List of my articles on bread baking technique
A lot of bread © kvalifood.com
An overview of all my articles on bread baking technique. I have also updated the content along the way — adding new images, explanations and graphics.
Bread Baking Technique #1 - The Baker’s Percentage
When making varied and/or large quantities of bread the easiest way to write your recipes are as “bakers percentage”. Where ingredients are measured in percents as compared to the total amount of flour. Understanding the bakers percentage also makes you a better baker because it helps you understand the structure of bread recipes instead of just memorising numbers.
Bread Baking Technique #2 - Measuring and Weighing Flour
In many recipes the measurements are volumetric — liters, milliliters, cups, quarts — rather than weight measurements such as kg, gram, lbs and oz. If you know the recipe, or don’t have a scale, it’s a fine shortcut. But it is not without problems. Here I show why.
Bread Baking Technique #3 - Classification of Bread
Bread can be divided into several categories. As soon as you know them, it’s easy to see a new recipe and say “ah, that’s this kind of bread.” Which makes it easier to adapt any recipe for your own taste.
Bread Baking Technique #4 - The 12 Stages In The Life of Any Bread
When we bake any bread it goes through 12 stages every time. Not all twelve stages are equally important in all kinds of bread. But once you know them — and the classification of bread — you will rarely need to read the directions section of a bread recipe again.
Bread Baking Technique #5 - Mixing and Kneading Bread
Video Recipe - Kneading bread is not just mixing the ingredients together. It determines how airy the final bread will be. Here I show a basic kneading principle that can be used for any type of dough, and demonstrate what gluten is and what it does.
Bread Baking Technique #6 - The Rise of The Bread, or Fermentation
The fermentation stage of the dough is the most important stage when making a good bread, and there are many different ways to do it right. There are also some tricks that can make you a better baker in general.
Bread Baking Technique #7 - Fermentation of Doughs - Timelapse Videos
Sometimes the fermentation times in your recipe just don’t fit with the schedule you have for the day. I’ve had some difficulty finding exact info on what influence yeast has on fermentation times, also in relation to how much fluid is in the dough. So here’s a biology report with my own experiments — and with timelapse videos of dough rising. I’m sure this is the most geeky article I have ever made … but I was curious.
Bread Baking Technique #8 - Baking The Bread
What most of us think about when we say baking, is putting the dough into the oven and pulling it back out hot and delicious. But if you understand the process you can have your bread be even more delicious.
Bread Baking Technique #9 - Baking Stones, Pizza Stones and Steam In The Oven - a technical article that will only interest bread geeks!
Home ovens have a lot of problems. Most of them can be addressed with a few tricks. One of the best tricks is using a baking stone. You can buy baking stones in many places, but they are rarely optimal. So I made up some tricks myself so I can bake bread with the best of them.
Bread Baking Technique #10 - The Technique Behind Laminated Dough Used for Pastry, Puff Pastry, Croissant, etc.
Laminated bread is made by making a normal bun dough and then folding it in layers with butter in between. Using croissants as an example I show here what results the different methods will yield. This should enable you to “understand” laminated bread instead of just following a recipe.
Bread Baking Technique #11 - Bakery Bread - French Bread, Baguettes, Rolls, Sausage Bread, Sandwich and Burger Buns, Braided Bread and Boules
Video Recipe - It’s all bread that can be made from the same basic recipe, so here they are all merged into one. It is based on my “classic french bread recipe”. Not the best bread in the world, but very close to what you buy at most bakeries. This is also my video number 100 … yay!
You might also like Make a Sourdough Starter.