Making bread doesn't have to be intimidating

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BY AMY SCATTERGOOD/Los Angeles Times

Few things are as satisfying as pulling a loaf of freshly baked bread out of the oven.

The earthy smell of grain and yeast, the rush of heat, the burnished crust — the ancient hearth is alive and well in your 21st-century kitchen.

Baking your own bread is quite easy. The rewards are stunning: Hot, crusty loaves from your oven just can’t be replicated any other way, even if you happen to have a good bakery or a Parisian boulangerie close by.

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A few additions take boules, baguettes and rolls to greater heights.

A few additions take boules, baguettes and rolls to greater heights.

This recipe is a simple one. It’s what I make when I want bread I can knock together quickly and vary at will — a plain batard, rosemary baguettes, a dozen currant rolls — the possibilities are endless. No overnight rising, no sourdough experiments. This basic bread is so easy that you won’t even need the recipe after you make it a few times. Once you get the simple chemistry, it becomes second nature.

Start early in the morning for a late-morning baguette, or begin mid-afternoon if you want warm bread for dinner.

In a large bowl, mix warm water, dry yeast, a little sugar and 1 cup of flour. Let it sit for 10 minutes to make sure the yeast activates. Though it’s rare for yeast not to activate, nothing is quite so tedious as watching a ball of dough remain inert for hours.

After the yeast mixture begins to bubble, add your ingredients. Olive oil gives a flavor dimension, plus a more pliant dough — one that won’t dry out quite as quickly as a dough made without any fat.

Wheat germ adds depth of flavor and the nutrients that you would ordinarily get with whole-wheat flour — which this recipe doesn’t call for. Dough made with unbleached all-purpose flour is lighter and more elastic than a whole-wheat dough, and therefore easier to work with.

After you’ve mixed the dough for a few minutes to incorporate the ingredients — you can do this with a spoon, spatula, or your hands — add the salt. Salt slows down fermentation and, added directly to yeast, can kill it. You can also add herbs, roasted garlic or a sprinkle of fennel seeds and lemon peel at this point, if you want to jazz it up.

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, until it’s light and elastic. You can do this in a mixer fitted with a dough hook. But kneading dough by hand is a therapeutic experience. It gives you time to reflect on your day, on the bread you’re making and why you’re making it.

You’ll need to add flour to your work surface as you knead, but resist the temptation to add it too fast. Incorporate flour in increments of about 1 tablespoon — or what you can pick up with your fingertips. Decrease the amount you add as you get closer to the right texture, until you’re just lightly dusting the surface. Like salt added to food, it’s easier to put more in than take it out.Once the dough is elastic and pliant, test to see if it’s ready. Poke a flour-coated finger in it — if the dough bounces back, it’s done. Or try the “windowpane” method. Stretch a piece of dough between your fingers: If it tears easily, knead it more.

Once you’re done kneading, form the dough into a ball and let it rise, covered. You can do this in your oven if your oven has a “proof” setting or can be set very low (ideally about 80 degrees), or on a countertop if your kitchen is warm.

This first rise is the most important, when flavor and texture develop; it will take about 1½ hours until the dough has about doubled in size. The time required can vary depending on the temperature and your method of achieving it. Julia Child, for example, let her dough rise in the back of her car while she went on errands.

After the first rise, punch down the dough and let it rise again, although for a shorter duration. Why a second rise? Because each rise further develops the complexity of the dough — and the flavor and texture of your finished loaf.

Next, form your dough into the shapes you want. Simplest is a batard, which is a long free-form loaf that rises on a baking sheet without any special pans. Or you could fashion a baguette, which both proofs and bakes in a perforated metal baguette pan.

Or try a boule, the classic French round that gets its gorgeous floured spirals from a banneton, the porous basket in which it rises. Or form the dough into a dozen rolls. Or get creative and make a fougasse, slashing a flattened piece of dough and pulling the holes apart into interesting shapes.

With each shaped loaf, be sure to cover the bread for the final rise, called “proofing.” Uncovered, the dough will form a light crust and not rise properly.

At the last minute, dust your bread dough with flour and slash the top.

Slide your bread into the oven, and immediately spritz the sides of the oven with a water spray bottle. This gives you the steam you need for a good crust. Do this again after five minutes, then let the bread bake.

Rotate the bread once, about halfway through the baking, for color and even cooking. Resist the urge to open the oven doors any more than necessary: You want the heat and steam inside your oven, not out of it.

When the bread’s done, the crust should just begin to darken into a rich brown. Take it out, let it cool on a rack, and resist the urge to cut into it right away. Like a steak that needs to rest after you pull it from a saute pan, a just-baked loaf of bread needs some downtime.

So cool your heels as well as your bread. Brew a pot of espresso, find your blackberry jam, close your eyes and breathe in the glorious smell emanating from your kitchen.

Then break your bread — or slice it. The crack of the golden crust, the aromatic malty interior, the crumbs that will soon be strewn across your plate like fairy-tale evidence: There’s a particular taste borne by accomplishment, and you can’t buy it at any store.

