Breads

Beware of bread making. During the winter months it will be especially hard to resist some therapeutic kneading, and a loaf in the oven makes every home seem more snug. But if you like to experiment, you may find yourself trying artisanal breads made with tricky natural starters. In short order, matters can get out of hand and you’ll find yourself spending more time making bread than you had imagined.

Most bread is a mixture of water, flour, salt, and yeast. Some bread has oil, butter, eggs, or milk added, or sometimes bits of other ingredients, such as olives or prosciutto, but the essential elements are invariably the same. The process used to transform these ingredients into a variety of different types of breads varies little from recipe to recipe as well. Virtually all bread is made by kneading together flour, water, salt, and yeast to form a supple dough, letting the dough rise until doubled or so, and then punching down the dough, shaping it, letting it rise again, and finally baking it. But the same recipe seldom yields the same result every time. Fortunately, the baker seldom screws up so badly that the bread is inedible. Usually, the worst that happens is that your loaf turns out looking a little funny.