Go to the Recipe: French Country Bread in One Day
Sometimes more flour is needed in the initial dough, but for this recipe you wouldn't know until after the first bulk fermentation. Wet doughs require either more flour to help shape on the bench or using a wet shaping method. Wet shaping uses wet hands, and wet surfaces. You can also knead in more flour to the dough after bulk fermentation and let it rest to make more manageable.
how do you work the dough with such high hydration, so wet, droopy, hard to manage
At room temperature. You can fold back to back as long as the dough is relaxed. Once it starts to tighten up you can allow to rest 5-20 minutes in between folds. Keep covered.
Can you please clarify if the first 24hr fermentation is in or out of the fridge, and how much time do you need to wait in between folding rounds when you are shaping the dough?
I have a Staub 24 (4 quart) and the trick I use is to put it in the oven upside down. The lid nob on the top of the cover fits (with a little effort) into the grates of my oven rack. I can then just preheat the Staub upside down. Transfer the bread to some parchment paper and easily place it on the lid. Spray some water into the hot bottom and cover the bread. No more awkward sliding bread into a deep pot. Deep pot covers the bread. Win win!
This is great. I bake bread three times a week, but am entirely self-taught. This answers a lot of questions. More like this!
Not my prettiest photo, but it turned out great! Even with the whole wheat + rye additions, it was super airy and soft. Thanks for the tips. I really, really like this recipe format where you can sort of pick and choose areas you want to put more or less time/effort into to achieve different results. I rehydrated the cherries overnight, toasted the pecans, and added some dark chocolate chunks. I've got another loaf in the oven now, without inclusions.
Hello Jack, Add any inclusions at the very end after the gluten is developed. Everything else is the same up to then.
Question... I'm going to make a slightly modified version of this with some whole wheat + rye flour, and I'm planning to mix in dried cherries and pecans. What stage of the process should I add mix-ins/what modifications should I make to the process?
Hi! Can anyone offer some tips for baking this at higher altitude? In Denver, so 5000 ft. Thx!
You need to let it come up to room temperature for at least an hour or two before baking. Leave it covered and wait until it doesn't feel chilled any more. The surface should also leave a slight dent if you poke it with a finger.
I’ve never baked anything harder than soda bread and only had instant yeast and self rising flour. I did a double batch and took the middle road with the first proof overnight and the second only about 4 hours. The dough was quite sticky and I found using a silicone spatula to help fold in the beginning was perfect. I also converted my olive oil mister into a water mister which really helped getting moisture into the Dutch oven. One of my Dutch ovens is ceramic and one is cast iron. The loaf cooked in the cast iron was darker and had more air pockets. Overall the flavor was incredible, nice crunchy crust, soft middle. I made some homemade butter and gave one loaf as a gift and devoured the second loaf!
spritz the bread
I’ve made this recipe twice and both loaves were a bit flat. Tasted great. I used King Arthur AP flour with some added gluten. Weighed all my ingredients. Baked in a preheated Dutch oven. I did not spritz the bread. Any suggestions?
Do u need to put in the chiller for the 1st 24 hr proof
My loaf came out heavy and dense, even though I maxed out the time for each of the steps. I wonder if it fell flat because I took it right out of the refrigerator after 24 hours of proofing and put it into my preheated Dutch oven without letting it come to room temperature first. Does anyone have any ideas about whether or not that was the problem? The crust was wonderfully crunchy and I love the yeasty flavor of the bread, but it was not the country loaf I was expecting, so I would appreciate any suggestions for improvement.
The fan may help to heat up but is not necesarry for bread baking. Bake to an internal temperature of 205 f.
Wow, amazing crumb texture! The only issue I had was flavor; the yeast was very strong. Next time I’m going to try combining this recipe with Kenji’s from the food lab and see if a few days of fermentation in the fridge helps.
Normally I think bread is baked without convection. When shielding the bread with the Dutch Oven, would you recommend turning the fan on or leaving it off?
