I love making my own breads, but I find myself in a bit of a rut lately. I’m getting pretty good at basic whole wheat breads, but I’d like to branch out a bit.
To do that, I need help in two areas:
Raisin bread. I’d like to make a good raisin/cinnamon/walnut bread, but I can’t get my loaves as dense and chewy as the bakeries. Do I need to change the basic dough recipe, or just throw in the raisins?
French breads. I’d like to make a good crusty French bread. I’ve tried brushing the dough with water a few times during baking, but it doesn’t seem to work for me. I also can’t get that soft, chewy, non-crumbly texture that the bread needs to have.
Aside from water/yeast/flour/honey/oil, I also usually add a few eggs, some uncooked oats, and some ground-up nuts into my bread. I let it raise 3 times total.
Good beginning procedure for a French-style loaf would include: increasing the proportion of All-Purpose unbleached flour (not bread flour); increasing the water content of the dough; reducing the amount of kneading (to virtually no kneading + adopting autolyse method); increasing the proportion of pre-ferment; using a very hot oven in combination with a reliable way of injecting steam to the oven. There would typically be very little yeast involved, and a long retarded rise in a cool environment.
This would be for a loaf of bread with large-ish holes (open crumb), a firm, crisp crust, and a somewhat sour (non-yeasty) flavor. There are plenty of (only) OK books for home bakers – I can’t recommend Reinhart or Berenbaum, especially, but they are two popular authors who use semi-professional formulas and make at least some effort to explain how good bread is made to novices.
If you want a French style baguette, nothing is better than Julia Child’s directions in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It’s involved, but worth it.
The best all around bread baking book, IMNSHO, in James Beard’s Beard on Bread. Not only does he introduce a wide variety of breads, he includes a lot of baking hints and directions as well, plus some delightful anecdotes. His Challah bread, eggy and slightly yellow, is a good base for raisin bread.
As far as I know, most bread flour contains more protein, which means it is more susceptible to developing the tighter crumb structure one associates with kneading the dough for a long period of time. Which is great for making a loaf of sandwich bread, but maybe not so great for a loaf where you’d like a lot of open structure, random medium-to-large-sized holes in the cross-section. The protein content of different brands and even batches can vary a bit, so it may depend on the specific flour you use rather than the generic appelation “a-p” vs “bread” – I think there’s a slight overlapping in the ranges among certain brands, although maybe not enough to make a real difference when trying samples of many loaves.
The story of “autolyse” is actually an interesting one – it’s a very simple practice, which just means that one lets a more-or-less mixed dough rest for about 20 minutes or so, prior to any subsequent mixing. I believe the term and technique was invented by Raymond Calvel, a real father of modern bread baking. In theory, the strands of gluten self-organize while resting in this fashion, without the danger of over-heating or over-oxidizing the dough through intensive machine kneading. That may not be 100% accurate, and it may not be 100% the best way to achieve a beautiful open structure to your bread, but it’s about what I recall. It could be a useful addition to your ordinary bag of tricks, though.
I’m sure Baker will have some links to books that say similar things, as well.
When I make bread, I make 2 loaves – one plain and one cinnamon raisin. For the latter, after I have rolled out the risen dough, I sprinkle it with first cinnamon, then sugar, then raisins. Then more sugar and a final sprinkle of cinnamon. Roll it up as with the plain loaf and put in the pan for the final rising.
Theres a thread on eGullet on making bread with an extremely open crumb. Also, check out “Baking with the Bread Bakers Apprentice”. I’ve heard it reccomended as one of the best bread books.