Passover sucks.

I’m never sure how many people are familiar with Judaism in the world outside of my little urban-suburban East Coast super-Jewish bubble, but to recap, Passover is a week-long festival. During Passover Jews celebrate being freed as slaves from Egypt (though then we went and wandered in the gosh-darn desert for forty years, so I’m not sure it was much of an upgrade).

It’s celebrated by having a seder which is a big, traditional meal that, in a truly Jewish fashion, involves you sitting around and talking about how much your ancestors suffered so you could sit here and eat brisket. That’s not why it sucks. I like that part. I can listen to some stories of suffering if it means I get potato kugel at the end of it. No, the part that sucks is that on Passover, you cannot eat anything that is leavened, or has risen at all. Basically, does it have flour in it? You’re probably not allowed to have it. And this means that every food that has ever made you happy is pretty much cut from your diet for a week. Bread? No. Pasta? Nope. Rice? It depends on where you come from, but most Jews say nuh-uh. No cereal. No crackers. No chips (except potato chips). No pizza. Nothing with a breaded crust. No baked goods. Pretty much all desserts are gonzo.

Fear not, though, because Jews have a (really, really terrible) solution known as matzah. It’s basically a giant, crumbly cracker that’s used in various states of being ground up, and it pretty much instantly dries out everything, including your mouth. Also, if you eat too much of it, it gives you constipation something fierce.

This holiday has always seemed a bit weird to me. It’s never seemed very Jewish to me to limit one’s eating capabilities. The only reasoning I can possibly come up with is that if there’s one thing Jews like more than eating, it’s complaining about how hard we’ve got it, and this holiday ensures that no matter how cushy your life is, once a year, you and the rest of your people will be sitting on the toilet pissed off, or with your nose pressed against a bakery window, or staring at food blogs showing off baked Easter goods like a giant, cosmic middle finger.  At least once a year you will on some level understand the pain and suffering of those less fortunate than you, because you are deeply sympathetic to the feeling of literally being willing to kill someone for some freaking bread.

Every family, though, has various solutions to dealing with this. There are certain desserts every family has and certain recipes (usually involving lots of potatoes and cream or chocolate to mask the taste of matzah) that the use to get them through the week. My mother, for example, whose birthday often falls during Passover, has a truly decadent chocolate nut cake with the world’s best, fudgiest frosting. Since, sadly however, you can’t sit around eating chocolate-covered raisins the entire week (woe), my personal favorite family recipe is one my mother got from a friend about eleventy bajillion years ago that makes what we call Passover Rolls. And these suckers are amazing. They’re not really bread, but they’re so much like bread that by eating them you almost feel like maybe, just maybe, you’re not going to die constipated, bitter, and without good food in your stomach.  They take about twenty minutes and even if you’re not keeping kosher for Passover, I suggest you try them. They’re delicious.

Magical Matzah Rolls
(Makes eight medium-sized rolls)

1 cup matzah meal
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup oil or melted butter
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbs. sugar
3 eggs

1. Boil together water, oil, sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
2. When the mixture comes to a boil, immediately take off the flame and mix in the matzah meal. You should mix until your dough is firm and comes away from the sides of your pot, then let it cool for a few minutes.
3. Add and mix in eggs to your dough one at a time — the mixture should be very loose. If it’s too loose and liquid, refrigerate the dough until it’s solidified to a more ideal texture.
4. Heat oven to 400°.  Either grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper. Scoop out about a tablespoon of your dough and place them on the sheet about two inches apart from each other.
5. Put in oven and let bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn the oven down to 300° and let the rolls cook for five to ten more minutes, or until they’re brown. Rolls keep well, but are best when they’re fresh.

One major difference is nutrition. Whole wheat flours have more fiber and more nutrients. Using whole wheat flours is healthy, and it will give you a different bread than using white flour. Whole wheat breads are denser and heartier. They taste great, but baking with them is a little trickier than with white doughs, and this can lead to baker frustration.

White flours have been stripped of some of their essential fibers and nutrients, but they will give you a light, delicious bread. I used whole grain flours (or a mixture of them and white) for several years. I prefer to work with white flour now. However, you never forget how to bake with whole grains once you’ve learned.

Possibly the best resource available for information about baking with whole grains is the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. It contains some fabulous recipes too. But here are 7 good rules of thumb:

1) Whole wheat doughs rise much more slowly than white flours. Last week, my friend Talia asked me to come over and make bread with her. We decided to make challah. I found out at the very last minute that all she had on hand was whole wheat flour. No big deal; but we did have to make some adjustments.

