Basic Techniques

This page will be under continuous development. I’ll be adding new content as well as editing and refining what’s already here. Eventually I intend to add photos and videos to improve the descriptions. I hope that, in time, this will become a useful resource for newbie bakers. Comments from readers will be very helpful.

Mixing

Weigh out the correct amount of flour, yeast and water and mix it all up. Sounds easy right? But like most things in bread baking it is as simple or difficult as your anal tendancies dictate. Here are the two methods I use.

Scraper Method
-Add the flour to a large bowl.
-Next, add the salt to one side of the bowl.
-Now add the yeast to the other side. But be careful that the yeast and salt are not in direct contact. This could kill the yeast cells.
-Shape out a crater in the centre of the pile of flour
-Pour about two thirds of the water into the crater.
-The next step is a little tricky to describe in text. Start with the scraper flat against the wall of the bowl. Think of the scraper as a shovel. Shovel a pile of flour off the bowl wall and fold it into the centre of the crater. Keep shovelling and folding the flour all the way around the bowl.
-After a while you will reach a point where there is some dry flour left in the bottom of the bowl and it is very difficult to fold it into the dough. Add most of the reserved water and continue to shovel and fold until you have incorporated all the dry flour into the dough. Use the remainder of the water to fold in the last few remaining spots of dry flour.
-Continue to fold the dough in upon itself until the ingredients have been well mixed up. It should be easy to fold the dough into a smooth ball.

Wooden Spoon Method
-As above but using a wooden spoon

Of these two methods, I much prefer the scraper method. The scraper is only three inches long so your hand is very close to the bowl. This gives you much more control and prevents stuff hopping out of the bowl. This means I can get the job done quickly and still have perfectly clean hands at the end. However, the wooden spoon does have the advantage of leverage and this can be very useful when mixing heavy ingredients like cheese, eggs, tomatoes, etc,

Anal Issues:
-Weighing is far more accurate then measuring. Better bread books will quote all ingredients in weight rather than using cups, pints, teaspoons or tablespoons. Unfortunatly, to weigh out 5g of yeast you are going to need a set of electronic weighing scales.
Kneadyguy hint: If you, like me, have bought a cheap ass set of electronic weighing scales they may not be very accurate when measuring between 0-50g. This creates problems if the recipe calls for 5g of yeast. My solution is to weigh my flour first, say 500g. I then add yeast until the total weight comes up to 505g.
-Temperature. Some bakers are very picky on the exact temperature that ingredients are mixed at. I’m living in the tropics so attempts to control temperature are a little pointless. Everything is too bloody hot, all the bloody time.
-Yeast. There are many different theories about how to add yeast. Some swear by live yeast and crumble it into the dough like adding butter to an apple crumble pastry. I don’t have access to fresh yeast so I’ve not bothered with this. Others use dried yeast but will disolve it in water to give it a short head start. Personally, I just add my dried yeast directly into the mixing bowl. It’s not going to make much difference once it is all thoroughly mixed up.