Essential Baking Gear for Making Bread at Home

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Welcome to our guide for essential tools for the home baker. Equipping yourself with the right tools is key to a successful baking experience. Our comprehensive guide below outlines our top essentials, explains their importance, provides tips on what to consider when shopping for them, and suggests recommended sources. Additionally, we’ll touch on some helpful but non-essential equipment that can enhance your home baking endeavors. This gear guide will be a valuable tool for anyone ready to dive right into Modernist Bread at Home.

THE BASICS

Baking Pans

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Simple metal loaf pans can be used for proofing as well as baking. They keep proofing dough in place so that it can be easily moved. Pans also mold proofing dough and help hold the shape.

Features to look for: You need to have a few basic pans in several sizes so that you can choose one that is appropriate for the bread you want to prepare. The dimensions of the pans we recommend below are the ones we most frequently use for our sandwich breads, brioche, and gluten-free breads. Although baking pans come in a variety of shapes, there’s generally no need to buy specialty pans unless you want to make a bread in its traditional shape. The material or thickness of the pans aren’t terribly important, but you will want a durable nonstick coating, which does make it easier to quickly remove hot loaves and reduce cleanup.

Price range: $10–$50

Start your search with:

Chicago Metallic Everyday Non-Stick Loaf Pan by Chicago Metallic Store

Aluminized Steel 1.25 lb Loaf Pan with non-stick Americoat coating (22.86 cm by 12.7 cm by 7 cm / 9 in  by 5 in  by 2.75 in) by USA Pans

USA Pan Bakeware Pullman Loaf Pan with Cover, Nonstick, & Quick Release Coating made from Aluminized Steel (13 x 4 inch) by USA Pan Store

Custom Baking Pans (for artisanal bakeries) by Lloyd Pans

Baskets

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Some of the most common items found in a bakery are wicker or cane baskets (bannetons or brotforms), which are used to hold and mold shaped pieces of dough during final proofing. The baskets are seasoned with flour, which, over time, serves as a nonstick surface.

Features to look for: Proofing baskets come in many different sizes and forms meant for specific shapes. It’s good to have go-to baskets for standard shapes like boule (round) and bâtard (oval), but you can also find baskets to mold dough into special shapes such as couronne bordelaise (a Bordeaux-style crown), triangle, double boule, and others.

Lining is another important consideration for choosing baskets. Some baskets have no lining and will imprint your dough with the pattern of the wicker; other versions are linen-lined. We recommend unlined baskets for doughs with a relatively firm consistency. Lined baskets work well for both high-hydration and drier doughs because the flour adheres to the linen and makes the dough easier to unmold. Baskets with removable linen covers are the most versatile options, giving you the benefits of both.

Price range: $15–$40

Start your search with:

10-inch Wicker Basket with Linen Liner (for 800 – 1000 g of dough) from San Francisco Baking Institute

8-inch Wicker Basket with Linen Liner (for 500 – 750 g of dough) from San Francisco Baking Institute

Coiled Basket (for 500 – 650 g of dough) from San Francisco Baking Institute

Cast Iron Cooker

Why it’s essential for the home baker:  Baking in a pot is hands down our favorite method for making bread in a home oven. The pot’s base and lid create a tightly enclosed environment for the proofed and scored dough. Cast iron absorbs heat well and retains it even better, helping to mitigate the temperature drop when you open the oven door.

Features to look for: When it comes to these pots, you don’t have to spend an exorbitant amount. We’ve tested a lot of cookware, but our favorite is the simple cast-iron combo cooker. You can bake extraordinary bread at home with this inexpensive, multipurpose pot. The cooker actually is a two-piece set that consists of a Dutch oven and a skillet that is repurposed as a lid. For bread, we use the skillet as the base and the Dutch oven as the lid, which makes transferring dough less complicated. We find that 800 g of dough fits perfectly in most three-quart cast-iron combination cookers.

Price range: $39

Start your search with:

Cast Iron Combination Cooker by Lodge

Plastic Tubs

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Storage is an important consideration for bakers, and clear plastic tubs are the storage bins of choice. Up for almost any stowage task, these bins come in a range of sizes; they make it easy to keep an eye on the contents inside; and they stack much like nesting dolls when they aren’t being used. Long rectangular storage boxes can be used to hold fermenting dough, while preferments, ingredients, and old dough are often stored in square versions. Tall tubs make great vessels when weighing large quantities of water—some can even transform into water bath containers when cooking sous vide. They can also make great improvised proofers!

Features to look for: Clear plastic bins with airtight lids are useful to have in a variety of sizes. The Cambro brand is so habitually used that the name is practically a generic term for the tubs in professional kitchens. Another kitchen vocabulary word to know is ‘lexan’, which is another name for the durable polycarbonate sheets that are often used to make commercial storage boxes, pans, and containers for food.

