Breaking The Baking Code
If cooking is an art, baking is a science.
A lot of even seasoned chefs can get intimidated by the simplest baking recipes, because it comes down to knowing the exact ratios for baking.
That doesn't mean there's no room for experimentation. Far from it.
Once you understand how the ratios of baking work in doughs and batters, there's very little you can't do with your baked goods. For instance, pie dough is a ratio of three, two, one: three parts flour, two parts fat (such as butter), and one part water. When you get that ratio down, you can make pie doughs with any additive you want, such as lemon zest or maple extract.
It's all explained by Michael Ruhlman, a classically trained chef, in his book, "Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking."
Ruhlman visited The Early Show Thursday to go through the basics of making great breads, cookies, and everything from the oven -- all you need to know about dough!
According to Ruhlman:
The only way to measure these ratios is by weight. Once you understand that a bread is a five-to-three ratio, you can do five ounces of bread and three ounces of water, or 20 ounces flour and 12 ounces of water, or 500 grams of flour, 300 of water. Any way you mix these ratios, the bread will come out the same, because your ratios are exact.
Some basic measurements that might also help as you begin to incorporate ratios in your recipes:
BASIC BREAD DOUGH
The following recipe is what's referred to in bakeshops as a basic lean dough, meaning there's no fat in it. It's pure bread and it's satisfying and delicious, especially sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil. It can be shaped into a baguette or a boule or stretched into the shape called ciabatta. If shaping it into a boule, I highly recommend cooking it in a Dutch oven. And it can be varied in countless ways, a few of which I describe here:
Bread Dough
20 ounces bread flour (about 4 cups)
12 ounces water
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon active or instant yeast
Set your mixing bowl on a scale (if using), zero the scale, and pour the
flour in. Zero the scale again and add the water. Add the salt. Sprinkle
the yeast over the surface of the water to allow it to dissolve. Fit the
bowl into the mixer and, using the paddle attachment, mix on medium
speed until the dough has come together. Replace the paddle with a
dough hook. (The whole procedure can be done with a dough hook, but
the paddle brings the ingredients together rapidly. This dough can be
kneaded by hand as well.) Continue mixing until your dough is smooth
and elastic, about 10 minutes. To test your dough, pull off a chunk and
stretch it into a square. If it's elastic enough to allow you to achieve a
translucent sheet of dough, it's ready. If it tears before you can do this,
continue mixing, either in the mixer or by hand, until the dough is
smooth and elastic.
Remove the mixing bowl from the machine, cover it with plastic
wrap, and allow the dough to rise to about twice its size. Push a finger
into the dough. The dough should give some resistance, but not spring
back. If it springs back, let it rest longer. If you let your dough rise for
too long, it will feel flabby and loose when you press a finger into it and
will be less eager to rise when you bake it.
If baking it the same day, preheat your oven to 450°F (preferably 45
minutes before baking). If you intend to use steam, put a cast-iron pan
in the oven and add 1 cup water when ready to bake.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it to expel excess
gas and redistribute the yeast. Cover with a dish towel and let rest for 10
to 15 minutes. Shape the dough into a boule by pushing the dough back
and forth on the counter in a circular motion until you have a round
smooth ball; or shape it into a ciabatta by pulling it lengthwise so that it's about a foot long and an inch thick. For a baguette, stretch the dough
into a rectangle roughly 12 by 6 inches; fold the top edge of the dough
over on itself and pound the heel of your hand to pinch this edge down;
fold it again, pounding the heel of your palm down to seal it, and continue
until it is a roll; then roll by hand and stretch the baguette out as
you do so to tighten its interior structure. Cover the dough with a dish
towel and allow to rise, or proof, for about an hour. Or cover the dough
with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to a day; allow the bread to rise
at room temperature for at least 11⁄2 hours before baking. When ready to
bake a boule, slice an X or a pound symbol into the top of the dough to
help it to expand; for ciabatta, stipple the dough with your fingers and,
if you wish, coat with olive oil and a sprinkling of kosher salt. For a
baguette, make long diagonal scores. Bake for 10 minutes at 450°F,
then reduce the oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until
done, 45 to 50 minutes for a boule or baguette, 30 minutes for ciabatta.
Yield: 1 standard loaf
What You Can Do Now That You Have the Bread Dough Ratio
Just the plain dough results in good fresh bread no matter how it's shaped,
whether into a boule, stretched long and thin, or rolled into a tight tube for a baguette shape. But I find it's best to coat it with some olive oil and a little coarse salt before baking it. And my favorite shape for these simple, quickly made doughs is the ciabatta, primarily because it results in a lot of surface area, which when coated with olive oil and salted, is very tasty. So that's the method I use most for quick bread at home. But once you embrace the bread dough ratio, there's no end to the kinds of breads you can make. Here are a few of the ways you can take advantage of the ratio. The variations all follow the basic bread method: mix the dough till you can achieve the appropriate elasticity, allow it to rise, punch it down, let it rest for 10 minutes or so, then shape it, allow it to rise one last time, and bake it.
school included a garnish of chopped kalamata olives and walnuts,
a great combination that results in a purple shade and tangy, nutty
flavor. Add 1 cup of chopped kalamata olives and 3⁄4 cup roughly
chopped walnuts to the basic bread dough midway through mixing.
