Understanding Bread Making Step-By-Step | kneading, proofing, bulk fermentation, shaping

hey there it's Baker Bettie and welcome back to  another video today we are going to talk through   the process of a standard bread recipe all bread  recipes sort of go through the same steps and i   want to talk about each one and what you need to  look for in your dough. bread recipes are a little   bit unique because you need to think of them more  as a guideline rather than a strict recipe that   you want to follow there are adjustments that you  will want to make to your dough and your timeline   as you go through the process and this is all  dependent on where you live and how cool or warm   your environment is and the different ingredients  that you will use so let's talk through all the   steps and i'll show you the different things that  you need to look for as you are making your bread   so i have some more in-depth videos that go into  what yeast is and all of the nuances of how it   works and i will link those in the description  box but let's do a really quick overview so yeast   is a fungus which means it is a living organism  however the dry type of yeast that we are going   to work with today is asleep and it needs to  wake up in order to make our bread dough rise   now there are two different basic types of yeast  that you're going to find in the grocery store   there's active dry yeast and there's instant yeast  which also might be labeled as rapid rise or quick   rising yeast now active dry yeast is the original  form of yeast that came on the market when dry   yeast was invented and originally it did need to  be hydrated in some liquid before it went into   your bread dough however almost all active dry  yeast today does not actually need to be hydrated   and it can go right into your dry ingredients  the same way instant or quick rising yeast can   but there might be some instances in which you  would want to hydrate your yeast before you put   it in your dough so proofing your yeast is an  optional step that can be done at the beginning   of your bread recipe and what this does is it just  wakes your yeast up and gives you signs that it is   alive you might want to do this if you're a little  bit nervous about working with yeast and you want   to make sure that your yeast is definitely  active before it goes into your bread dough   or you might also want to do it if you need things  to move a little quicker or if you're a little   concerned that your yeast might be old yeast does  become less active with age so if you have some   yeast that's been in your cupboard for a really  long time i would suggest proofing your yeast   before you go forward with your bread recipe so  to proof your yeast all you're going to do is take   some of the liquid from your bread recipe about a  quarter to a half cup and you do want the liquid   to be warm somewhere around 110 to 120 degrees  fahrenheit and you're going to pour your yeast   right into that liquid now you can do this with  either active dry or rapid rise yeast the next   thing you're going to do is you're going to add a  small amount of sugar now if your recipe already   calls for sugar you can just use a little bit out  of that quantity just maybe about a half teaspoon   or so if your recipe doesn't call for sugar  then you're just going to add a little bit what   that sugar is going to do is it's going to wake  your yeast up and give it something to feed on   so i'm just going to stir this up in my  bowl with my warm liquid and that sugar   and you just want to let this sit for about 5  to 10 minutes what's going to happen during that   time is the yeast is going to wake up it starts  feeding on the sugar and it will start creating   CO2 gases which will make the mixture start  looking almost slightly carbonated you'll see   some bubbles popping to the top and you'll also  see some foaming action so once you start seeing   that in your mixture then you can go ahead and  move forward with your bread recipe if you wait   that five to ten minutes and you do not see any  activity at all then you know you need to get some   new yeast before you make your bread dough so the  next step of the bread process is to mix our dough   now for most standard bread recipes you  really don't have to be super concerned about   the order in which your ingredients are combined  some recipes might give you some specifics   but for the most part we're going to be  kneading our dough for a long period of time   and everything is going to get really well mixed  together during that process one of the most   common misconceptions i see out there about the  way you mix your ingredients is really avoiding   your salt touching your yeast now it is true that  salt does slow down the fermentation of your yeast   but unless it's in extremely high quantities it's  not going to kill your yeast and we actually want   the salt to slow down our fermentation so that  it doesn't get out of control so don't be too   concerned about that we're just going to throw  everything in our bowl and mix our dough together   now in general you're going to be working with  warm liquid for your yeast dough warmth is going   to get your yeast moving but you always want to  be careful that your liquid is not too hot yeast   will begin dying around 140 degrees fahrenheit  which feels pretty warm to the touch so if you   don't have a thermometer to check the temperature  of your liquid you might want to err on the side   of it being a little cooler so make sure it's  slightly warm but don't go too hot with your   liquid or you can definitely kill your yeast i  always like to start the dough mixing process with   something like a rubber spatula and then i get  my hands in there to really get it mixed together