DAILY BREAD

2 cups warm water

1 (¼-ounce) package instant dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

5 cups to 5½ cups all-purpose flour, divided, plus extra for forming and dusting

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for coating

¼ cup wheat germ

3 teaspoons kosher salt

In a large mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups of warm water (120 degrees to 130 degrees), yeast, sugar and 1 cup flour. Let sit 15 minutes. If the yeast doesn’t activate, you have to throw this out and start over, although this rarely happens.

With a wooden spoon, bread cutter or your hands, mix in the olive oil, wheat germ and 3 cups flour. Gradually add salt and more flour, letting the dough come together.

Knead dough on a floured board or table, adding the rest of the flour as needed; be careful not to get the dough too dry. If using herbs or other flavorings, knead them in at this point, adding more flour if the dough gets too sticky. Once the flour is incorporated, knead dough for about 10 minutes, until elastic; test by sticking your floured finger into the dough to see if it bounces back.

Shape dough into a round and put it into a bowl coated with about ½ teaspoon olive oil (coat the dough’s surface, too). Cover with plastic wrap and let rise, 1½ hours. Punch down the dough, shape it back into a ball, and let it rise for the second fermentation, about ½ hour.

Punch down the dough again, divide into two portions, and shape each portion into a batard. Press the dough into a rectangle, roughly 10 inches by 7 inches. With the long side of the rectangle facing toward you, grasp the upper corners of the dough and fold them to meet in the center of the dough, creating a peak at the top. Fold down the peak to the center seam. Press the entire seam to seal it, pushing it away from you. Roll down the top edge of the dough, pushing it down and away from you as you go, until you reach the bottom edge. Press along the length of the seam and roll it forward so that the seam is underneath. Repeat with the second portion of dough.

Heat oven to 475 degrees, with an inverted baking sheet on the middle rack.

Cover the shaped batards with plastic wrap lightly coated with oil (or vegetable oil spray). Let rise for ½ hour on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Dust the loaves with flour and slash with a razor or bread knife. Slide the parchment paper with the batards onto the baking sheet in the oven and spray the sides and bottom of the oven (but not the batards) with a water mister. Shut the door. Spray again in about 5 minutes. Do not open the door more than you have to.

Watch the loaves and rotate them once during baking for even coloring. Bake until golden, about 45 minutes. Remove and allow to cool on a rack.

Total time: About 4 hours. Makes 2 batards, or about 16 servings.

Each serving: 158 calories; 5 grams protein; 33 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 1 gram fat; 0 saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 211 milligrams sodium

* Variations

Each of the following additions is enough to flavor half a recipe of bread. Add the flavoring to the dough while kneading; adjust the flour as needed.

— 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

— 1 teaspoon fennel seeds and 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel

— 1 clove roasted garlic, cooled and finely chopped

— 2 tablespoons cured black olives, finely chopped

— 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 2 tablespoons currants (substitute melted butter for olive oil)

How to Shape Bread

BREAD SHAPES

The basic Daily Bread recipe makes enough for 2 boules, or 1 boule plus 3 baguettes, or 1 boule plus 1 fougasse, or 1 boule plus 1 dozen rolls, or any combination thereof.

The instructions here are for half of the basic Daily Bread recipe.

Baguette

Divide dough into 3 portions; cover 2 portions until ready to use.

Press the dough into a rectangle, then fold the bottom of the dough up a little past the center mark. Fold the top portion down to overlap slightly, then press the folded dough along the center to seal the edges. Fold the dough in half again lengthwise, pinching the edges together at the new seam as you go.

Roll the dough back and forth, stretching it until it’s about 2 inches shorter than your baguette pan. Place the stretched dough in an oiled baguette pan.

Repeat for the other two portions, cover and let rise — about 20 minutes. Dust with flour, slash with a sharp knife or razor, and bake.

Boule

Flatten dough into a circle, kneading it with your fingers to deflate any air pockets.

Fold the edges of the dough into the center and pinch them together, then turn the ball over so that the pinched part is underneath. With both hands cupping the ball of dough, move it around in a circle on an unfloured surface until you feel the dough tightening.

Then put the dough into a floured banneton, pinched side up, cover and let rise until it is about 1 inch below the top of the basket — 30 to 40 minutes. Invert the basket onto parchment paper, slash the loaf with a sharp knife or razor, and bake.

Fougasse

Stretch dough into a rectangle, an oval or a tombstone, roughly 10 inches by 6 inches.

With a sharp knife or a dough cutter, cut slits in the dough to form the desired shape: 4 (4-inch) horizontal slits for a ladder, for example, or 2 (3-inch) vertical slits in the center of the dough, then 2 sets of 3 (3-inch) diagonal slits — one on either side of the vertical slits, fanning outward. The cuts should never get closer than an inch apart, as you’ll need to allow enough dough to remain connected.

With floured hands, enlarge the cuts so that the openings are 1 inch to 2 inches wide. Cover the dough and let it rise, about 30 minutes. Dust with flour and bake.

Rolls

Divide dough into 12 portions. Cover portions with a cloth or piece of oiled plastic while shaping the rest of the rolls. Using only one hand, form the dough the same way you would a large boule, rolling the portions around in a circle on an unfloured surface until they tighten and form a taut ball.

Place them on parchment paper a few inches apart — giving them room to rise — then cover and let rise, about 20 minutes. Dust with flour, snip an “X” into the tops with a pair of scissors (optional), and bake.