2) Whole wheat doughs require a larger liquid to flour ratio. Our recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of liquid; it also called for 7-8 cups of flour. We used only 6 cups of flour, but ended up using a few more tablespoons of water than the recipe originally called for.

3) When you are kneading a white-flour dough, if the dough is sticky, you will want to add more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until the dough is no longer sticky.

4) When you are kneading whole wheat dough, if the dough is sticky, you will want to add more water to your hands and knead it in to the dough until it is no longer sticky.

5) Whole wheat doughs are a lot more stiff than white flour doughs, so they need to be kneaded longer. Where you can knead a white flour dough in 5-to-10 minutes, you will have to knead a whole wheat dough for 15-to-20 minutes. This is also crucial to developing the gluten, which will help transform flour and water into bread.

6) Back to number 1: whole wheat doughs may not appear to rise at all after an hour or more. Go ahead and punch them down anyway. You may want to consider doubling your yeast amount when baking with whole grains; otherwise, you are going to want the luxury of time. I might start a dinner loaf of white flour bread at 3p.m. However, if I am baking with whole grains, I usually start in the morning.

7) You will want to allow your whole wheat dough to rise at least twice; you can sometimes get away with one rise for a white flour dough.

If you keep all of these fun facts in mind when baking with whole grains, you will have more enjoyment and baking success.

If the bread is burnt, sometimes you can cut off the burnt parts. But what to do with the dense mess that sort of seems like bread, and might even be edible as bread, but isn’t something you want anybody else to find out you made? That is when you make bread pudding, if you don’t want to throw the whole thing out.

It might make you feel better to know that sometimes I have bread failures; I had one last month, actually. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think in my case, it was a combination of factors. I let the bread rise on a wood stove, which may have killed the yeast if it got too hot. I also baked it at a friend’s house, at 35o degrees instead of 450, and there was a casserole baking in the same oven. What we ended up getting with the bread was the dense “brick” I was describing. It was a disaster.

Fortunately, my friends liked the bread anyway, but at the end of the evening, I confiscated the leftover loaf and a half of Italian bread. And the next day, I turned it into bread pudding and served it to the same friends.

One of the best things about bread pudding is that there are so many variations you can make with it. Today, I am going to give you a basic recipe. Honestly, though, I don’t use a recipe when I make it, but these proportions should work well. And, of course, you can use perfectly nice bread with this too, or bread that is a few days old and drying out. Croissants would be fantastic.

Recipe

1-2 baguettes of bread (you do NOT want to use a store-bought loaf for bread pudding. It’s disgusting). Whether you get long and skinny French or fat Italian is up to you; the more bread you have, the larger the pan you need to use. I have used a casserole dish, a bundt cake pan, and a 13 x 9 inch baking pan. they all work well.

At least 2 cups of milk, cream, or half-and-half or some combination thereof. Honestly, I don’t really think you need to use whole cream for great bread pudding (though, some warm cream on top is marvelous!).

3-5 eggs, depending on how much bread you have. If you are using a 9 x 3 inch pan, you are probably good with 3. If you are using a bundt cake pan or a casserole dish, or some other deep dish, I’d go up to 4-to-5 eggs.

3/4 cup sugar. I’d use more if you have the case that I did recently where I had so much bread that I ended up using two pans and making twice as much pudding. In that case, I’d definitely use 5 eggs, as well.

1-2 teaspoons of vanilla

1/2- 1 cup raisins (optional, but I don’t really think it’s bread pudding without the raisins)

1-2 tsp nutmeg

1-2 tsp cinnamon

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As you can see, this is a very simple, basic recipe. There are tons of variations you can use also: Use chocolate chip or pumpkin bread; add chocolate chips to the pudding itself; add whiskey or use a different kind of flavoring besides vanilla; add dried cherries or dried cranberries or apples or orange peel or a bit of orange juice. You get the idea. I have even seen cornflakes crumbled and added as a topping.

Directions

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray your baking pan with cooking spray.

Heat your milk until it’s almost at a boil (scalded). Then, let it cool for a bit so it doesn’t cook the eggs. In the meantime, you will tear apart your bread into bite-sized pieces and fill your pan with it. You can fill a bundt cake pan half way, but I’d go ahead and fill a baking pan or casserole dish.

