Yeast

What is focaccia really? Is it pizza? Is it bread? Well, it’s a little bit of both. This version of focaccia is definitely a crowd-pleaser. Just stand back and watch people’s eyes light up as they get the zip from the crushed red pepper. That, along with the subtle taste of the roasted garlic, makes this a perfect food to share—just make sure whoever you talk to eats some of it, too.

I first tasted Ralph Watterson’s Six Rivers Tuna last year when he and his group of bicycling buddies passed through Frederickburgs on a four-day cycling trip. His tuna provides hearty lunches for the group as they cover 300 miles and cross six rivers on their annual spring cycling trip. I asked for the recipe, which he described as his mother’s version, plus a few embellishments of his own. I made it, tried it out at the bakery, and our tuna sandwich sales skyrocketed. Ralph’s Six Rivers Tuna is now a part of our regular menu. Given its proven track record as a recipe that travels, I figured it would be great for an outdoor picnic or a potluck. On bike trips, Ralph says he often serves it with crackers. I wanted something more substantial and created a soft, honey-kissed roll that when split and filled with tuna makes a memorable and satisfying sandwich that travels with ease.

This simple technique, adapted from Jim Lahey of Co. pizza restaurant and Sullivan Street Bakery in New York, is based on his famous no-knead bread. It makes for a very sticky, loose dough that seems as if it won’t be easy to work with, but is very forgiving and performs well with the broiler method featured in the pizza recipes that follow. This dough requires some planning: You can start it in the morning and make pizza that evening, or start it the night before you want pizza for dinner.

When I told Sam Fromartz, a fantastic home baker who blogs at Chewswise.com, that I was playing around with pizza doughs, he persuaded me to try his take, which uses spelt, an ancient variety of wheat with a wonderfully nutty flavor and without the bitterness of whole wheat flour. Spelt is a little tricky to work with because it stretches very easily, but the addition of white bread flour brings structure. This no-knead dough, based on versions by Jim Lahey and Peter Reinhart, benefits from a long rise, preferably overnight. The result is a very flavorful dough, perfect for home pizza-making. Like the No-Knead Pizza Dough (page 104), it is sticky and loose, but comes together in a beautiful crust. It also requires a little forethought: You can make the dough in the evening for use the next day, or in the morning to use in the evening.

Most flat breads carry with them a long list of social and culinary baggage. Pita, matzo, injera, casava, rieska: you have to take the bread’s cuisine with you to the table. The pretzel is unique because you can take it wherever you want! It’s a snack food through and through, though its twisted form is steeped in folklore and symbolism. The first pretzels were made in monasteries in the seventh century, and given out on church feast days. The shape is said to represent a child’s arms in prayer. I think a better resemblance is found in the image of two wrestlers drinking beer—which monks also invented. The smoky majesty of Maine hickory smoked salt is a miracle that the monks would surely have prayed for.

The cakes, cookies, or pies may have lured you into this book, but you are about to meet your favorite recipe. This bread dough is always tasty, very forgiving, and can be fashioned into nearly any style or variety of bready item. It takes a very “don’t take yourself so seriously!” approach to bread baking and is the easiest, most versatile recipe in the book—your resulting bagel bombs, volcanoes, brioche, focaccia, and croissants will be proof of that. Make this dough one day, refrigerate it, and use it the second, third, or fourth day, if need be. Or freeze it for up to 1 week; just make sure to let it come to room temperature before using.

The yeast, in addition to letting the batter sit for at least six hours, gives these waffles a chewy consistency and a slightly pungent flavor. One note on preparation: Since this batter needs to stand overnight, be sure to prepare it a day in advance. You can freeze these waffles, well wrapped, for up to a month. Simply heat them until nice and crispy in a preheated 350°F oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

In Greece and Turkey, this bread is called Christopsomo or tsoureki (also known as lambpropsomo during Easter). It differs from stollen in that it’s proofed before baking, but the proofing time is shorter than for panettone. Mastic gum, also called mastica, is an aromatic gum resin derived from the bark of a Mediterranean shrub tree in the pistachio family. It can be found at stores that specialize in Greek and Middle Eastern ingredients. It adds a subtle and......breath-freshening flavor and aroma (no surprise, it has long been used as a natural breath freshener).

