I like making bread. This page has some simplified recipes for different tasty breads. It’s mostly a reference for myself because sometimes I forget the ratios, and many a website will list ingredients by volume (see below for why this matters). Maybe some day I will post pictures and more detail. Until then, you can enjoy my bread journey on Twitter (thread reader if you would rather not open Twitter).
This page does not aim to be a complete baking instruction manual. I recommend checking out a couple of other instructive recipe pages like this one first.
Here are some quick links to the individual recipes:
All the percentages on this page are in terms of mass, not volume. Mass and volume are interchangeable for things like water, which are not very compressible, but not for ingredients like flour.
You may notice that the percentages do not add up to 100%. This is expected; they are percentages of the total flour in the recipe, not the total dough. For a recipe that says “100% flour” and “80% water”, you can pick 1000g of flour and 800g of water. If it says “80% wheat” and “20% white” then the two flours together add up to 100% of the total flour.
Water is variable in all of the following recipes. I prefer handling high hydration dough, so I use 80% water.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
White flour 100 %
Water 80 %
Salt 2 %
Yeast 1 %
OR
Sourdough levain 20 %
Bake 1 hour at 450F. After 45 minutes, remove lid1.
Optionally, soak some oats (or other seeds and grains) in water for an hour and spread them on the top of the bread right before baking. The water soak keeps them from burning.
I like King Arthur’s videos on shaping and pretty much everything else.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
White flour 80 %
Wheat flour 20 %
Water 80 %
Salt 2 %
Yeast 1 %
OR
Sourdough levain 20 %
Bake 1 hour at 450F. After 45 minutes, remove lid.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
White flour 100 %
Water 80 %
Olive oil 8 %
Salt 2 %
Yeast 1 %
Mix dough until minimal flour is visible and there are no major clumps. Place your dough tub, covered, in a warm environment, like an oven with the light on or an Instant Pot set to 80F on sous vide mode. Set a two hour timer.
Let sit for 15 minutes. Stretch and fold with wet hands. Let sit for 15 minutes. Stretch and fold with wet hands. Let sit for the duration of the time. The dough should have gotten pretty big and puffy.
Rub olive oil on internal surfaces of pan. Olive oil your hands. Delicately transfer dough from tub to pan. Rub olive oil into the top of the dough blob. Let relax for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 425F. Gently stretch and poke dough to fit dimensions of pan.
Additional water, olive oil, salt, and herbs required for topping. Let it relax further while the oven preheats. Bake 35 minutes.
I like how this man from Genoa makes his focaccia. I learned a lot from his shaping and poking and dressing.
Percentages are in terms of total flour in each subcomponent. I haven’t figured out an understandable way to convey this, so I included an “Example” column to disambiguate.
Ingredient Quantity Example
---------- -------- -------
BIGA
White flour 100 % 225 g
Water 75 % 170 g
Yeast 0.1 % 1/8 tsp
DOUGH
Biga 175 % 395 g
White flour 100 % 225 g
Water 75 % 170 g
Salt 2 % 9 g
Yeast 1 % 3 g
Make biga overnight. Combine with dough in the morning. Stretch and fold once or twice. Don’t shape. Gently transfer to counter or floured pan to prove a little bit. Bake 25 minutes at 425F.
See the King Arthur recipe and pro formulas. They differ a little bit in their hydation but that’s fine.
Also make sure to watch Martin and his kid bake this.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
Rye flour 85 %
White flour 15 %
Water 80 %
Honey 8 % (as needed)
Salt 2 %
Yeast 1 %
Stretch and fold as usual, but don’t shape. Instead, pat it down into a rectangular baking pan. Brush the top with honey. Bake 1 hour at 450F.
See white/wheat loaf. Oil a large pan or baking sheet. Shape dough into equal-sized tiny boules. Arrange on the pan. Prove 20 minutes. Bake 30 minutes at 325F.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
AP flour 100 %
White sugar 20 %
Water 35 %
Vegetable oil 12 % (1/4 cup)
Vanilla extract 2.6 % (1 tbsp)
Eggs 2 ct
Salt 2 %
Yeast 1.5 %
Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients. Stretch, fold, and rest until doubled. Roll to 1/2 inches thick. Cut out circles. Prove. Fry 90 seconds/side. Fill. Celebrate.
Sourced from thetasteofkosher.com.
For eight (8) sizeable scones, use ~240g flour. This requires a little less than a small carton of blueberries.
Ingredient Quantity
---------- --------
AP flour 100 %
Salt 1/2 tsp
Granulated sugar 21 %
Baking powder 5 %
Cold butter 35 %
Eggs 2 ct
Yogurt 24 %
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Fresh blueberries 59 %
Mix dry ingredients. Chop butter into chunks. Add butter to flour. Mix wet ingredients (including blueberries). Incorporate into dry ingredients. Scoop into appropriately-sized balls on a greased baking sheet. Bake 22 minutes at 375F.
Substitute fruit as appropriate.
Sourced from kingarthurbaking.com.
It’s easier to pour flour into water and mix it up than the other way around. This helps avoid flour getting stuck on the bottom of your bowl.
Learn to bake bread on your schedule.
Not all of these are required. Some people will tell you to buy a bunch of expensive equipment. Bake with what you have, and if you want to incrementally improve your tools, go for it.
A very smart person once asked me, “Is bread defined by its ingredients?” I would argue that the magic of bread is that it is more than the sum of its component parts, and therefore is not entirely defined by its ingredients. Timing, folding, shaping, and scoring have huge impact on the final product. Put some love into your loaves.
This used to say “after 20 minutes, remove lid” because that’s how I did it. But apparently I have been doing this wrong for years because I misread the King Arthur website one time. Keeping the lid on longer produces more steam and may give your bread more lift/fluff. We’ll see how my new breads develop. ↩