{"id":62118,"date":"2017-01-18T11:18:37","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=62118"},"modified":"2021-06-04T14:52:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T19:52:21","slug":"bread-baking-101-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/leisure\/food-drink\/bread-baking-101-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"Bread Baking 101 for Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Baking<\/a><\/p>\n

My bread-baking hobby all started with a Netflix documentary. <\/span>Cooked<\/span><\/i><\/a>, based on Michael Pollan\u2019s <\/span>book of the same name<\/span><\/a>, explores the origins of food in our world and communities. One of the episodes — \u201cAir\u201d — focused on bread. Pollan, who also narrates the series, takes us on a world tour of the history and science of bread-making. With just 4 simple ingredients, he explains, a world can be fed: flour, water, salt, and yeast. (And that last one can be found and added naturally in the right conditions.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Four ingredients? I could make bakery-quality bread — the very staff of life — in my own kitchen with just four ingredients? <\/span><\/p>\n

The idea was planted in my mind, but I neglected to take action on it, and the inspiration went dormant. <\/span>Then I interviewed Bo Pryor for our SYWMJ series<\/span><\/a>, and I learned that part of his weekly routine is making bread with his children. The inspiration re-surfaced, I asked him for a recipe, and a new hobby was born. <\/span><\/p>\n

I started out with Bo\u2019s sandwich loaf. Then I made some easy French bread, a few Dutch oven boules (that\u2019s French for \u201cround loaf\u201d), a baguette-style airy loaf — soon enough it became a weekly hobby<\/a> of exploring various recipes and methods. And now, just a few short months later, I\u2019m making sourdough bread, English muffins, dinner rolls<\/a>, etc. It\u2019s really quite an easy learning curve. <\/span><\/p>\n

Below, I present Bread Baking 101: guidance and recipes for very beginners — folks who may have never baked anything in their whole life — on how to make bread at home. I guarantee you\u2019ll end up with a bakery-quality loaf from your very own oven. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Benefits of Baking Your Own Bread<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019ve never thought about baking your own bread before, why consider starting? Here are 3 reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s healthier.<\/b> Take a look at the ingredients list of any pre-packaged bread you buy at the grocery store. You\u2019ll find a bunch of unpronounceable chemicals and preservatives. Your homemade bread will literally just be flour, water, salt, and yeast. There may be added accoutrements like cheese, herbs, dried fruits, etc., but the base of your loaves will be built on a simple foundation of four ingredients. While bread is calorie-rich and not particularly healthy in general (at least in the modern age where you\u2019re typically not burning off all those carbs), if you\u2019re going to eat and enjoy it, homemade is the way to go. I actually appreciate that my bread starts to harden and mold after a week — just like real, unadulterated organic matter should. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an easy way to impress friends\/family, guests, and party hosts. <\/b>Few things impress loved ones and other guests at a dinner party like a homemade loaf of bread. It has a certain magical quality about it that isn\u2019t replicated in other foods — possibly because it\u2019s one of mankind\u2019s oldest cooked foodstuffs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Plus, being that <\/span>a man should never arrive empty-handed to a party<\/span><\/a>, bread makes for something unique and wonderful to present to another host. Rather than a bottle of wine or a six-pack — as is the usual — show up to the door with a fresh loaf, and you\u2019ll be sure to stand out. It\u2019s also a nice gift because it can be served with dinner or other party treats, or it can be reserved to be enjoyed later on. <\/span><\/p>\n

It connects you to your food, and rebels against big corporations. <\/b>The vast majority of Americans these days are totally disconnected from their food. Everything we ingest is prepackaged, frozen, reheated in microwaves. And the giant corporations who manufacture all that \u201cfood\u201d for us are making billions of dollars because we don\u2019t know how and don\u2019t want to take the time to cook our own. <\/span><\/p>\n

Push back against the corporate behemoths and learn how to bake a loaf of bread. It\u2019s incredibly satisfying not only to the taste buds, but to the soul, too. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next, let\u2019s go into the basic ingredients and supplies needed, and then into a couple recipes.   <\/span><\/p>\n

Ingredients Needed<\/h3>\n

The ingredients needed to make bread are incredibly simple, and you\u2019re almost guaranteed to have the majority of what you need already at home. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yeast.<\/b> Yeast is the living organism that makes your bread dough rise and creates those lovely air bubbles in the crumb — without it, you\u2019d have a flatbread or a tortilla. There\u2019s a ton of complicated science behind yeast and what it\u2019s actually doing in bread (and beer!), and if you\u2019re looking for a good explanation, <\/span>check out this resource library from Red Star<\/span><\/a>. But for our purposes, just know that you need it, and there are two types of yeast usually found in the grocery store:<\/span><\/p>\n