Price range: $9–$40

Start your search with:

Camwear Polycarbonate Food Storage Box (17.98 L / 4.75 gal) by Cambro

Camwear Polycarbonate Food Storage Box (33.12 L / 8.75 gal) by Cambro

Camwear Polycarbonate Square Plastic Food Container (in assorted sizes) by Cambro

Plastic Bags or Tarps

Why it’s essential for the home baker:  Plastic bags and tarps are essential tools for bakers. They’re used to cover dough to keep it from drying out as it rests on a worktable.

Features to look for: More likely than not, you already have suitable covers in your pantry. Clean trash bags work, however we prefer eco-friendly transparent compostable bags.

Price range: $5–$16

Start your search with:

Heavy Duty Compostable Trash Bags (in assorted sizes) by Stout

Thermometer

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Digital thermometers are indispensable tools, and any baker will benefit from having one in their pocket. Small changes in temperature can make all the difference in cooking and baking, which is why we measure it as accurately as possible. A good digital thermometer can be used to improvise a water bath to cook sous vide, and you can also calibrate your home oven with an oven-safe probe.

Features to look for: One of our favorite digital thermometers is the Thermapen Mk4. It’s extremely accurate, has a slender probe, and can connect to a Type K Thermocouple. Home bakers will also want a basic oven thermometer.

Price range: $5–$80

Start your search with:

Thermapen Mk4 by ThermoWorks

Commercial Stainless Steel Oven Monitoring Thermometer by Rubbermaid

Digital Scale

Why it’s essential for the home baker: This is the piece of equipment we recommend most emphatically for all bakers. If you have been measuring ingredients only by the cup and teaspoon, now is a great time to buy a good scale to begin applying more precision to your recipe measurements. Some high-capacity kitchen scales display baker’s percentages as well as grams, which is another benefit. A super-precise fine weight scale is the best way to measure tiny quantities of ingredients like yeast or salt.

Features to look for: Bakers should really have two scales: a relatively high-capacity kitchen scale and a fine weight pocket scale for measuring small quantities.

The standard scale should be accurate to one decimal place and should have the capacity to weigh double the amount of our standard recipes plus the weight of the mixing bowl. For larger quantities of dough, look for scales that can hold even more weight. The fine weight scale should be accurate to .01 g. If you don’t want to spend a lot, an inexpensive 200 g pocket-sized version will work just fine. All-purpose scales exist that will cover both these requirements, but they are expensive.

Price range: $15–$115

Start your search with:

Baker’s Kitchen Scale (8,000 g capacity) by My Weigh

Scout Pro Portable Electronic Balance (200 by .01 g) by Ohaus

Digital Gram Pocket Scale (200 by .01 g) by American Weigh Scale

Timers

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Baking bread is a time-intensive process that also requires time management skills. In addition to telling you when to remove your bread from the oven, digital timers will help you keep track of dough as it ferments and proofs, especially when you’re managing several doughs and kitchen tasks at a time.

Features to look for: Timers should be easy to use, with loud alarms that can be heard across a noisy bakery or from another room. Have several basic timers on hand for juggling tasks.

Price range: $10–$30

Start your search with:

Extra Big and Loud Timer by ThermoWorks

Bench Knife (bench scraper)

Why it’s essential for the home baker: A bench knife, also referred to as a bench scraper, is another inexpensive but invaluable tool highly recommended. Even though there are several options available for mechanically dividing dough, a bench knife and a scale work the best.

Features to look for: We prefer a sharp metal version for cleanly cutting dough, lifting sticky dough, and scraping dough residue off the table. Plastic ones will get the job done, but they can make cutting and scraping dough more difficult because they are generally thicker and less sharp than metal scrapers.

Price range: $10–$20

Start your search with:

Stainless Steel Dough Scraper with Polypropylene Handle by Dexter-Russell

Flexible Dough and Bowl Scrapers (set of four) by Prepatize

Lame

Why it’s essential for the home baker: Our go-to tool for scoring dough is a classic: the lame. A lame is a sharp razor blade held in place by a handle. The blades are cheap and can be replaced easily, which isn’t necessarily true of other cutting tools, such as a paring knife.

Features to look for: Lames come in several styles. Basic lame handles are often made from metal or plastic. Look for razor blades that are thin and flexible as many lames are designed to make the blade curve. Disposable versions have a blade that can’t be removed or sharpened. Professional bakers generally avoid disposable lames because they need to replace the lame blades often (usually at the end of the day). A wood-handled lame is an attractive showpiece with a heft that makes it easier for the blade to slice the dough. The drawback is that it can be pricey and can’t make a razor blade curve.

Price range: $6–$40

Start your search with:

Baker’s Blade Holder – with Handle from San Francisco Baking Institute

Professional Disposable Lame (pack of 5) by Scaritech

Hand-Crafted Walnut Wood-Handled Lame by Zatoba

Stainless Steel Double Edge Razor Blades by Personna

HELPFUL TOOLS TO HAVE

While not essential, certain tools can elevate your bread-making process, adding a touch of finesse to the experience. Take a look at our list of optional tools below, allowing you to explore and decide which ones align with your preferences for customizing your home kitchen and enhancing your baking setup.