I can imagine turning it on, at least for preheat, would allow everything to come up to temp faster.
Other question: would you bake the bread to a specific core temp?
Are you supposed to cover the bowl while the dough autolyzes? I made this last week. Turned out great except the bottom crust was a bit chewier than I prefer.
Keep in min, some duct oven lids have a plastic knob, which is good up till 400 , after that, you risk it cracking.
Just leave the dough on the parchment paper. Hold the corners of the paper and lower the paper and dough into the the dutch oven. The bread will bake just fine sitting on the paper.
So far so good...
I didn't have a banetton so i used a bowl lined with a linen towel. When I turned out the dough it didn't hold its shape and stuck to the paper and was difficult to get into the dutch oven. After baking the bread had a much larger crumb than the one pictured and was very difficult to slice - tasted great though. Any suggestions?
You'll want a kitchen scale and to weigh everything. Baking bread is better this way
I can't seem to get the ingredients correct from grams to cups,tsp,etc
This recipe appears to have been published just a few days ago, in early April 2020. When everyone should be staying at home if at all possible, shopping online or infrequently in supermarkets, and social distancing if they must go out.
It is clearly and for obvious reasons, a simple use-what-you-have-in-the-house recipe. If you have rice flour in your pantry and are qualified to fairly critique the nuances of bread recipes and baking methods: good for you but this is not the time.
Everyone else: stay at home, use the ingredients and equipment you already have, it will be fine.
A little clarification here please. You have 446F / 230C with lid on and 374F / 190C with lid off. But your graph shows 240 and 210C respectively. This translates to 464F and 410F. Can you tell me which temperature is preferred (understanding that all ovens are a little different).
Thank you,
Philip
Am I able to substitute starter for the yeast in this and if so how much starter (100% hydration) would you use?
I've always been a "stretch and fold" baker, so this simple folding method was bizarre to me. I was surprised when I found that there wasn't a noticeable difference between the two methods https://breadtopia.com/sourdough-technique-experiment-no-knead-vs-the-works/
Your Step 5 is different than most others (at least to me). It seems you pour out the dough and do a few folds (which are not well described IMHO) on the bench in an apparently short time. It doesn't seem like you allow for good gluten formation. Generally others do the folds, with wet hands, in the bowl and wait 10 to 20 minutes between folds to develop the gluten (or if they do the folds on the bench they put it back in the bowl between folds). Reihhart would do 3 folds in less than 40 minutes. Am I missing something?
is the initial 24h resting period in the fridge? It doesn't specify.
Hello, Made this bread at home with KA flour. All I had was instant yeast. I do not have a banneton and proofed in bowl with a cloth dusted with whole wheat flour. Rested overnight in the fridge and baked from cold in a preheated dutch oven. Formula is approved. Hope everyone is happy baking out there.
Thanks for flagging this, I see where the confusion was and made some updates above.
That is exactly correct, Richard. The temperatures are based on Celsius and are automatically converted to Fahrenheit via the websites software. With any rustic loaf recipe, the goal is to get maximum/ good oven spring in the beginning (high heat and high humidity) and then taper down the temperature so you can finish the bake without over browning the loaf.
I'm sorry you feel that way, I am trying to add a basic country loaf recipe that has some flexibility in it. With the recipe above, I do recommend using a Dutch oven and I do recommend using rice flour as well. It's more of a matter if substitutions if you don't have those items.
Hello Robin, Here is the bakers percentage formula.
100% Bread flour
75% Water
.75% Yeast
1% Salt
5% sugar
Every flour is a little different from brand to brand. Dough should be wet and tacky when first mixed.
Hello Keith, the water spray will need to happen as soon as you load the bread into the dutch oven. This will produce a blast of steam in the beginning of the bake. The initial steam will help with crust development. You can omit the water spray and still have good results in the dutch oven, as baking in the dutch oven with the lid on will produce humidity naturally from the moisture escaping the bread. The water spray will give you a thicker and more developed crust and is only needed in the beginning of the bake.