When the milk has cooled, beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Add the milk, sugar, vanilla. Pour this mixture over the top of the bread and sprinkle the raisins throughout. Then, add your cinnamon and nutmeg over the top. Then, let this mixture sit, unbaked, for 30 minutes.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until puffy and golden brown.

Serve either alone or with warm cream, whipped cream, maple syrup, or powdered sugar. Enjoy! (This will feed 7 hungry adults easily, with seconds).

Today, we are going to use a slightly different recipe from our first, basic bread dough recipe. However, the principles of that post still apply. I am sure that a lot has probably been written about Italian bread, variations on it, and treatises on what makes Italian bread different from other breads. I haven’t read those things. Or, if I have, it’s been a very long time. For me, the fundamental difference between Italian bread and other breads is that there is olive oil in the dough. And that makes all the difference.

I often make Italian baguettes rather than plain, simple, French baguettes for a couple of reasons. First, it’s pretty easy to add olive oil to a recipe. Second, the presence of the olive oil transforms both the dough and the bread: It’s wonderful to work with and wonderful to eat. The fat transforms the crust as well, into a crisp and flaky delight. So, if you would rather make French baguettes, you can follow the instructions here for forming the loaves, just use the plain recipe from the post I linked to above.

I feel that I have to add a caveat to this post. The recipe I provide here will give you a very tasty bread. But if you get a little obsessed with making bread and and perhaps develop a craving for authenticity, then you should really read Nancy Silverton’s book Breads from the La Brea Bakery. This book will walk you through growing your own sourdough and leavening bread without any commercial yeast. If you follow the instructions, you will get a bread as delectable as you could find anywhere else. It’s a lot of time and work, but well worth the effort.

But for our purposes, we are going to keep life simple. I do highly recommend that if you become a somewhat regular bread baker, you should acquire both a baking stone (or a pizza stone) to ensure even oven temperatures, and a spray bottle of water. We will be using both today, so if you don’t have those things, I’ll try to give tips for improvising.

Recipe

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1/2 cup olive oil

2 T yeast

2 T sugar

1 1/2 T salt

6 cups flour

Yield: 2 baguettes

If you want to, you can knead two-to-four teaspoons of  rosemary into your dough while you are kneading it the SECOND time (after the first rise). That adds a lovely, authentic flavor to the bread.

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Follow the instructions in this post for activating your yeast, mixing, and kneading your dough.

Shaping

After you have let your dough rise (preferably twice, punching it down once and then letting it rise again), you will punch it down once more and let it “rest” for ten minutes. During this time, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees. If you use a baking stone, it should be in the center of your oven on a rack.

Resting prevents the dough from tearing when you start to handle it. You are going to divide your dough in two, by picking it up and squeezing it in the middle until the dough can be easily separated. Cover one of the sections in your mixing bowl. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray, and find a clean, flat surface for your dough. (Confession: I am lazy, so I usually just use the cookie sheet I’m going to bake it on).

You are going to flatten your dough into a disk. You can even roll it flat with a rolling pin, but I don’t usually want it quite THAT flat, so I just use it with my hands. You don’t want it to be flat like a pie crust; just flat like a fat piece of pita bread. So, pat it flat with your hands. Then, you are going to fold up one side of the disc, and fold the other side over the top of the first folded end, like an envelope or a letter that is about to go into an envelope.

Then, you will use your hands to roll the dough, as folded, into the size baguette you want: You will want these to be a little fatter than what you think of with a French baguette.

Once you’ve shaped your baguettes, you will want them to rise again (proofing the dough). I usually put them on the stove top where the oven is already heating, so they will benefit from some of that warmth. It’s also a good idea to lightly lay a dampened dish cloth on top of them so they won’t dry out or form a crust while they are proofing. But, that is not always possible, and the bread will be okay if you don’t do that.

The loaves will look like they have softened, rather than doubling again in size or “rising.” They usually look sort of like they fell over a little bit. And that is what you want: Italian loaves are going to be flatter than French baguettes.

Baking

When you are ready to bake, the loaves will have proofed for an hour, and you will have pre-heated your oven to 500 degrees, also for one hour. You are now going to take a very sharp knife and make three quick slashes into your baguette, diagonal to the loaf. Now, you are ready to bake.

The first thing you are going to do is open your oven door quickly and spray it all over with your spray bottle of water.