so once the dough looks like it's sort of at this  stage where most of the ingredients are pretty   much absorbed into it but it's not a very cohesive  dough then you can move on to the next step of the   process which is building your gluten structure  so i have my extra flour here and i'm going to go   ahead and lightly flour my counter and i'm going  to turn my dough out onto it and what we are doing   in this next step is building our gluten structure  and you can do this in your stand mixer if you   have a dough hook or you can do it by hand  and i really like people to practice doing   it by hand i think it's a good skill to have and  then you can really get a feel for your dough so   we start with a little flour on our counter we're  going to add a little bit on top and to our hands   and we're going to just start this process of  kneading our dough there are a lot of different   techniques for kneading bread dough by hand  but the way that i always teach my students   is to think about using the heel of your hand to  push the dough across your table you never want   to put the pressure down into the table you want  to go across your dough so i'm going to push the   dough across the table and then i kind of use my  fingers to grab it and bring it back towards me as   i push and rotate the dough and i'm just going to  do this over and over again now i can see that my   dough is super sticky it's really sticking to my  hands and it's really sticking to the countertop   if you don't already have one of these these  are called bench knives they're very very handy   for lots of things in the kitchen and especially  making bread dough so i'm putting a little more   flour down for myself and i'm going to continue  this kneading process now most bread doughs you   want them to still stay fairly sticky you want  enough flour in your dough that it's not gluing   itself to the table or gluing itself to your hands  but you don't want the dough to feel dry at all   so one thing i didn't mention when i was first  mixing my dough is that i was actually using the   smallest quantity of flour that my recipe listed  to mix into my dough so oftentimes bread recipes   will list a range of flour and you want to start  with the smallest amount that's listed in that   range and then you will have some more flour on  the side that as you're kneading your dough you   can work a little more in as needed and this  is one of the instances of where bread recipes   are guidelines rather than very strict rules  to follow now kneading your dough does take a   good amount of time if you're doing this by hand  you're going to probably need to do it for about   eight to ten minutes if you're doing this  in your stand mixer you're going to want to   go on about medium to medium-high speed and that  should probably take around six to eight minutes   so definitely a little bit of a workout when  you're doing it by hand but you can take breaks   and just keep working your dough until it starts  looking really really smooth and it feels elastic   to the touch and i'll kind of show you what  that looks like as i'm finished kneading here   so once you have kneaded your dough for a good  eight to ten minutes then you can go ahead and   start checking to see where you're at with your  gluten structure now some bakers like to perform   what's called the windowpane test where you really  pull the dough apart to see how far it can stretch   and see if you have a really strong gluten network  now depending on what kind of dough you have   if you have a lot of fat in your dough it can be  really difficult to perform this test and ever get   a window pane so for more beginner bread bakers i  like to perform a different test which i think is   a little easier to tell how your gluten structure  is so what you're going to do is you're going to   kind of round your dough up into a ball and get a  little bit of tension on the outside of your dough   and then dip your fingers in some flour and you're  going to press down on the dough now if you can   see here on my dough this hole is filling in  pretty quickly when i press it it's kind of   bouncy it could use a little bit more gluten it's  not really bouncing back up but it's got a pretty   good structure if you press down into the dough  and that hole just stays there and there's no   bounciness to it then i would definitely go ahead  and give yourself some more time with kneading   but in order to perform this test you do need to  get a little bit of tension on the outside of your   dough so make sure you round it into a ball and  then you're going to perform the finger dent test   so i'm going to knead my  dough a little bit longer here   so once you are happy with the amount you have  kneaded your dough we are going to move into what   is called the bulk fermentation phase now this is  the first rise your dough goes through before it   has been shaped some people will just refer to  it as the first rise and sometimes people also   use the word proofing for this part of the process  but i like to reserve the word proofing for the   second rise which we'll talk about in a little bit  just to avoid any confusion so bulk fermentation   is first rise before your dough has been shaped  so i like to give my bowl just a little bit of oil   just to help keep the dough moist and  not dry out while it's bulk fermenting   if there's a lot of fat in your dough you might  not need to do this but i think it's a good little   insurance policy so your dough doesn't dry out so  i'm just coating it turning it to coat in my bowl   and now we're just going to cover the bowl and  let it sit to rise i really like to use shower   caps to cover my bowls so now we are going to let  this bulk ferment until it has about doubled