Baking Steel and Baking Stone

Why we recommend it: A baking steel or stone is one of our favorite tools for making pizza and flatbreads, including naan and pita, and pan loaves. Steel provides enough thermal mass to replicate the environment of a wood-fired oven, allowing you to rapidly produce Neapolitan-style pizza in your own kitchen. We prefer using a stone to bake pan loaves and other breads because steel tends to scorch the bottom of larger loaves.

Price range: $50–$120

Start your search with:

Modernist Cuisine Special Edition Baking Steel by Baking Steel

Rectangular Baking Stone (35.56 cm by 41.91 cm by 1.27 cm / 14 in by 16 in by .5 in) by Old Stone Oven

Pastry Brushes

Why we recommend it: Any bakery or kitchen can benefit from having several pastry brushes. Reserve different brushes for specific purposes—for instance, designating one for cooking sugar and another for egg washes.

Features to look for: We like to use pastry brushes with natural or fine synthetic bristles over the thicker silicone brushes that leave track marks. Synthetic bristles are more hygienic and can be incredibly soft, which makes them a good choice for egg washing more delicate doughs. Art or home improvement stores often have great options—paintbrushes that meet these specifications can easily double as pastry brushes.

Price range: $6–$15

Start your search with:

2-Inch Flat Brush by Sana Fe Art Supply

2-Inch Flat Mottler Synthetic Paint Brush by Princeton Artists Brush Co.

Stand Mixer

Why we recommend it: We use a stand mixer for most home baking. A stand mixer is a small version of a planetary mixer that can comfortably sit on any work surface, occupying minimal space. They have the same mixing attachments as well—most come with a hook, paddle, and whip.

Stand mixers are incredibly versatile countertop tools. They can be used for much more than mixing, thanks to additional attachments that can use the spinning motor to sheet pasta dough, grind meat, mill grains into flour, chop vegetables, and even make ice cream.

Features to look for: A stand mixer can be a big investment, so look for models that have a strong motor, which is important for making drier doughs, and a broad range of speed settings, from very slow to very fast. A five-quart consumer stand mixer will work for home bakers who are making up to a kilo of dough—the minimum in most of our recipes—at a time. But beyond that, we find that these mixers tend to hop around the table and need more power. We recommend investing in a commercial stand mixer with a sturdy base if you plan to frequently make seven quarts of dough or more.

The Ankarsrum mixer is not very common, but we like using it for our gluten-free breads in particular and for mixing paste-like doughs, such as 100% rye breads. It has one arm that performs the mixing and another that scrapes the spinning bowl, making for a very efficient mix. The design makes it easy to pour ingredients in the bowl, which is unobstructed by the motor housing that most stand mixers have.

The flat solid base won’t dance around the counter, either.

Price range: $250–$900

Start your search with:

Original Stand Mixer AKM 6230 by Ankarsrum

Professional 5 Plus Series 5-Quart Stand Mixer by KitchenAid

Bench Brush

Why we recommend it: Messes are hard to avoid when you bake bread. A bench brush is a small investment, but it will help you to quickly clean surfaces between handling dough. These special hand brooms offer an easy way to sweep flour and bits of dough away from your work space.

Price range: $8–$20

Start your search with:

Wood Handle Counter Duster with Flagged Silver Polystyrene Bristles by Weiler

Water Spritzer

Why we recommend it: Bakers use spritzers to keep dough moist after it has been mixed. A light mist of water will prevent the dough’s surface from becoming tough and dry while it is exposed to air. The spritzer itself is basic, but remember to change the water in it at least once a week.

Features to look for: Although any spritzer is up for the task, clear bottles allow you to keep an eye on the liquid inside.

Price range: $7–$15

Start your search with:

Clear Plastic Spray Bottle by Soft ‘N Style

Couche

Why we recommend it: A couche is a swatch of plain linen cloth that sits between the dough and a flat surface; the cloth is creased to cradle the dough it holds. Couches absorb excess moisture from dough during the proofing process so that the board stays relatively dry, making it easier to slide the dough off surfaces and keeping portioned dough from touching other pieces or losing its shape as it expands.

Features to look for: You can purchase prepackaged options on many sites, however, we like to buy our couches by the yard to specifically suit our needs.

Price range: $15–$30

Start your search with:

Linen Couche (by the yard) from San Francisco Baking Institute

Flax Linen Baker’s Couche  by Breadtopia

Peels and Transfer Boards

Why we recommend it: Peels and paddles are used to transfer dough onto a baking surface.

Features to look for: A single average-sized paddle is sufficient for some bakers, but it’s also helpful to have larger peels if you plan on making large quantities of bread. Metal peels are better than wooden ones for flatbreads and pizzas because they are thinner and can easily slide under the crusts.

The transfer board is the best all-purpose piece of equipment you can use to transfer dough. They come in a number of shapes and sizes, but we use only the long thin ones that are intended for baguettes because they also work for practically any other dough shape.