Oh? You don’t have a spray bottle of water? In that case, you will want to take a glass baking pan and fill it shallowly with water and put it on your lower oven rack. Do this about 15 minutes before you are ready to bake so there is time to generate steam in the oven: Steam is critical to creating a good crust.

If you do have a spray bottle, shut your oven door as fast as you can after the first spray. Wait five minutes. This time, open the door, put your bread in quickly, and then spray the bread/inside of the oven quickly, then shut the door again. Bake for 5 minutes at 500 degrees.

After 5 minutes, you will spray the oven one last time, and then turn the temperature down to 450 degrees. You will continue baking for 15 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING THIS TIME.

And that’s it! After 20 minutes of baking under those conditions, your bread should be golden brown and lovely. You will want to flip over the loaves and thump them on the back for a hollow sound to determine that they are really done; if not, pop them back in for five minutes and check again. DO NOT CUT INTO YOUR BREAD TO SEE IF IT’S DONE.

When it’s done, let it cool a bit and enjoy!

Next week, we’ll talk about what to do with your bread if something goes wrong… (hint: rhymes with bread pudding!)

Look for the recipe after the jump. I want to start by saying that I think the idea of making bagels intimidates a lot of people who might not be all that comfortable with making a yeast bread to begin with. The reason I think this is the incredulous responses I have gotten lately from people when I have mentioned making bagels: Most people think I am toasting them, because they cannot fathom that I mean actually shaping, boiling, and baking bagels myself.

Is it the boiling? The idea of boiling bread dough? Is that what throws people off? Or does it seem like too long and complicated of a process to make the dough, let it rise, punch it down, shape it into bagels, broil them, boil them, top them, and then bake them? It’s not really that long or that complicated of a process, actually.

It does help, however, if you have made your dough ahead of time. For example, if you knew you wanted to make bagels with your family or some friends on a Friday evening, but you have to work all day Friday, you could make your dough on Thursday night. Then, you would cover it tightly in your mixing bowl (because it will rise, albeit more slowly) and put it in your refrigerator until you get home from work. The first thing you want to do when you walk in the door is take that dough out. Then, go about your daily routine and let the dough warm up a bit.

After a half hour or so, you will probably be ready to address that dough, and it will be ready for you, too.

So, first, here’s the recipe:

Recipe

• 1 T yeast
• 1 1/2 c lukewarm water
• 2 T sugar
• 4-4 3/4 c flour
• 1 T salt
• 1 T sugar for the water you boil them in

Yield: 9 bagels

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You will make your dough first. You’ll want to mix all of the ingredients together and knead the dough until smooth. Then, let it rise for an hour or two.

Forming your bagels

You’ll want to punch your dough down to let the air out of it. Then, reshape it into a ball gently and leave it alone for ten minutes while you set your oven to broil, fill a large pot of water and add 1 Tablespoon of sugar.

After your dough has rested for ten minutes, you will want to squeeze off your first bagel. Getting the right size is a little tricky at first. This recipe supposedly makes one dozen bagels. You will notice that I claim it only yields nine. That is because I like a decently-sized bagel. And I strongly advise you not to short-change yourself by making bagels too small because a recipe gives you a yield; it’s much better simply to double your recipe and get a decent bagel. The way to tell if you’re getting a good-sized bagel is to make sure you get about nine evenly-sized bagels. Don’t be afraid to dump the dough all back together if you think they’re the wrong size.

After you have squeezed off the size you want, you want to poke a hole in it with your thumb. Then, use your thumb to make the hole bigger, so you can kind of swing the bagel around on your thumb. That hole is going to close up a little when you do all the broiling, boiling, and baking, so make sure it’s a nice big hole at first.

Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray, and start laying your bagels on it.

Broiling

Now, you are ready for the broiling part of your bagels. I have read a lot of different bagel recipes. Some of them don’t tell you to broil them; you go straight to boiling. I have made bagels both ways, and I like the little bit of support the broiling gives the dough. But if this is too many steps, then skip it. Instead, you will want to let your bagels rise for maybe 45 minutes before you boil them.

HOWEVER, one of the advantages of broiling them is that they puff up beautifully so you don’t have to let them rise before you boil them, and you will get a more genuine looking bagel. If you choose to just boil, you may lose some of the rising that you’d gain from broiling them. But I cannot stress enough that you are probably, regardless of the choices you make in this instance, going to end up with something delicious and homemade.

