstacle to anything.

5.      Put the dough on the well-floured cutting board or other surface. Spread out without pressing or kneading. Mine was about seven by eleven inches, though not a perfect rectangle by any means, and maybe about an inch thick.

6.      Fold the dough in thirds as if folding an old-fashioned aerogramme or a piece of paperto fit into an envelope. Then rotate once and fold in half. Video does a wonderful demonstration of the folding.

7.      Let the folded dough sit for 15 minutes. Cover loosely with plastic.

8.      If you have a proofing basket use it. Grease first, then put flour, cornmeal or something similar to prevent sticking with the wet dough. If not, use an oiled and then well-floured bowl or a floured kitchen towel (that’s my choice). Cover with a kitchen towel, or, in the case of using a kitchen towel, just fold it over the dough. Wait one hour to 90 minutes. Wait! Do not leave the room.

9.     Put on a timer or immediately preheat oven – but make sure oven is well heated before baking time, a half hour to an hour before. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Yes, 500. (This number is anxiety inducing as my pampered oven has never experienced such high temperatures, and frankly, not sure the appliance is up to the task.) Hoping that my oven does not die and that no one dies or gets burned when handling the top of the 500-degree la cloche or when dumping the dough into it.

[Bungalows in Kansas City.]

La Cloche - and related anxieties
For those of you who did not take high school French, la cloche means bell, and yes, it is shaped like one. Basically, this clay contraption that looks like a wide and much smaller Liberty Bell (sans the Liberty Bell inscription). The idea is to create a bread oven within a conventional oven. Major advantage is that no water or ice is necessary to create steam in the oven, or accidentally crack oven glass. Major disadvantage, and this is said before the first use, is that a 500-degree piece of clay (not heavy) has to be lifted before placing dough inside the bottom. Oiled it for the first use with olive oil. Though other oils were recommended, and olive oil specifically mentioned as something to avoid (that is on one of the many websites and discussion boards with la cloche information; seems there is a la cloche community out there), used it anyway because love olive oil and it was the only oil in the house. So, getting back to the la cloche, the bell shaped mini-oven lets the moisture from the dough fill up the small space so that the baking bread receives the correct amount of steam to bake well, critical to “oven spring,” the rising in the oven that gives that lightness to the interior of the bread.

That is the theory. Right now, the dough is sitting and rising on a kitchen towel. Wondering whether should have refrigerated the dough until the morning as the thought of late-night handling of the hot la cloche is making me ever more nervous. The kitchen is wonderfully warm, more comfortable than the cool rooms elsewhere in the house.

How convenience oriented our ancestors were
There is something ancient about the la cloche, similar to the baking stone, in that they are porous and made out of materials that one would sooner find in a medieval town than in a modern kitchen. Indeed, one is expressly warned against using soap of any kind to clean them as that will seep in and ruin the next few foods baked on or inside them. Use water, a brush, or knife for difficult spots. Yes, they were used throughout the world in one form or another, and still are, but if you want one in 2012 United States, they cost more than a peasant somewhere would pay. But these are of a class of goods that one buys and keeps forever. Amortized even for the few years employing the baking stone, we are probably at about 50 cents per bread.

Waited only an hour and a quarter. The bread rose and the kitchen was warm. How could it not be with a burning 500-degree oven? It was toasty and with the la cloche as the assistant in this process, it felt like a wintertime French hearth pre-revolution, during one of the times when scarcity was not a problem.

[Roman Baths in Bath, England. Wish I could beam myself there for bread making classes.]

Instructions continued

10.   Wear oven mitts! Open oven, take off top of la cloche and dump in dough. Perhaps one should aim for the middle of the bottom of the la cloche. My aim, not so good;, dough leaning on the side. Maybe using the top of the la cloche over the baking stone would have been the better way to go, as this is an option. In that case, perfect aim would not be necessary.

11.   Set timer for 30 minutes.

12.   At 30 minutes, take off top of la cloche, close oven door, and reduce heat to 450 degrees. Bake for another 15 minutes.

13.   At 15 minutes, if the bread looks done, remove bottom of la cloche from oven with bread. Remember that each oven is different and baking times vary. My bread was definitely done, the crust a dark, deep brown, with some scattered burnt black spots.

14.   Let the bread stand for a couple of hours.

Baking and hearing the Jeopardy music in my head

Good thing about the la cloche is that peaking is impossible. The clay is opaque.

15 minutes in oven: The kitchen smells like bread, almost entirely masking the previous strong scent of the olive oil that permeated the kitchen during the pre-heating.

30 minutes in oven:  Removed top of la cloche and looking good.  Bake for another 15 minutes.

Waiting and looking at the “store” at Breadtopia. G-d forbid, ever up at three in the morning and that stuff is on an infomercial. It is possible proofing baskets, boards and other paraphernalia would be purchased in mass quantities.

45 minutes: Now that is a bread any peasant or shtel dweller would recognize. Took the bottom of la cloche out of the oven. Bread slid right out with a spatula. No problema aqui. Put the bread on a rack, where it is making lovely crackling noises.

Time for sleep – will taste it in the morning.

9 a.m. of the next day – SUBLIME

OMG, have made the perfect bread. Crunchy crust that is not hard, a wonderfully light interior with beautiful wholes in the crumb, a great taste, and an impressed husband. This is bread any bakery would be proud of. This is bread I’ve paid for. I stare lovingly at the la cloche.

This made a pretty large bread. Can make half of the dough or store half. Still he is a beauty - big, strapping, crusty and gentle on the inside – really a Gary Cooper of breads.

[No Gary Cooper photo here due to ambiguity of copyright laws and not willing to investigate copyright renewal of any particular Gary Cooper photo.]

[The Eye in London.]

Remember, though, that Bread Number Five is two thirds regular bread flour and only one third whole wheat. That ratio and the type of flours will have to be juggled for better fitting the goal of good daily, healthy breads. As a special occasion bread – for having company or bringing a bread to someone else – this will be perfect.

Wish List

Wish list of baking tools is growing. After all, if Breadtopia was correct about the la cloche, then perhaps that cute Danish whisk featured in its video is not far behind. And there is a bread book page on the website.

P.S. Perhaps it helped not to add the vital wheat gluten. Maybe that ingredient was the source of the little bit of aftertaste in the previous breads. Also could not hurt that this bread was two thirds white bread flour.