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Artisan Style Breads

A hands on guide on how to make dough and hand formed breads at home using Crusty White Premix your Bread machine.

Your home bread maker takes all the pain out of making hand formed bread at home. You can make above average quality speciality breads using your bread maker as a dough mixer only.

The requirements are:
Bread Premix
Yeast
A bread maker or other dough mixer.
A plastic cover sheet.
A large esky, foam box or microwave.
Boiling water.
Some desire.

Good bread is dependent upon many factors and because yeasted doughs are alive, temperature control is very important. The maintenance of consistent temperature combined with accurate measuring of ingredients will control the process. This makes the timings the same, every time you make bread, which makes it easier and maintains the quality of the finished product. It is far less complicated to use a premix for home baking because it contains all the ingredients you need that can be hard to purchase individually.

Mixing
Place up to 800 grams (5 cups) of Crusty White Premix, 480 ml or grams ( 60% of premix weight ) of water and 12 grams (1.5% of premix ) of dried yeast into your bread maker (large bowl) in the correct order for your machine. If your Machine does not have a pre-heating cycle, the water should be tempered to about 32 deg C (this will vary seasonally) to provide a dough at about 28 deg C.

Start the machine on a cycle to allow complete mixing - which can be up to 60 minutes for some machines. You may need to adjust the water or premix amount slightly to provide the required dough consistency for ease of handling.

NB: If your machine struggles with the quantity of dough you may need to reduce the dough size.

Dough Handling
Remove the mixed dough from the machine bowl and divide into required unit weight using your hands, a scraper or a knife. A little plain flour may be useful to prevent sticking.

Cover the divided dough pieces for about 15 minutes to allow the dough to relax, and then shape and mould into desired product.

For bread pieces such as rolls, flatten the dough piece out, and then roll it up by using a cupped hand with light pressure, moulding it to a smooth shape with no wrinkles - try to stretch the skin of the dough without tearing it.

If seeds or other condiments are desired on the outside, dampen the dough skin and sprinkle on what is wanted or roll in the seeds.

Place the seam at the bottom of the dough piece. Place dough on tray or in tin for final proofing.

Final Proof
Place the tray or tin into an esky or foam box or microwave with some very hot water and leave for 30 to 60 minutes until proofed sufficiently.

Tin loaves can be fully proofed (dough pieces retain an indent when pressed with a moist finger tip).

Open loaves, rolls or baguettes etc are best only half to three quarter proofed to retain their bold shape (a finger tip indent in the proofing dough piece should be slowly pushed out by gas pressure).

Any cuts of the dough surface to improve appearance should be carefully made with a sharp knife just prior to baking.

If you cannot achieve good crust colour in your oven, a glaze of whole egg can be brushed on the top of the proofed dough.

Baking
Ensure your oven is heated to 200 deg C (convection) - 230 deg C (non convection) by the time your dough is ready to be baked.

Fully proofed dough is fragile. Handle carefully into the oven.

If you want a nice crust you can spray water into the oven with a spray bottle, or have an old tin containing preheated rocks in which you can pour some water, prior to closing the oven door. If your oven does not seal well, then you may not be able to retain enough steam to produce a nice golden crisp crust.

Bake for 30 - 45 minutes or until you have the desired crust colour.

Upon removal from the oven take the bread out of the tin or remove it from the tray and place it onto a wire to cool. A brush over the top with margarine or oil will also lift the appearance.

The next step is to impress your guests with your craftsman like bread.