Put the bagels into the oven and broil for three minutes. Rotate the tray once during that time, and don’t let the bagels brown on top (if they brown a little, that’s life; don’t toss them out).  You can avoid browning by making sure your oven rack is toward the middle of the oven.

Then, set your oven to bake at 350 degrees.

Boiling

Boiling is what makes a bagel a bagel. Quite simply, boiling gives the bagel its exquisite chewiness. Now, as with the broiling, I have seen and made bagels with differing boiling times. In one recipe, you basically just put the bagels into boiling water for a minute, flipping them once. But I have another recipe, the one I present to you here, in which you boil them, four or five at a time, (flipping once) for seven minutes. Yes, that seems like an obscenely long boiling time — it does to me too. But it works. So, again, baking is an art rather than a science, so if it freaks you out to boil bagels in general, and if seven minutes really freaks you out, then boil them for a minute, flipping them over once, and be done with it. You are still going to end up with something delicious.

As for me and my house, we are boiling for seven minutes, so set your timers. As I stated in the previous paragraph, they won’t all fit at once unless you are a witch with a cauldron. So, pop them into your boiling water about four or five at a time. You’ll probably want to use a slotted spoon to transfer them, but handle them carefully so they don’t deflate.

After they’re boiled, put them back on your baking sheet. We’re almost ready to bake!

Toppings

You can, of course, make plain bagels. Another choice you have here is to make a little egg wash to brush the bagels with before you bake them; I personally think this is unnecessary after all that boiling. But to make an egg wash for shiny bagels, you just take an egg and beat it a little with a fork in a small bowl, adding just about a teaspoon of water to it. Then, use a paper towel or a pastry brush to glaze the bagels.

The next part, the really fun part, is adding toppings to the bagels, if you want something besides plain bagels. We like to have a number of things on hand: Kosher salt; sesame seeds; poppy seeds; asiago cheese. But you could do a cinnamon/sugar mixture too. Basically, your imagination is probably your limit.

Once you’ve topped the bagels, you are ready to bake them. What I’ve learned is that a recipe may tell you that they will be done in 25-30 minutes. After all that boiling though? They actually need to bake for more like 45 minutes, until they are golden brown. So, I’d check them at 25-30 minutes, and then continue baking for another 15 minutes.

You sort of have to trust me on this: You’ll know they’re done. Because they will look like amazing, delicious bagels that you want to eat. Before they are finished, they will look sort of iffy. But if you are really unsure and don’t appreciate my wishy-washy nature, then I’d say pick one up, flip it over, and tap it. Listen for a hollow sound. Or, sacrifice one and break it apart to see if it’s done. And after you sacrifice it, you should slather it with cream cheese and eat it.

I would like to say here: If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment. I will be happy to answer them for you. Also, if you have a particular type of bread you’d like me to focus on for this column, I will be happy to do that too — and if I have no experience with it personally, I will get some. One of the things I’d like to focus on in coming weeks is gluten-free bread. I have never made it, but I have a friend with a wheat allergy who is suffering because she can’t eat any of the bread I make.

In the meantime, tune in next week for Italian bread!

A lot of people are afraid of yeast. Yeast is, perhaps, the most important ingredient in any bread recipe. This is because if your yeast isn’t working properly, you’ll end up with a dense brick of bread that probably isn’t fit for most ducks. Therefore, people either don’t make bread, make bad bread, or make quick breads that don’t have anything to do with yeast.

I am here to tell you that making yeast breads is one of the most satisfying things you can do. And it doesn’t take very long. And I am going to tell you how to do it, step by step. I will be referring back to this post in the future when I write about bread, because as long as you understand the basic principles set forth in this post, you will soon discover that you can make bagels, challah, and even artisan breads. Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be farting through silk. So, shall we begin?

I am one of those obnoxious people who doesn’t really use a recipe when I make basic bread. This is because I understand three simple principles about making bread:

1 cup of water for every three cups of flour.

At least two teaspoons of yeast.

At least one teaspoon of salt.

If you can remember those three things, you’re already ahead of the game. However, I’m not cruel, so I am going to give you a basic bread recipe. This recipe will make either one pretty decent-sized loaf in a regular loaf pan, or about 9 nice-sized bagels. Oh, the recipe says that it will give you a dozen bagels. Trust me. You’ll get 9. So, if you want more bagels, make more dough.

