This was around March of 2022.

When it comes to making bread, it’s as much of a science as it is an art.

It’s important to measure things out carefully, have a general idea of how the dough is meant to look and feel, and working with the weather in your area on the day that you’re making the bread. There’s also the fact that different types of breads require different types of steps, as well as having a different type of feel.

Sometimes the air is dry, sometimes it’s humid, this could change how much water you need to add to the dough- but usually not by much. The reason humidity is important and why we cover or seal the dough container as we let it rise is because we don’t want the water that is present in the dough to evaporate too quickly. This is why it’s important to get an understanding of what your weather feels like and think about how it could affect the dough.

That being said, I’m not an expert. These are just things that I’ve worked through and figured out over time.

Another thing that I mentioned earlier was temperature. When you want your dough to proof, the temperature can throw things off. If the temperature is too cold, it won’t puff enough- but if the temperature is too high it can over proof and then you won’t get a good rise when you put it in the oven. It usually just becomes this mushy blob. That’s how you know you should probably try re-working it, but this could become difficult as you need to start thinking about the ratios of the things that you put in, and whether it will incorporate well.

There are a few other things that learned while making this bread.

One: some recipes (for soft bread in particular) require you to make a paste using water and flour on the stovetop before adding it into the rest of your flour and water.

Two: When rolling the dough it’s important to feel the tension that you’re creating on the surface of the dough. By understanding how your dough feels and stretches, you can get a better feeling of how much tension you can put into the dough before it snaps. This will also depend on the type of shape that you’re making. Whether it’s shaped like a ball, or a football.

Side note, is the American Football called a Foot ball because they kick it, or because it’s a ball that’s elongated to be shaped around the length of a foot?

Three: This is something I ran into when trying to scale up the recipe. The top of an oven and the bottom of an oven don’t cook the same way, especially if you try to cook two trays at the same time. When I tried to do it, it felt like the tray on top cooked more or less fine, but the tray on the bottom didn’t rise well. I believe that the way that professional bakers/bakeries get around stuff like this is by utilizing steam within the oven to more evenly distribute the heat as the bread bakes.

Here is an example of the bread that I tried to cook while using two trays in the oven simultaneously:

You can see which tray was the one on the bottom of the oven (the left tray) as the dough didn’t rise as much as the tray on the top rack (the right tray.)

The final note I would add to this post is that if you want to get your bread to be shiny, you just give it an egg wash towards the end of its baking process. To do this your pretty much take an egg, separate the egg white from the yolk, I beat it (not sure if you’re supposed to do that,) then take a brush and brush it on to the bread towards the last few minutes of it baking.

That covers most of the things that I learned throughout the process of making bread. Later on I’ll probably post about my attempts at making pizza doughs, sourdoughs, and baguettes.

I’ll probably try to talk about things like hydrations as well which I’m still trying to get the hang of. Working with these types of doughs is difficult because they’re the type of dough that requires you to have to make quick movements without hesitation, and keep your instruments wet to avoid having the dough stick to your hands or your tools.

As always, thank you for reading!