Baking by Hand (3 page)

Many of the shapes in the book are made using proofing baskets. We order ours in bulk from Germany, but they’re available from specialty bread websites. When in a pinch, a smooth, floured towel lining a bowl will work.

A lame (pronounced “lahm”) is a long piece of metal onto which a razor blade is attached, and that entire unit is used to slash your bread. You can purchase the lame frame and the blades separately (allowing for easy razor switch-out when the blade gets dull), or you can order special preassembled lames. Either works just fine.

A wooden board for sliding your bread into and out of the oven. It’s definitely the most recognizable baker thing you’ll have in your kitchen (especially if you hang it from the wall), so if you want a nice wooden one, go nuts. You can also place your bread on the back of a floured sheet pan and slide it into the oven that way, but really, the peel is pretty badass. Seriously, get the peel.

You probably have one of these, but make sure you have a heavy one; otherwise, put it on your Father’s or Mother’s Day gift list. You’ll need the weight to stretch out your laminated doughs as the folds make them tighter and tighter.

For quick cutting of croissants and pastry dough. I got yelled at in culinary school for calling these things “pizza wheels” instead of “pastry wheels,” so now that we’re writing a book on pastry and bread, we’re calling them “pizza wheels.” Take
that
, Chef!

If you find yourself making lots and lots of plain croissants, you might want to invest in one of these. It’s like a rolling pin, but rather than a wood roller, there are sharp metal cutters in the shape of croissants. Just roll along your strip of dough and voilà—instant triangles, ready to be shaped. They run a little pricey and come in various sizes, so make sure you’re committed before you invest in one.

These are useful for all sorts of pastry tasks—cakes (duh), quiche, mousse and so forth. They’re sturdy and stainless steel, so they’ll last forever. We use them to quickly cut out circles of dough, especially handy in high-volume situations. But even at home, if you’re tired of using pan lids and dinner plates (which we’ve done many, many times), these will make your pastry life much easier. Get rings in sizes of 12, 10, 7, 6 and 5 inches/30, 25, 18, 15 and 12 cm, and you’ll have a nice set.

Although there are some pastry products we make that, like bread, go right on the baking stone, generally speaking you’ll need something in which to hold your pastry creation. Some things you can get at the grocery store—we got our sticky bun tins at Dawson’s Hardware, down the street. For others, you might have to hit up a larger big-box store, and for things like flan rings, you’ll likely have to visit a pastry supply website (see Sources,
here
).

The flan rings are especially important for many of our sweet and savory tarts, so if those recipes are in your sights, purchase six 5-inch/12-cm rings and one 8-inch/20-cm ring right off the bat.

Deep mini pie tins (5-inches/12-cm diameter by 1-inch/2.5-cm deep) can be purchased online or (again) in box homeware stores or at well-stocked hardware stores. We like our ceramic pie plates to be as deep as you can get them—thin pies have no place in our home.

Fluted pastry molds (4 inches/10 cm) can generally be purchased at the large box homeware stores or online from specialty retailers.

The best sheet pans to use are the largest, heaviest-duty ones you can find, preferably ones that are 13 inches × 18 inches/33 cm × 45 cm. All sheet pans are not created equal—the thinnest ones bend and warp at higher temperatures, creating rivers of fruit juice or other liquids that puddle in the corners of the pan. It’s worth the extra few bucks to get the thick ones.

Both pastry and bread like to cool suspended off the counter to maximize air flow. Things tend to steam and soften when sitting on solid surfaces.

Baking on nonstick parchment makes cleanup a snap. You can purchase precut half-sheet-pan-size packs online. (We won’t go into get into how angry we get trying to rip a perfect size off of one of those stupid rolls.)

Knowledge is king in the bakeshop, and we’re constantly talking about why products come out good (or bad). We can’t stress enough the importance of knowing how your ingredients interact with one another and what you can do to increase the instances of positive interaction.

We’re not asking you to get a master’s degree in bread science, but the following info will help you understand those whys a little better, will make you a more capable baker and will result in a great loaf of bread. And that’s the goal, isn’t it? Increase your knowledge, increase your reward.

Please keep in mind that when we refer to “ingredient percentages” here, we do the funny baker thing of expressing percentages in relation to the flour. So, if we’re talking about 60 percent water in a dough, that means 100 pounds/45 kg of dough gets 60 percent water. That’s just how we roll.

Wheat flour is the most important part of your bread; flour is also the most complicated part of your bread. We’re going to keep it simple, as there are other books that go into the wonderful world of protein analysis, flour content analysis and flour quality analysis. And, the odds are, you’re not going to have that much of a choice when picking flour up at your local grocery store. If you’re interested, (see Sources,
here
) for books that will steer you down that interesting but complex path.

Standard wheat flour is graded by its protein content: The higher the protein percentage, and thus the percentage of gluten in the flour, the stronger the dough will be. The stronger the dough is, the more likely it is to trap gas and have a nice rise.

So, here’s how it works at the supermarket:
cake flour
or
pastry flour
is low protein/low strength to help increase the tenderness of pastry products.
Bread flour
is high protein/high strength to allow for a chewy crumb, strong crust and maximum rise.
All-purpose flour
splits the difference, which is fine for most pastry products but not optimal for artisan bread production.
We use bread flour for all of our breads in this book, and all-purpose flour for all of the pastry.

One final note: Be sure to buy unbleached, unbromated flour. In a nutshell, it’s less tampered with by the manufacturer, less altered with chemicals and generally less scary.

There are myriad flours you can use to augment your baking, some of which are wheat derivatives, like semolina and kamut, and some of which are other cereal grains, like corn and rye. Each has individual effects on the quality of the dough into which you mix it. Rye, for example, tends to absorb a ton of water and makes a dough noticeably stickier. Corn just absorbs water, adding
nothing in terms of strength. One particular item of note: Any time you’re adding an additional grain to your mix, it will most likely work to break down the gluten structure of your dough and make it less strong. This is due to the little bits of corn, rye husk or semolina acting like little knives that cut the dough open as it rises, so take care when shaping and rising these types of doughs.