I want to pause here to say that I’m not a snob: If you want to toss all of the ingredients into a bread machine and hit the “dough” button, or just make bread, then, hey, good for you! It will be delicious and your family will love it. I like kneading dough, and sometimes it’s worth it to knead it just so I don’t have to pry it off the bread machine hook, but you know what works best for you, so go for it.

Bread Dough Recipe
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

1 T yeast

1 1/2 c lukewarm water

2 T sugar

4-4 3/4 c flour

1 T salt

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Activating the yeast

The first thing you’re going to do is to fill up a liquid measuring cup with your 1 1/2 c. of lukewarm water. When I say lukewarm, I mean the temperature that you would put a baby into. If you use cold water, your yeast will be a little cold and sluggish. It’s not impossible to make bread with cold water; it just takes longer. But DO NOT USE HOT WATER. That will kill your yeast, and then you’re stuck. I like to buy my yeast loose in a jar, but you can certainly buy the little individual packages. It’s just cheaper to buy it by the jar.

We are going to make sure our yeast is nice and active and alive. So, we are going to add our yeast to that measuring cup with our 2 T of sugar. Don’t worry — that much sugar won’t give you a sweet bread. It’s for the yeast to eat, to activate it faster. Your yeast works because it eats sugar and flour, drinks the water, and then emits gasses that make the bread rise. Sorry to de-romanticize it for you, but good bread requires yeast to fart. Period.

After you do that, you can move on and add four cups of flour (reserve the extra 3/4) and your salt to a large mixing bowl. Then, go vacuum a room or do some dishes or listen to a couple of great songs z– give the yeast about 15 minutes to show its stuff. When you return to it, it will be doubled in size, bubbly in your cup. If it isn’t, then your yeast may not be good, and you might want to get new yeast before you bake your bread. You’ll want to store that in your refrigerator, please.

Adding flour and salt

Once your yeast mixture is nice and bubbly, add it to the flour/salt mixture. Salt serves to slow the action of the yeast. This isn’t really important unless you’re making artisan breads with a sourdough starter that doesn’t have any commercial yeast in it, but it’s an interesting tidbit I thought I’d share.

Kneading

You may want to start with mixing up your ingredients with a wooden spoon. Eventually, though, you’re going to have to get your hands in there (unless you are using a bread machine or a large mixer). Kneading bread is just like folding towels. You get under the whole mess with your hand and then fold it over on itself. Then do it again. And again. And again. You basically just keep folding it and making a smooth ball out of it. You can knead with one hand, though I invariably end up using two.

If you are mixing or kneading, you may notice, depending on how humid the day is, that your dough seems particularly sticky. If that’s the case, then add some of that 3/4 cup flour you reserved. Keep adding until the dough stops being tacky and sticky when you knead it. Conversely, if the dough is dry and stiff, don’t be afraid to add water, about a teaspoon at a time, until the dough becomes more elastic and softer.

Some people advise kneading for at least ten minutes. I think you can knead til its smooth and it starts to resemble, in texture, a baby’s bottom. If you don’t know what this feels like, try to borrow a baby and squeeze it’s bottom. Or, it should look roughly like this picture to the right. Your recipe is a guideline. Don’t be afraid to listen to your bread and what it needs.

Rising

Now, you have a dough that can be used for pizza, baguettes, bagels, rolls, or cinnamon bread. Use your imagination! Or bread. Yeah, bread. IDEALLY, you want this to rise for an hour so the bread can let the yeast eat and do its thing for awhile, and because it improves both the texture and the flavor of your dough. However, I will admit that sometimes I just roll it out and start topping it for pizza. Bread isn’t a science. It is supposed to work for you, not defeat you. But if you have an hour, then let it rise.

Because yeast likes a warm environment, use a dishtowel to cover your bowl. You can warm your oven and then TURN IT OFF. Put your dough in the oven, and slip a hot pad into the door so it’s open a crack. In the summer, your counter (with a dishtowel) should be fine.

When you have let it rise (sometimes, it will double in size; sometimes, it will relax a lot; bread is a tricky thing, because yeast is alive, so there will be variations), punch it down, form it back into a small ball again. Then, you are ready to use it.

Baking

What? What’s that? How do you use it? How do you make all of these wonderful things? Tune in next week, and we’re going to make bagels. In the meantime, toss the dough into a loaf pan and bake it for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. It should come easily out of the pan, and then tap it on the bottom. When it sounds hollow, it’s done. Enjoy!