What's the secret to baking crusty bread with big yeast bubbles?
No matter what recipe I use, my bread tastes great, but it's nevery bubbly inside. It's more cakelike and sort of dense, even though I always follow baking recipes to the letter. The troubleshooting information I can find online is so broad that I'm lead to believe I'm doing absolutely everything wrong.
Answers ( 1 )
It sounds like you might be over-mixing and over-kneading.
Yeast breads are alive because yeast is alive. You mustn't abuse bread dough.
One of the best breads I have come across lately is the no-knead dough; it seemed so impossible and even cheating to make bread without kneading and kneading and kneading to make a smooth, evenly-grained bread- but, it turns out, not kneading and allowing a long, slow rise ends with a crusty, hole-y round of bread of which any baker would be more than pleased to serve under their name.
I've used this recipe before, so I know it's a good'un. https://damndelicious.net/2020/06/29/easy-no-knead-bread/ Since the first couple times, I've tried a few others and messed around a bit with this one (you should try adding a bit of garlic and a handful of fresh parsley before the rise!) and there are plenty of others out there to try- just Google "no-knead bread".
My usual favorite bread to make is potato bread- . I boil up a peeled, cubed potato in about a generous cup of water, allow the cooking water to cool enough for the yeast (if the water is too hot, you kill your yeast- you can tell if this has happened because your dough will be too stiff to stir or knead- it will feel unyielding) and mash those cooked cubes. Add that mash with a good chunk of softened butter, a few Tablespoons of sugar and a good pinch of salt to the yeast mix, then add flour by the cup or so until your dough holds together and forms a ball in the bowl. Then turn that warm dough out onto a floured surface and knead flour into it until it doesn't stick anymore, and it's become rather stretchy- don't over-knead. Let it rise, covered, until double, punch down, form into loaves in bread pans, let rise again and bake until crusty brown. *yum*
But try that no-knead one- it really is oh-mah-gawd good.