Hot cross buns are a traditional Good Friday bread, but they can be made anytime (in Elizabethan England they could only be baked during Easter week or during Christmas, but times have changed). There are, of course, many similar commemorative breads throughout Europe, each with their own twist. Currants and spices such as allspice, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon are commonly used in the English version. Much folklore and many recipe variations for hot cross buns are available on the Internet (and they’re worth reading), but I prefer the following additions to the basic holiday bread recipe. However, feel free to use your own favorite spice and fruit combinations, or simply bake the buns without any additions, as the buns are wonderful with or without the fruit, spices, and glazed cross.

The dough for croissants, Danish, and certain other pastries is made by a method known as lamination, which involves folding layers of dough and butter (or another fat) to create many thin layers that puff when baked. Puff pastry, the classic unyeasted version of this dough, is used to make many pastries. In this book, I’ll stick with a yeasted formula that can be used to make both croissants and Danish pastry. There are many versions of laminated dough and many systems of rolling to create a specific number of layers. The system I’m presenting here certainly isn’t the only one that works, but I like it because it’s easy and also incorporates overnight fermentation to create a superb product. Feel free to modify it if you prefer more or fewer layers. The most common error home bakers make when laminating is to apply too much pressure to the dough, which breaks the paper-thin layers of dough and fat. To help with this, the formula here creates a very soft, pliable dough, and the method calls for a fair amount of dusting with flour to prevent sticking. There are two parts to the final dough: the détrempe and the butter block. The détrempe is the plain dough before the butter is rolled in. The butter block is the fat that will be laminated between layers of dough. There are many ways to incorporate the fat into the détrempe, including spreading it by hand in dabs over the rolled-out dough, which is sometimes called spotting. The method here is more systematic, using a series of letter folds (in thirds) to produce 81 layers of dough and fat—more than enough for a great accordion-style expansion of the layers (one of the recipe testers called it a concertina effect). Should you decide to experiment and try making more layers, just keep in mind that the layers are more vulnerable to rupturing as they get thinner, which defeats the purpose of laminating. I always suggest getting good at 81 layers before adding a fourth letter fold, which will increase the number of layers to 243. You can use either unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour for the dough. Bread flour provides more structure, while all-purpose flour, being slightly softer, makes a more tender product.

Panettone is the famous Christmas bread of Milan, though it is now made and consumed year round. Pandoro, or “golden bread,” originated in Verona and is traditionally baked in starshaped molds, but otherwise bears strong similarities to its more well-known Milanese counterpart. Although this dough can be mixed by hand, it’s very hard to do so because of the long mixing time required, so I recommend using a stand mixer. (You could also use a food processor if you pulse, rather than processing for extended periods.) At first, the dough will be more like a batter, but as you scrape down the mixing bowl, it will eventually form a very supple, delicate dough that feels wonderful to the touch. It can be formed into a ball or other bread shapes, but if you squeeze too hard it will become loose and sticky again. You may want to purchase paper or metal panettone or pandoro molds, which are available at specialty cookware stores. Keep in mind that smaller loaves bake more quickly and are softer and less crusty than larger loaves. Muffin and popover pans, as well as small brioche cups, make nice molds for mini loaves, as do small cans. You’ll end up with a better loaf if you let the dough rise slowly at room temperature rather than force the rise (for example, by placing the dough in a pilot-lit oven, which is a tempting way to speed up the rising time for many doughs). It may take up to 12 hours for the dough to rise and fill the form, but it’s worth the wait. Warmer proofing risks melting the butter in the dough, so the finished product will have the structure of a kugelhopf coffee cake—which isn’t bad, but it doesn’t have the unique peel-apart qualities of the slower-rising panettone or pandoro.