Price range: $16-$70

Start your search with:

Super Peel in Polymer-Sealed White Ash by EXO

“Big 16” 16-Inch Super Peel with Aluminum Blade and Black Cherry Handle by EXO

Aluminum Pizza Peel with Wooden Handle (assorted sizes) by Kitchen Supply

Baguette Transfer Board by Breadtopia

Wooden Boards and Sheet Pans

Why we recommend it: In a bakery, wooden boards or the back of sheet pans are used for proofing dough, especially high-hydration doughs that are too wet to hold their shape. Both are lined with a floured couche to prevent the dough from spreading out.

Features to look for: After use, wooden boards must be dried out quickly and completely to decrease the risk of contamination and prevent warping. If you prefer sheet pans, it’s worth having full-size, half-size, and quarter-size sheet pans as well as wire racks that fit on top of them.

Price range: $10–$30

Start your search with:

Aluminum Full, Quarter, and Half Sheet Pans by Lloyd Pans

Poplar Wooden Proofing Board (45.72 by 66.04 cm / 18 by 26 in) by BakeDeco

Serrated Knives

Why we recommend it: Beyond a general-purpose chef’s knife and a paring knife, bakers will benefit from a few good serrated knives. A serrated paring knife is good for smaller items; a long version is best for cutting big pieces of bread; and an offset one is helpful for chopping chocolate and nuts. An electric knife, the sort typically used only for annual turkey carving, can get additional use when employed to slice bread. The serrated blade does all of the work, making it easy to carve off a perfect slice in a single motion.

Features to look for: Many serrated knives do a fine enough job of cutting bread without costing a lot of money. Just make sure the knife is very sharp and has long, pronounced teeth.

Price range: $18–$130

Start your search with:

High-Carbon Stainless Steel 10-inch Serrated Bread Knife with Walnut Handle by Chicago Cutlery

16 Gauge Stainless Steel 14-inch Serrated Bread Knife by Fat Daddio’s

Damascus Bread Knife by Kasumi

Stainless Steel Electric Knife with Wood Block by Cuisinart

SOME ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

  • Home proofer
  • Spoons and spatulas
  • Whisks
  • Piping bags and tips
    • For bread, these are mostly used for finishing and decorating purposes. Use disposable bags, as reusable ones are hard to clean and dry and are therefore prone to contamination. A set of basic stainless-steel tips in few sizes and shapes should be sufficient.
  • Cutting boards
    • Plastic boards have a reputation of being more sanitary, but wooden ones are fine so long as they are cleaned and properly dried. Also, have rubber grip mats (or a clean, damp kitchen towel) on hand to place under the board to keep it from sliding around when in use.

Are you interested in learning more about baking bread? Explore our free Modernist Bread School courses delivered directly to your inbox! Learn the essentials of baking bread, discover tips for baking with a busy schedule, understand pantry stocking, and more. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to enhance your skills, our courses cover a range of topics to elevate your bread-making experience. Sign up now for a delicious journey into the world of bread baking!

 

Modernist Bread School

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We’ve been secretly kneading something special for you the past few months. To celebrate the release of Modernist Bread at Home, we are excited to offer you free bread school courses delivered straight to your inbox. Meet the Modernist Bread School—your gateway to mastering the art of bread making from the comfort of your own kitchen.

Our bread school is designed to cater to both novice bakers and those looking to refine their skills, offering courses that will help you make delicious home-baked loaves. Each lesson will provide invaluable tips, tricks, knowledge, and discoveries, collected and developed after years of extensive research, to enrich your bread-making journey.

If you already have a copy of Modernist Bread at Home, this bread school will serve as an excellent companion course. Don’t worry if you haven’t acquired the cookbook yet, you can still join us and glean valuable insights.

HOW IT WORKS

You’ll be able to sign up through the Modernist Bread School page on our website. Upon signing up, you’ll receive one lesson per day throughout the course, typically consisting of five to seven lessons.

Each course will provide recommended tips, insights from Modernist Bread at Home, and references to related recipes and blogs for further reading.

We’ll launch a new course each month. You can sign up for all of them or pick and choose what topics interest you the most.

EXPLORE OUR UPCOMING COURSES

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be launching a new course every month for the next few months, starting in early March. Stay tuned for a continuous stream of exciting learning opportunities.

  • Course 1: Getting Started with Bread Basics—Dive into essential tools, preparation techniques, and pantry stocking tips to kick-start your bread-making journey.
  • Course 2: Navigating Bread Making from Start to Finish—Learn the most crucial aspects of each step of the baking process.
  • Course 3: Fitting Bread into Busy Schedules—Learn how to manage your baking time effectively, even amid a hectic schedule.
  • Course 4: The Role of Different Bread Ingredients—Explore the scientific foundations of bread ingredients to refine your recipes and techniques.
  • Course 5: How to Start a Levain and Keep It Alive—Delve into the world of sourdough with essential strategies for crafting and maintaining your sourdough starter.

Our first course, Getting Started with Bread Basics, is scheduled to launch March 11. Stay tuned!