Let rise, shape, and cook as described in the basic bread dough
recipe. These breads were typically baked in the ciabatta shape.
and oregano work well in breads and any could be used here. Roast a head of garlic, wrapped in foil with a tablespoon of olive oil, at 350°F for 20 minutes or until tender. Pop the cloves out of their skins and use whole or give them a rough chop. Add them to the dough along with 11⁄2 tablespoons of chopped rosemary or whatever herb you prefer. Stretch the dough into a ciabatta shape and allow it to rise. When ready to bake, stipple it with your fingers. Rub the dough with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.
and works great in bread as well. Sauté 1⁄2 cup of loosely packed
sage leaves, chopped, in 4 ounces of butter until the leaves are crisp
and the butter is brown. Put the bottom of the pan into a larger
pan full of cold water to stop the cooking. While the butter is still
pourable but not hot, mix the dough, reducing the water by 2
ounces, and add the butter and herbs to the bowl after the dough
has come together.
where students in Richard Coppedge's bread-baking class used a
sourdough to contain this garnish of chocolate and dried cherries.
But a straight lean dough works beautifully as well. Add 3 ounces
of coarsely chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate and 1⁄4 cup
of dried cherries to the dough halfway through mixing. Shape the
dough into a boule, which allows the least surface area and, therefore,
the least amount of chocolate on the outside. The loaf is
dense and sweet and delicious.
and 11⁄2 cups of fresh corn to the basic bread dough while mixing.
Pull into the shape of a disk, finger-stipple the dough, brush it
with olive oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.
with 2 tablespoons chipotles in adobo sauce, 2 to 5 of them
depending on how much heat you want (discard the seeds, chop
them finely). Instead of baking it, grill the bread over a mediumhot
bed of charcoal or wood coals, covered.
BASIC QUICK BREAD/MUFFIN BATTER
All these recipes are made by combining the dry ingredients and the
wet ingredients separately, then combining the two and stirring just to
combine.
8 ounces flour
4 ounces sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
8 ounces milk
4 ounces eggs (2 large eggs)
4 ounces butter (1 stick), melted
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder (if your baking
powder is pebbly, push it through a strainer). In a quart measuring cup
or bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and butter. With a whisk or a hand
blender, whisk or blend the mixture until the eggs are uniformly distributed.
Add the dry ingredients. Whisk just to combine. If you're adding
additional garnish, such as citrus zest or fruit, do so now.
Pour the batter into muffin tins or a loaf pan (butter or spray your
vessel with vegetable oil if it isn't made of nonstick material). Bake for
about 30 minutes, or as much as 50 minutes for a loaf, until the blade
of a paring knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Yield: 10 muffins
1-2-3 COOKIE DOUGH: THE ESSENCE-OF-A-COOKIE COOKIE
2 ounces sugar (about 41⁄2 tablespoons)
4 ounces unsalted butter (1 stick), soft but not melted
6 ounces flour (1 to 11⁄4 cups)
Combine the sugar and butter, and mix, beat, or whisk until the sugar is
evenly distributed and the butter has become light in color. (It wouldn't
hurt if you added a pinch of salt and 1⁄2 teaspoon of vanilla here.) Fold in
the flour gradually and continue to mix until a uniform dough is formed.
I prefer these cookies very thin and so roll them into a log using plastic
wrap, chill them, and slice them about 3⁄8 inch thick. Or you can roll the
dough into 11⁄2-inch balls, place them on a baking sheet, and press them
down to a thickness of 1⁄4 inch or as desired. Bake in a 350°F oven until
cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes. Because there is relatively little fat,
these cookies will not spread out as they bake. This recipe will give you
5 to 10 cookies.
Lemon-Poppy Seed Cookies
The lemon-poppy seed combination is one of my favorites, in both
cakes and cookies. I love the fresh flavor the citrus zest brings. I have no
idea what the poppy seeds, which are 50 percent fat by weight, bring,
except to say that it's a completely different, and lesser, cookie if you
leave them out.
6 ounces sugar (about 2⁄3 cup)
12 ounces butter (3 sticks), soft but not melted
1 large egg (optional)
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Zest of 3 lemons
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
18 ounces flour
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Combine the sugar and butter in a standing mixer with the paddle
attachment, and mix on medium speed, scraping the butter down as
necessary, until the sugar is evenly distributed and the butter has
become light in color. Add the egg, if using, while mixing until incorporated, then add the poppy seeds, zest, and vanilla. Add the flour grad-ually and continue to mix until a uniform dough comes together. Roll
into 1-inch balls, place them on a baking sheet, press down to a thickness
of between 1⁄4 and 1⁄2 inch or as desired, and bake until cooked
through. This dough can also be shaped into a log using plastic wrap or
parchment paper, chilled, and sliced.
Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
This recipe calls for equal parts butter, sugar, and flour, so has a very
high proportion of fat, which will cause them to spread considerably and
result in a very thin crisp chocolate chip cookie. If you prefer your
cookies crisper, reduce the butter to 4 ounces.
8 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks)
4 ounces white sugar (about 1⁄2 cup)
4 ounces brown sugar (about 1⁄2 cup)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces flour (about 11⁄2 cups)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Combine the butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla and mix thoroughly in a
standing mixer using the paddle attachment or by hand. Combine the
remaining ingredients except the chocolate and fold them into the
dough. Fold the chocolate into the dough.
Drop heaping tablespoons onto a baking sheet. Give them some
room because they'll spread. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges
begin to darken.
Yield: about 24 cookies
To read an excerpt of "Ratios," click here.