in   size and it is full of air i'll show you what  the dough should look like when it's finished   bulk fermenting now most bread recipes are going  to give you some guidelines about how long your   bulk fermentation process should take but keep  in mind that this is going to vary depending on   if you're using active dry or rapid rise yeast and  depending on how cool or warm your environment is   and how cool or warm the liquid that you put  into your dough was so some signs you want to   look for in your dough to determine if your bulk  fermentation process is done is it should look   like it has about doubled in size and it should  look puffy and full of air it might not be super   easy to see on this camera but i can tell that  there is air inside my dough another sign to look   for is if it is rounded around the sides of your  bowl it's kind of mounding up to the center and   then i can tell that there is air inside my dough  one last little check you can do to determine   if your dough has enough air in it is what is  called the float test now this isn't necessarily   foolproof because you do need to be careful that  you don't press all the air out of your dough when   you do this but you're just going to cut off a  little piece of dough and drop it in some water   now if your dough is floating that's a good  indicator that it has quite a bit of air in it   and you can go ahead and move on to your shaping  so once the bulk fermentation is done you can go   ahead and shape your dough now most bread recipes  also call for a step that is called punching which   is when you just let all of the air out of your  dough before you shape it i don't like using the   word punching because i really don't want you to  be aggressive with this process what you're going   to do is just push down with your fist in the  center and bring your dough all towards the middle   and this is going to release most of the  air out of it which will help the bread   dough rise in a way which will have  a cohesive structure once it's baked   so before we shape our dough you want to give  yourself a little bit of flour on your countertop and then we're going to turn it out on our counter  now i do have a shaping video in which i show   quite a few different bread shapes i will link  that down in the description box if you want to   see a few different ways you can shape your dough  but the main thing to keep in mind when you are   shaping dough is that we're trying to build some  tension on the outside of the dough so that your   loaf rises in the direction that you want it to we  typically don't want it to spread out wide we want   it to rise up so we're building some tension  in the dough so that it will do that for us   the other thing you want to keep in mind when  you're shaping dough is that whatever part of   the dough is going to be folded in you kind  of want to keep that pretty much free of flour   if it's extremely sticky you can give it a very  light dusting but we want the part that's folded   in on itself to stick to itself so if you use a  lot of flour it's really hard for it to build that   tension so i have some flour on my counter and  i'm leaving the top of my dough free of flour i'm   just going to shape this into a classic sandwich  loaf and i'm using a light hand to make sure all   of that air is pressed out of it and then i'm  going to start shaping the dough into my shape   so i'm going to give some tension up here at  the top and fold that in towards the center   and then fold my top down to  that seam that i just created   pressing to seal so what i'm doing here is i'm  building tension on my outside of my dough and i'm   going to continue rolling the dough in on itself  which is going to help it really rise up tall and i'm going to seal the ends here now i  can tell that this has good tension on it   because as it's sitting here on my bench it's  holding its nice little package shape it's not   spreading out wide which is  what we want that's great okay so once you shape your dough it is going to  go into its second rising process which is what we   call proofing we're going to let the dough fill  with air again now that it's shaped and then we   will bake it so just like our bulk fermentation  phase the timing of your proofing is going to   vary based on the type of yeast you used and how  warm or cool your environment is and how cool or   warm the liquid was that you put in your bread  dough warm temperatures are always going to move   things along more quickly and cool temperatures  will always slow things down so one of the most   common questions i get about baking bread is how  you know if your bread is done proofing and the   best way i have found to tell is to check on the  tension when you press in on your dough so i like   to put a little bit of flour on my fingers and  gently press in on my bread dough and what i want   to see are these holes very slowly filling in if  you remember during our kneading process we wanted   the holes to fill in quickly because that was a  sign that we had a really strong gluten structure   but we want these holes to fill in slowly as a  sign that our bread is done proofing to show us   that there is enough air built up in our dough so  this is something that you're just going to have   to kind of get used to the feel of when these  holes really spring back very quickly that's a   sign that you need to give it more time but make  sure that your fingers are floured and that the   dough isn't sticking to your fingers because if it  sticks then it might seem like it's springing back   quickly when it's really not i can see here that  there's still a little bit too much tension in   this dough i would want this to go just a little  bit longer the holes are filling in a little