Introducing Modernist Bread at Home—Your Guide to Exceptional Homemade Bread

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Modernist Bread at Home cover photo

There is so much to be gained from baking your own bread. It’s both physically and mentally satisfying, an outlet for creativity and innovation, and just plain comforting (seriously, is there anything more comforting than warm homemade toast with butter?). That’s why we are thrilled to unveil our upcoming cookbook, Modernist Bread at Home—the ultimate guide for home bakers eager to create exceptional bread. You can order it now in North America through the Modernist Cuisine Shop and Amazon. French, German, Italian, and Spanish editions are now available in North America as well. It is also available to view and purchase at the Modernist Cuisine Gallery by Nathan Myhrvold locations.

It’s hard to believe we released Modernist Bread nearly seven years ago. Since then, we’ve received a lot of feedback about creating a version of the book specifically for home bakers and have been quietly working on just that over the last few years. With years of dedicated research and meticulous experimentation, we’ve distilled the expertise of Modernist Bread into a comprehensive 420-page volume that streamlines the art and science of making bread at home.

Much like how Modernist Cuisine at Home is to Modernist Cuisine,this book is designed specifically for home bakers so that you can create extraordinary bread in the comfort of your own kitchen regardless of how much experience or time you have. You’ll discover delicious, easy-to-follow recipes, innovative yet practical techniques, helpful scientific insights, and useful visual guides. Everything has been tested (and retested over and over again) with our unique brand of rigor to ensure you’ll get great results with a home oven.

One of our biggest goals for Modernist Bread at Home was to make it as accessible as possible. We’ve worked hard to address the needs of home bakers as well as the realistic challenges that come with making bread, a time and labor-intensive food, in your own kitchen. We know, for example, that life easily gets in the way of making bread in the middle of the week. With that in mind, we developed time-saving tips and strategies, like freezing leftover levain so that you can use it as a flavor booster. The inactive levain can be added to direct doughs (doughs made with instant yeast), evoking sourdough flavor in much less time.

There are plenty of invaluable skills to master, bringing a new level of confidence to your baking every step of the way. With Modernist Bread at Home, you’ll learn how to make beautiful loaves of homemade bread that fit within your weekly schedule and have a depth of flavor beyond what you’ll find in the store—and you can proudly say that you’ve made it with your own hands. We’re incredibly proud of this cookbook, and hope that you’ll love it as much as we do.

Here’s a sneak peek into what you can expect from Modernist Bread at Home:

OVER 160 RECIPES

Modernist Bread at Home features over 160 extensively tested, easy-to-follow recipes that span the world of bread. You’ll learn how to make:

  • Rustic sourdoughs
  • Traditional French lean breads
  • Sandwich breads
  • Brioches
  • Ryes
  • Challah
  • Focaccia
  • Bagels
  • Bao
  • Gluten-free breads

Some highlights include our innovative recipes for Second-Change Sourdough, No-Knead Brioche, 100% High-Ryes, and gluten-free bagels.

EASY-TO-FOLLOW RECIPE FORMAT

Great care went into designing how the recipes are formatted in this book. The unique layout makes it easy to follow, understand, and prep for recipes. An illustrated tour breaks down the format and essential information before you get started.

Recipes of Modernist Bread at Home

INNOVATIVE, YET PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES

The techniques in this book were developed with home bakers of all experience levels in mind. Whether it’s new ways of utilizing tools already found in your kitchen, enhancing the flavor of bread with pressure-caramelized inclusions, or using our dough CPR method to rescue overproofed dough, there’s information that both well-seasoned home bakers and complete novices will find helpful. We even discovered ways to speed up bread making, as in our Second-Chance Sourdough or a more straightforward traditional French brioche, so that you can still have fresh bread even with a busy schedule.

Modernist Bread at Home

HELPFUL VISUAL GUIDES

Don’t know where to start? That’s okay. Modernist Bread at Home features helpful visual guides for:

  • Getting the most out of our recipe format
  • Planning how to fit bread making into your schedule
  • Choosing what bread to make based on your skill level, how much time you have, and what kind of bread you’d like to add to your repertoire
  • Essential gear for baking bread in a home kitchen. All the tools are easy for home bakers to find. The biggest recommended investment is a $40 cast-iron combination cooker that delivers spectacular results for crisp-crust breads
  • Step-by-step technique tutorials
  • Troubleshooting common issues throughout the bread-making process

172-PAGE WIRE-BOUND RECIPE MANUAL

To keep your hardcopy pristine, Modernist Bread at Home comes with a wire-bound recipe manual that contains all the recipes and reference tables.

Regardless of your baking experience, Modernist Bread at Home empowers you to create bread that’s beyond compare. We believe that bread making should be an accessible experience for everyone, and this book is your key to achieving just that.

Order your copy of Modernist Bread at Home today.

Presenting the Modernist Cuisine Bread School

We’ve got even more to be excited about. To kick off the release of Modernist Bread at Home we’re launching free bread school courses delivered straight to your inbox.

Tailored for home baking enthusiasts eager to refine their skills, our monthly courses are designed to complement the book and help you throughout the bread-making process. Our courses will cover beginner essentials for novice bakers, mastering the art of creating and nurturing a levain, making bread during a busy schedule, and much more – we’ve got it all covered.

