Application Guide
Table Of Contents
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
- America’s New Bread Box
- Orientation
- Batterie de Cuisine: Know Your Bread Machine
- Making Bread
- Daily Breads: White Breads and Egg Breads
- White Breads
- Egg Breads
- One-Pound Loaves
- Pasta Doughs from Your Bread Machine
- Earth’s Bounty: Whole Wheat, Whole-Grain, and Specialty Flour Breads
- Whole Wheat Breads
- Rye Breads
- Specialty Flour Breads
- Multigrain Breads
- Gluten-Free Breads
- Traditional Loaves: Country Breads and Sourdough Breads
- Country Breads
- Sourdough Breads
- All Kinds of Flavors: Breads Made with the Produce of the Garden, Orchard, and Creamery
- Herb, Nut, Seed, and Spice Breads
- Savory Vegetable and Fruit Breads
- Cheese Breads
- Mixes and Some Special Breads Created from Them
- Stuffing Breads
- Circle, Squares, and Crescents: Pizzas and Other Flatbreads
- Sweet Loaves: Chocolate, Fruit, and Other Sweet Breads
- Breakfast Breads
- Coffee Cakes and Sweet Rolls
- Chocolate Breads
- Holiday Breads
- Express Lane Bread: No-Yeast Quick Breads
- Jams, Preserves, and Chutneys in Your Bread Machine
- Appendix 1 Bits and Pieces: Crumbs, Croutons, Crostini, and Toasted Appetizers
- Appendix 2 To Eat with Your Bread: Spreads, Butters, Cheeses, and Vegetables
- Appendix 3 Resources
- General Index
- Recipe Index
the Oven
Baking is the process that turns your dough into an edible food. The heat
quickly penetrates the mass, encouraging the last gasp of fermentation and
raising the temperature inside the loaf, which kills the yeast. You will see a
rapid increase in the size of the loaf once it begins baking, this is called oven
spring. This is why some loaves that look kind of scraggly going into the
oven look very nice when they are finished baking. The starch sets and the
natural sugars in the flour caramelize, giving you the brown color of the
crust.
The first thing to do when preparing to bake a loaf in the
oven is to make sure the oven rack is in the center or lower third of the oven.
Professional bakeries bake country breads on the floors of brick ovens; you
can simulate their setup by placing a ceramic baking stone or tiles on the
oven rack for the baking sheet to rest on. Alternatively, the loaves will turn
out well using just a baking sheet and no stones. Shaped loaves are often
shoveled into the oven with a wooden paddle called a peel, but none of my
baking instructions in this book require the use of a peel. When you place the
bread on a baking sheet, you are assured that it will be in the correct position,
usually centered, on the baking sheet. There is many a tale about the home
baker who used a peel and had the bread land somewhere in the oven other
than on the stone or had their bread stick to the peel and become shaped like
a horseshoe.
The next preparation step is to set the oven temperature
specified in the recipe.
The type of flour and size of the loaf determine how long a
loaf will bake. The larger the loaf, the longer the bake off. Smaller loaves
can be baked at a higher temperature for a short time because of the small
proportion of inner crumb. That is why baguettes and rolls can bake at
450°F, but a large round bakes at 375°F.
When is the bread done? First, consider the length of time it
has been in the oven. I usually set a timer for 10 minutes less than the baking
time called for in the recipe. When the timer rings, I begin to check for done-
ness. I look at the color of the crust first. If it is too pale, the loaf is definitely
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