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British baker contends bread should be made at home

By Kim Davaz

Bread. It’s a basic food that is at home at any meal. British master baker Andrew Whitley wants it to be on your table, made by your own hands, as often as possible.

With this in mind, Whitley has written “Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own.” Full of tables and lists and schedules, this is a cookbook to make daily bread baking a reasonable possibility.

Whitley’s opinion of modern bread is not high: He despairs of the sad loaves most of us are eating. One needs tasty bread made of real ingredients and worked by hand, he believes. Making bread isn’t hard, he contends. It just takes time, most of which is for unattended rising, leaving you free to do other things.

Whitley advocates a wetter - though a little messier to use - dough and offers techniques that you’ve not likely seen before, including air kneading, which is stretching wet dough like you’re playing an accordion. Singing is optional.

If you’re having problems with your bread, “Starting From Scratch” has tables of faults (not much rise, collapsing loaf or blisters on the crust) and possible causes. Two sections of photos show mostly baked breads.

As Whitley is British, adjustments have been made for differences in kitchens in England and in the United States. Within the recipes, amounts are given by volume (cups and ounces/pounds) and weight (grams). Pick the measurements you like to use. Temperatures are in both Farenheit and Celsius.

People avoiding gluten, or cooking for someone who is, will welcome the chapter on gluten-free baking. Using nonwheat flours causes its own set of difficulties when it comes to making a yeasted bread. As Whitley writes in this chapter, “Making bread without gluten can be done, but it will not be the same as ordinary bread. It may be as nutritious and delicious, but it is not the same.” It doesn’t rise, look, behave or taste like regular bread, but it will give an alternative to purchased breads.

Pages of tables list gluten-free flours, their properties and nutritional information.

This chapter ends with gluten-free Luxury Chocolate Cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds and chocolate topped with ganache.

It’s a dessert anyone would love, gluten-free or not.

The final chapter, after an explanation of the hows and whys of aging breads, is on what to do with stale bread. Recipes include an ice cream made with sweetened, toasted, whole-wheat bread crumbs, and a beer from a loaf of old rye bread.

If your goal in 2010 is to learn a new kitchen skill, try breadmaking with help from “Bread Matters.”

Baps, or small rolls, are from “First Bread and Rolls.” It’s a good, basic whole-wheat roll recipe. The dough can be easily shaped for sandwich bread or burger buns as well. You can make this with unbleached, all-purpose white flour or a combination of white and wheat flour.

Whitley doesn’t think an all-white flour dough is at its best here. He prefers the flavor that comes from a longer rise time (what he calls the sponge-and-dough methods) for that flour.

Baps

• 1/2 ounce fresh yeast or 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one envelope)
• 1 1/2cups plus 1 tablespoon water
• 4 3/4cups stoneground breadmaking whole-wheat or graham flour
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, lard or olive oil

Aim to finish the dough at about 81 degrees.

Dissolve the yeast in the water and then combine all the ingredients and knead until the dough is pliable and the gluten properly developed. (The dough will get a little firmer, more stretchy and have a slightly shiny surface.) Cover and let rise for 1 to 2 hours, but in any case take the dough to the next

stage before it collapses.

Without completely de-gassing the dough (don’t crush all the air out of the dough), divide it into 12 equal pieces, then mold each one tightly and evenly by rolling it on the work surface under cupped hands.

As soon as each piece is molded, dip it into a bowl of flour, making sure that the whole piece is covered. Place the floured rolls about 3/4 inch apart on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Line them up neatly so each has an equal space in which to rise.

If you want to make a flatter sandwich roll or burger bun, let the freshly molded and floured dough pieces stand for about 5 minutes to relax the gluten, and then press or roll them out with a rolling pin until they are about 50 percent wider than they were. Line them up on the tray, still 3/4 inch apart.

Cover the whole tray with a loose plastic bag to create a warm, moist atmosphere in which the dough can rise easily. The baps are ready for the oven when they have risen appreciably and are just touching their neighbors.

Bake in a very hot oven (450 degrees), reducing the heat after 5 minutes or so to 415 degrees. They may take as little as 12 to 15 minutes, depending on your oven.

Checking is not easy if the baps have merged together as they should. Gently tear one away from the rest and check its top and bottom crusts. If the torn side where it was attached to its neighbor still looks a little raw, it probably needs a minute or two more in the oven, but the baps will firm up a little as they cool.

Kim Davaz writes a biweekly cookbook review column for The Register-Guard.

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