Babka is a rich, yeasted cross between bread and coffee cake with an equally rich Russian and Polish culinary heritage. The name is derived from the Russian baba, which means grandmother, an appropriate name for this wonderful comfort food. While it is mostly known as a popular Jewish bread filled with some combination of chocolate, cinnamon, almonds, even poppy seeds and sometimes topped with streusel, it can also be filled with raisins or soaked with rum, as in baba au rhum. The dough is rich enough that it can also be used for brioche and kugelhopf. In American bakeries, babka is most often formed as a twisted loaf with veins of the sweet filling running throughout, baked either in a loaf pan or freestanding. However, the Israeli version, known as kranz cake, uses a dramatic shaping technique that many of my recipe testers found appealing. This recipe is my favorite version, with both cinnamon and chocolate in the filling. Of course, you can leave out the chocolate and make a cinnamon sugar version, or leave out the cinnamon and make just a chocolate version, but I say, why leave out either? It’s easier to grind the chocolate chips or chunks if they’re frozen. After you grind them, you can add the cinnamon and butter and continue to process them all together. The streusel topping is also optional, but I highly recommend using it on the freestanding versions.

The simple, sweet enriched dough for these cinnamon buns is very versatile. It can also be used to make to make everything from sticky buns (page 145) and coffee crumb cake (page 150) to fruit-filled thumbprint pastries (page 152). Even though this dough doesn’t contain eggs, it can still make all of these products, and more, but with less work and fewer calories than some of the richer recipes that follow. I wouldn’t exactly call this health food, but anything made with this dough is definitely comfort food to the max! I’ve suggested chopped walnuts or pecans, but feel free to experiment with other nuts. I’ve given you the option of either a cream cheese frosting or a fondant glaze, both of which are delicious and commonly used in pastry shops. The corn syrup in the fondant glaze is optional, but using it will make the glaze smoother. Using milk, rather than water, in the fondant will also make it creamier and softer.

There are a number of ways to make pretzels, but I like this version, especially when the pretzels are served with mustard. The baking method is similar to making bagels, but not quite the same. Traditionally, pretzels are dipped in pans of food-grade lye and water to create the distinctive shiny, dark brown crust, but this kind of lye is difficult to obtain and dangerous to have lying around the house, so I suggest substituting a baking soda solution. However, if you can obtain lye and are comfortable using it, follow the instructions on the package. (To use lye crystals, combine 0.75 ounce or 21 grams of crystals with 2 cups of water and be sure to wear protective gloves and eyewear—you can see why I prefer baking soda!)

Because the cheese may bubble and run out of this bread while in the oven, I advise baking the loaves on a parchment-lined sheet pan rather than directly on a baking stone. Any cheese that does run out onto the pan will be like a crispy little cheese snack, so it won’t go to waste.

There are many ways to make rye bread, and every bread lover has a favorite version. But when push comes to shove, the style that sells the most is soft sandwich rye. This version includes the optional use of cocoa powder, which darkens the bread in the style of pumpernickel. Other optional ingredients, whether caraway, minced dried onion, or nigella seeds (also known as black onion seeds), transform this recipe into various regional favorites. Adding orange oil or extract and anise seeds, for example, turns it into a Swedish-style limpa rye bread. You can use various types of rye flour in this recipe. The version most commonly sold is the “white flour” version of rye, with the bran and germ sifted out. But if you look around, you should be able to find stone-ground, whole grain, or dark rye flour, as well as pumpernickel flour. You could even use rye chops or rye meal, which are more coarsely ground, resembling cracked wheat or steel-cut oats. The trade-off is that whole rye flour is more healthful, while light rye yields a softer, lighter loaf. The choice is yours. The molasses is an important flavor component in this bread, but feel free to reduce the amount or replace it with sorghum syrup or golden sugar syrup. Just don’t use blackstrap molasses, which is too strong; look for a product labeled “old-fashioned,” “fancy,” or “unsulfured.”