Be the first to know when the Modernist Cuisine Bread School launches by following us on social media and subscribing to our monthly newsletter.

How to Rescue Overproofed Dough

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It happens to the best of us. You wait many hours for your dough to proof so that you can bake it, and then, somehow, you forget about the dough (it’s easy to do, especially when you’re juggling meal prep during the holidays), and it overproofs. You may have even baked the overproofed dough, hoping it would magically return to life; instead, you end up with a pale, low-volume loaf that smells like stale alcohol. Overproofed dough, however, doesn’t have to meet its end in the bottom of a trash can. While working on Modernist Bread we developed a technique for saving overproofed bread.

The ultimate goal of proofing bread is to increase the volume of a shaped piece of dough through the production of carbon dioxide. Most of the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation happens in the final proofing stage. (The largest volume increase comes during baking when the dough nearly doubles in volume in the oven.) To expand, dough must be strong enough to retain the gas that it has produced. Gluten makes the dough elastic enough that it can expand around bubbles without tearing. Proofing, which begins once the dough is shaped and placed in a proofing vessel or on a flat surface, has some effect on flavor and texture, but it is key in determining the shape, volume, crust, and crumb of the bread.

When carbon dioxide exerts more pressure than a fully proofed dough can withstand, the cell membranes tear, releasing the gas and deflating the dough. An overproofed dough won’t expand much during baking, and neither will an underproofed one. Overproofed doughs collapse due to a weakened gluten structure and excessive gas production, while underproofed doughs do not yet have quite enough carbon dioxide production to expand the dough significantly.

Calling proof, knowing when the dough has reached its maximum expansion, is one of the more challenging things bakers have to learn to do. It takes practice and learning from a few mistakes. Conventional wisdom holds that overproofed doughs are irretrievably damaged and should be thrown away. Our experiments found just the opposite. In fact, we were able to resuscitate the same batch of dough up to 10 times before it suffered any serious loss in quality.

Our method for saving overproofed dough works for many kinds of dough, including French lean doughs, high-hydration doughs (you may see a slight decrease in volume as well as in crumb size for these), and country-style doughs. The method also works for farmers’ bread and most rye breads that contain a proportion of bread flour, such as landbrot; brioche and enriched doughs, including sandwich breads; and pizza doughs, though they may have a pale crust once the dough is baked.

Sourdoughs are more problematic; you should attempt to revive a sourdough only if it was made and proofed within a few hours. Sourdoughs that are cold-proofed overnight or longer acidify because of the presence of lactic acid bacteria. This acidification makes the dough very tough; as a result, if you degas and reshape it, the dough is overly tense, and still tough. You’ll end up with a loaf that doesn’t expand or bake well, and that is also misshapen and very sour. While some people (including us) like that biting flavor, others may find it too sour.

Mistakes are inevitable when it comes to proofing bread, but there’s no need to throw out dough if it proofs too long. Below is our step-by-step guide to saving overproofed dough (we call technique dough CPR).

Dough CPR

Step 1: Perform the fingertip test to make sure your dough is overproofed. The test involves gently pressing your finger into the surface of the dough for 2 seconds and then seeing how quickly it springs back. The dent you make will be permanent if the dough is overproofed.

Step 2: Remove the dough from the basket or other vessel in which you’re proofing it.

Step 3: Degas the dough by pressing down firmly on it. The pressure applied is the same as when you shape the dough.

Step 4: Shape the dough, and return it to the basket or other vessel for proofing.

Five Easy Tips For Freezing Your Sourdough Starter

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One of the most important discoveries we made while developing and refining the recipes in Modernist Bread is that yeast is among the most resilient life-forms we’ve ever encountered (and we encounter many in our lab, which we share with a bunch of biologists). As it turns out, freezing temperatures do not kill all the yeast and lactic acid bacteria in a preferment. Some die, but most remain dormant while frozen. The key is to know how to “wake it up” properly and to feed it well so it comes back strong and ready to leaven.

There are a lot of great reasons to try freezing your sourdough starter. Using a frozen preferment affords an almost instant starter; even with the added thawing and feeding time required, it provides a significant time savings over starting one from scratch. Having a preferment ready to go is convenient—you can freeze it in portions and just thaw what you need—and frees you from a feeding schedule. There’s no need to worry about entrusting someone with your starter when you go on vacation.

Our experiments demonstrated that a frozen levain will perform well for up to 2 weeks after freezing it. Eventually the ice crystals in the frozen preferment grow big enough to damage the yeasts and bacteria, rendering them useless for leavening. If you have levain that has been frozen for more than 2 weeks, you can still use it in combination with commercial yeast. The less-active levain will still provide your bread with complex flavor, and the yeast makes the dough rise.

Tips for Freezing Levain

Working with frozen levain is simple, although freezing your starter involves more than throwing it in a jar and stashing it in the freezer. Here are a few recommendations to help you get you started.

Tip 1: Freeze your preferment immediately after you make it. Freezing a ripe preferment won’t give the yeast the nutrients it needs because there will be little food left.