bit   slowly but still pretty quickly and so i want to  give this dough a little longer now this dough in   contrast has actually gone too far if you can see  here it's so full of air that it almost looks like   it can collapse really easily when i shake it it  just doesn't seem like it's very stable anymore   because there's so much air in it the gluten  structure is actually becoming really weak   and my indentation is not filling in at all it's  just completely staying there and that's because   there's too much air in my dough and i actually  let it proof a little too long now i can still   bake this and will still bake this but what's  going to happen is this is going to end up being   probably a pretty dense loaf because that gluten  structure is now very weak and it's not going to   be able to contain the gases in it and it's going  to kind of deflate as it bakes if i baked this   loaf which still needs a little bit more proofing  time it's still going to be a nice loaf of bread   but i might see it kind of split on the sides  because it needed to build up a little more air   in it but this is just something that really  takes a little bit of practice to kind of notice   the signs and know if your dough is fully proofed  so just take your time and keep practicing just   like any skill it just takes practice and you'll  get there now there is one more optional step   that is used really frequently in the bread baking  process which is called retarding the dough in the   refrigerator and what this means is putting your  dough in a cold environment in the refrigerator   at some point in the process to slow down the  timeline the reasons you might want to do this is   to give yourself some more flexibility with your  timing it kind of is a pause button for your bread   baking process the other reason you might want to  do this is to develop more flavor in your dough   as i mentioned earlier cool temperatures are going  to slow down the fermentation process and a slower   fermented bread is actually going to have more  flavor than a bread that fermented really quickly   so sometimes people will make something like  a pizza dough and they will put it in the   refrigerator for even up to three days before  they use it and that really develops an intense   flavor in their dough now there are two main  points in your bread making process in which the   retardation stage is typically used the first  point is after your dough has been kneaded so   during that bulk fermentation phase now this is  the point in the process in which you can leave   the dough in the refrigerator for quite a long  period of time because your dough has not been   shaped yet you're not risking over proofing it by  letting it sit in the refrigerator for a long time   so depending on the dough that you're using  you might be able to let it sit in there for   three or maybe even more days the second point  in the process in which people use this step   is after your dough has been shaped during the  proofing stage so say you wanted to make some   cinnamon rolls and you wanted to bake them the  next morning you would make your dough all the   way up to the point in which you shaped them and  then you're going to cover them and place them in   the refrigerator overnight now while they're in  the refrigerator they are going to slowly proof   and they'll gain a little bit of volume but  depending on how quickly you put them in the   refrigerator and how cold your refrigerator  is you might pull them out the next morning   and they may not have really proofed that much  at all so then you would let them come to room   temperature and gain some more air so keep in mind  that this retardation step can really be used with   most bread recipes if you do need a little bit  more flexibility with your timeline so once your   dough is finished proofing you are going to  go right into the oven with it so keep that   in mind when you are checking how far along you  are in the proofing process you're going to want   to have your oven preheating so that it's ready  for your dough as soon as it is done proofing   now before you go into the oven you might want to  brush something on top of your loaf either oil or   an egg wash which is going to help with browning  if you brush oil over the top you will get a nice   golden brown crust but it's a little more dull in  color while if you use an egg wash that's going   to give you that really nice shiny brown finish  so those both are optional for any bread recipe   so i really hope you found this video helpful  for following a bread recipe and if you have   any questions please leave those down in the  comment section i will do my best to answer them   i also have quite a few other videos on bread  related topics so we will leave the playlist link   down in the description box as well as the link  for our sourdough playlist if you're interested   in more advanced bread topics i'll also leave some  links for some of my favorite bread recipes down   in the description if you like this video please  give it a thumbs up that really helps our channel   and make sure you're subscribed so you never  miss a video and i'll see you back here next time

Channel: Baker Bettie

Views: 46,503

Keywords: bread, yeast bread, the bread process, how to make bread, what is proofing, bulk fermentation, bulk fermentation poke test, what is yeast, how yeast works, how bread is made, bread 101, basic bread making, understanding bread making, process of making bread, fermentation, how to know when proofing is done, over vs under proofed bread, proofing yeast, baker bettie, baking school, step by step bread making process, homemade bread

Id: hZPTpDJUZzE

Length: 22min 22sec (1342 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021