This type of dough is often referred to as milk dough, since the primary enrichment is milk, whether whole, skim, buttermilk, or powdered. It also contains a fair amount of sweetener and some form of fat or oil. All of these enrichments serve to keep the bread soft and slightly sweet. Because of the many enrichments, the dough has a larger percentage of yeast than lean dough, so it’s especially important to put it into the refrigerator right after it’s mixed to avoid overfermentation. If you use honey or agave nectar instead of sugar, increase the amount of flour by 3 1/2 to 7 tablespoons (1 to 2 oz / 28.5 to 56.5 g). This dough makes wonderful sandwich bread and can also be used to make many different types of rolls, including hamburger and hot dog buns. See the variations on page 106 for a variety of possibilities.

I get emails all the time asking for Philadelphia-style hoagie and cheesesteak rolls. There is something about the cultural connection we Philly folk have with these iconic sandwiches that makes many people believe that Philadelphia’s Amoroso’s Baking Company is the only place to find a good hoagie roll, which is, of course, not true. The key to this type of roll is a nice balance of texture and flavor, somewhere between lean dough and soft enriched dough, with just enough “chew” to stand up to the fillings without making it overly hard to eat the darn thing. The overnight fermentation method is ideal for this because it brings out maximum flavor with very little hands-on time. The optional barley malt syrup provides a nice undertone of flavor that’s difficult to identify and also helps with crust color. This dough also makes great Kaiser rolls.

This bread can be used for anything that you’d make with white bread, including buns, rolls, and toast. You can use either traditional “red” whole wheat flour or the new “white” whole wheat that is lighter in color and slightly less bitter. If you choose the honey or agave nectar option in this recipe, you’ll need more flour than if you use sugar, probably an extra 3 1/2 to 7 tablespoons (1 to 2 oz). Assess the texture as you mix and adjust accordingly.

No bread is as good for us as one made completely from whole grains. The challenge with 100 percent whole grain breads, though, is achieving an open crumb and airy texture. The bran fiber in the whole grain flour, while extremely beneficial in our diet, acts like little razors in the dough, cutting the thin gluten strands. This makes it difficult for the loaf to rise as high as white flour loaves. The antidote is to use a higher percentage of hydration, which counteracts some of the stiffness caused by the bran, softening the fiber and promoting additional oven spring. The dough will seem very soft when it is first mixed but will gradually firm up as it ferments, as the fiber slowly swells as it absorbs the water. As more and more of us make the switch to whole grains, this bread will become a valuable addition to your repertoire. For a variety of options in making this bread, see page 83, where you’ll find multigrain suggestions, guidelines for making transitional breads with less than 100 percent whole grains, and more.

Pizzerias have long known the value of overnight, delayed fermentation, and I’ve written about this extensively in American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza, as well as in other books. After teaching hundreds of pizza and focaccia classes around the country and assessing the relative benefits of the many versions of pizza dough that I wrote about in other books, I’m including and updating the most popular versions here. This recipe is a variation of the neo-Neapolitan dough I introduced in Amercian Pie. I recommend making individual size pizzas, because the heat in home ovens simply isn’t sufficient to do a good job on larger pizzas. This dough will keep for up to 4 days in the refrigerator or for months in the freezer; just be sure to move it from the freezer to the refrigerator the day before you need it, so it can thaw slowly, then treat it like refrigerated dough. Both the sugar and the oil in this formula are optional. If you leave them out, you have a Napoletana dough (though not a true pizza Napoletana dough unless you use Italian “00” flour, which is softer and more extensible than American flour and does not require as much water). However, in my pizza classes across the country, this version, which is similar to the dough used at some of the top American pizzerias (such as Frank Pepe’s, Sally’s, Totonno’s, and Lombardi’s), always gets the most votes for favorite.

This recipe uses sourdough starter primarily as a flavor enhancer rather than for leavening. It adds a subtle complexity without drawing attention to itself. However, if you prefer a more tart flavor you can omit the instant yeast and give the dough four hours of fermentation at room temperature before dividing it into dough balls and refrigerating.