Tip 2: Our experiments demonstrated that a frozen levain will perform well for up to 2 weeks after freezing it. If you have levain that has been frozen for more than 2 weeks, you can still use it in combination with commercial yeast for an instant sourdough flavor. We utilize this technique for the Second-Chance Sourdough recipe in Modernist Bread.

Tip 3: Divide the preferment into whatever weight you would typically use for a specific dough. Stiff levain can be portioned directly into zip-top bags. You may want to add 10 g to the amount that you are freezing because ultimately some will stubbornly remain in the bag. Lay the bags flat on a sheet pan to freeze them.

Tip 4: For liquid levain, portion the preferment into an ice cube tray and use an offset spatula to even out the tops of the cubes. We use a piping bag to inject it deeply into the tray as possible, eliminating air pockets. Once it has frozen into cubes, remove them from the tray, and put them in a zip-top plastic bag in the freezer.

Tip 5: When you’re planning to make fresh bread with your levain, just thaw what you need. Take the portion out of the freezer about a day before you need it and let it thaw at room temperature (21 °C / 70 °F). When it’s ready, the bag will inflate as carbon dioxide bubbles form in the preferment. If you froze your starter into cubes, pull out however many cubes you need for your recipe, put them in a bowl, and cover them with plastic wrap. After making our dough, we like cold-proofing our levain in refrigeration for 24-36 hours to help develop the flavor.

Is Fresh Yeast Best?

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Yeast—living, single-celled fungi—is one of the main reasons bread is so complex and special. These microbes behave like miniscule factories that specialize in the production of bubbles and booze by way of a process called fermentation. In addition to leavening dough, fermentation makes important contributions to the aroma, flavor, and texture of bread.

The yeast used to create bread can be commercially derived, or it can be cultivated from the environment around us in the form of a levain. Using a levain is considered to be the very definition of fermentation by some bakers who dismiss commercial yeast (also known as baker’s yeast) as not producing “real” fermentation. We reject that view; fermentation is fermentation, whether it involves levains or commercial yeast. One method is not more legitimate than the other. The fermentation method you choose depends heavily on your schedule, ability to plan ahead, and yeast preference.

Commercial Yeast

When it comes to commercial yeast, there’s an ongoing debate as to which type of yeast is best for baking bread: active dry, instant, or fresh. The main issue doesn’t seem to be about the “power” of the yeast but rather an unspoken stigma that persists for each kind. You might have heard that “fresh is best,” but in truth, yeast is yeast is yeast—Saccharomyces cerevisiae to be specific.

S. cerevisiae is a fermentation superstar—the species is used by bakers, brewers, and vinters, although the strains that they work with differ. Strains are often isolated, grown, and stored in tightly controlled conditions so that they are best adapted for particular situations, such as making a sourdough, a French bread, an ale, or a champagne. That means that you probably won’t get great results if you try to make bread using a strain developed for brewing beer or winemaking.

At this point you might still be wondering what type of commercial baker’s yeast you should use. If a baker uses the right techniques, there is no reason to use fresh yeast over instant yeast—in a lineup of baked loaves, you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other in terms of the yeast used. We like working with instant yeast rather than fresh yeast or active dry yeast. After you read our explanations of the differences between the three forms, you will be better equipped to make your own choices.

Fresh Yeast

Developed in the mid-19th century, fresh yeast is the oldest commercial form of yeast. It was originally sold as a cream of yeast mixed with a mash, which served as a growth medium. Fresh yeast is more commonly sold today in blocks of cake or compressed yeast that resemble crumbly, cream-colored modeling clay. Fresh yeast must be dissolved into a liquid but easily does so, dispersing efficiently throughout the dough, which is a plus.

Each gram of compressed yeast contains roughly six billion active yeast cells. Fresh yeast has the highest moisture content of any form of baker’s yeast, but also the shortest shelf life. Blocks require refrigeration and last for only 2–3 weeks after opening. Fresh yeast is highly perishable, a considerable drawback that can cause issues in bakeries as well as home kitchens. At the bakeshop, fresh yeast is likely to sit on the bakers’ worktable for hours while they mix many doughs. The warmth of the bakery will activate the yeast, and it will eventually die because it has nothing to eat. The home baker who buys a pound of fresh yeast must bake frequently to use it all up before it dies. The challenges that come with fresh yeast eventually sparked the next wave of yeast innovation: dried yeast.

Active Dry Yeast

Dried yeast was developed during the Second World War by Fleischmann Laboratories so that United States field infantrymen could bake fresh bread in their camps. The new active dry yeast was not as perishable as fresh yeast and therefore did not require refrigeration and had a longer shelf-life.

Dried yeast is an inert substance when you purchase it, but it becomes a living, thriving colony of microorganisms with the addition of some water and food. During the production process, water is removed from the yeast cells, reducing the moisture content from around 82% to 8% in the case of active dry yeast. The desiccation sends the cells into a state of dormancy. Particles of dormant yeast are coated with a protective layer of dead yeast cells to form tiny granules, which are then packaged for sale. Unlike fresh yeast, unopened packages of dormant, active dry yeast can be frozen for months.