Hello Liam, Yes, pre-heat the dutch oven at least 30 minutes.
This is normal, but you can do wet folding or dry folding. The above hydration ratio (75%) is based on King Arthur bread flour.
All flours are different, but the dough starts drier and it thins as it hydrates over times.
Keith, you want to spray the water on the dough, right when you add it to the preheated Dutch oven pot, then pop the lid on and bake away. It's adding extra moisture to help with the initial oven spring. Does this makes sense?
Yes! Always preheat for a maximum oven spring.
do i need to pre heat the dutch oven also?
I love the descriptive/pictorial instructions. Doing this the first time, I am confused about the instruction between Baking Part One and Part Two. Exactly when do I spray water in? Part One reads as 25 minutes with the lid on, then spray water for steam, then replace the lid, and then in Part Two immediately remove the lid. Please clarify. Thank you
Keith, I totally agree with you. I’ve used a Lodge pot and lid for years and get absolutely brilliant results without all the folderol. Definitely recommend simple goes a long ways and some nice fold n turn prior to that first rise is what does it. all you need is a bowl that’s been lightly oiled turn it into it covered up let it sit 18-24 hrs. just about perfect. Chewy, great crumb. Nutty and delicious.
The awkward numbers looks like the result of them doing everything in Celsius and then doing a blanket conversion to Fahrenheit (ex: 482F == 250C). So, I think they're giving us exactly what they tested, and if there were to be a complaint, it'd be about using C instead of F. Personally, I'm not all that concerned about it, because, like you pointed out, I can easily round this to something in F, and probably get the same results. This could be smoothed out with code that dynamically converts C to F (or whatever F precision their oven's do), but, then again, maybe they don't have that coded up yet and just want the recipe to drop.
As for the product placement stuff, I think sometimes you just gotta feed the monkey. At least, at the end of the day, it is a really nice oven. I've got a pretty high end range, and the countertop oven beats it at most tasks.
Hi,
After mixing, my dough doesn't look NEARLY as wet, and I added an extra 50g water. Mine is more sticky/thick, like the Tartine dough. Not nearly as shiny as this one. Can anyone tell me what the definitive measurements are? Cheers!
You should probably do some more folds, check out https://www.communitygrains.com/recipe-items/craig-ponsford-makes-ciabatta/ where he is making a super high hydration bread. It also shows good technique for dealing with "fluid" dough.
So the dough I got after fermenting for 16hrs was very fluid and sticky to the point that I could not work it at all. I have to add additional flour to just work it and that just made it lumpy. I fear putting it onto a floured linen, that it will stick on it and that I will not be able to transfer it into a dutch oven.
In their defense the text does say that rice flour is an option, It is magic to keep the dough from sticking to the banneton, as it doesn't form gluten. There are a ton of good bread websites out there for people to learn more about baking.
This baking method is kind of a joke, don’t get me wrong I have been a long time supporter of ChefSteps because they really do offer so much information. Unfortunately bread is not in that wheel house.
Use a Dutch oven, use rice flour not corn meal, and for an incredible custard texture and open crumb bread making is a lot more in depth than what a “smart oven” can do for you.
That is a good question. The website developer forgot to include that goofy "Smart Air Oven (TM) Approved" graphic that has littered itself across otherwise good recipes. I would assume this one is not, but rather they just took a recipe that works great in a real oven and pasted it into the Smart Air Oven (TM). Because, after all, can you really count on your normal oven to set itself to 482* 446* and 372*?
I swear the pretentiousness of these recipes can be insane. They even show the graphic of temperature consistency and it has peaks and valleys. I would bet it all that there is no functional difference in setting your Smart Air Oven (TM)! to 485, 445, or 375, but then it wouldn't give off the airs that they literally tried every possible iteration (they did not) and decided on some 1-degree difference.
Anyone know if the size of the recommended Staub 4qt makes sense for use in the Smart Oven Air?