Active dry yeast is more convenient than fresh yeast, but it still requires some additional work and comes with its own set of drawbacks. The dormant cells must be reactivated before use, which can be done by stirring the granules in lukewarm (40–43 °C / 104–109 °F) water. Active dry yeast is temperature sensitive—water that is too hot or too cold can damage or kill the cells, reducing the fermentation power of the yeast.

Around 25% of the yeast cells are killed during the production process, which means that active yeast has, ironically, the lowest amount of active yeast (by weight) of either fresh or dry varieties. Thus, more of it must be added to a recipe than other types of yeast. Dead yeast cells also leach a self-produced chemical called glutathione that relaxes dough. Small quantities of glutathione can be beneficial, depending on the dough, but it can quickly make dough become so relaxed that it’s difficult to handle. Active dry yeast is slower to ferment than both instant and fresh yeast. It needs to proof longer to achieve the same results as the other forms of commercial yeast; the time required will depend on the environment and amount of yeast in the dough. Still, smaller quantities of active dry yeast are often the only option available at supermarkets, which is likely why it’s still commonly used in home baking.

Instant Yeast

Instant yeast, also called quick yeast, was developed in the 1970s by French manufacturer Lesaffre. Like active dry yeast, instant yeast is sold as desiccated granules; it is even drier than active yeast, having a moisture content of just 5% or so. The difference is that instant yeast ferments faster, does not require activation, and is less sensitive to water temperature.

So why do we prefer instant yeast over all other forms of commercial yeast? For starters, instant yeast is truly instant—it does not need to be activated; although we prefer to bloom it, you can add it directly to your dough—and, as soon as it comes into contact with moisture, it will begin the fermentation process.

Instant yeast is made with a fast-acting strain of S. cerevisiae, and the noodle-shaped granules are finer than those of active dry yeast. The surface layer of dead cells is more porous than that of active dry yeast, which allows the granules to rehydrate more rapidly. During production, instant yeast is quick-dried, a process that produces significantly more living yeast cells. As a result its leavening power more closely resembles that of fresh yeast. Manufacturers add salts of fatty acids to the yeast to control rehydration and boost the yeast’s gassing power. The moisture content is lower, which increases the shelf life to 2 years in its vacuum pouch, or even longer when refrigerated. Once the package is opened and exposed to oxygen, instant yeast remains active for 1 year if it’s refrigerated after being opened—it’s the trade-off of the more porous surface. Compared with the active dry form, the instant variety produces more gas during fermentation.

Instant yeast is also available in a number of forms; the one you choose will depend on the type of dough you make. For example, enriched doughs with larger proportions of sugar require osmotolerant yeast; osmotolerant instant yeast requires less water than the instant yeast used in lean doughs. So instant yeast offers options you don’t have with active dry yeast, along with added convenience.

You’re likely to encounter an occasional bump in the road in the road when your local grocery store or purveyor only has one type of yeast on hand. Accidents happen and it’s all too easy to get the wrong package of yeast in a rush. Fortunately, this is one bread-making problem that’s easy to fix. By giving the yeast proper care and employing some basic math, you can use any form of yeast successfully. You’ll find our own conversion table on page 10 (volume 3) of Modernist Bread.

Visit modernistbread.com to learn more about yeast and bread-making.

Gluten: How Does It Work?

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Gluten has gotten a bad rap lately—it was practically a four-letter word when we started working on Modernist Bread—but in the world of bread, it’s your friend. As Jimmy Kimmel discovered, there’s a bit of confusion about what gluten is and what it does. Whether you avoid gluten or can’t get enough of it, we think it’s important to understand how it works.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat products. In bread making, it’s exceedingly important. Think of gluten as the miraculous net that holds bread together; it helps dough rise by trapping gas bubbles during fermentation and gives bread its unique texture. Although bread begins with many of the same ingredients as cookies, pastries, cakes, and even shortbreads, it has a completely different consistency. Gluten makes bread airy and satisfyingly chewy—it’s hard to imagine enjoying a chewy cake or a bread that crumbles like a cookie.

Gluten is formed when two of wheat’s native proteins, glutenin and gliadin, come into contact with water. That’s why it’s more accurate to talk about the gluten potential of a particular flour, rather than its gluten content. Either way you phrase it, the more gluten a flour can produce, the more able the dough is to hold gas bubbles, and those gas bubbles are what gives bread an open crumb.

Adding water to flour starts a chemical process that can eventually lead to gluten development. When we grind wheat flour, we destroy the structure of the seed (the cells and organelles), preventing germination. But a cascade of chemical reactions will still occur when the flour is hydrated because the materials that cause the reactions are still present. Gluten development occurs when we add water to flour and let the enzymes work as they were intended.

Gluten Development

From a baker’s perspective, gluten development begins during mixing. The basic point of mixing is to hydrate flour. Mixing matters not because it is necessary to develop gluten; you can develop gluten with minimal mixing (there really is no need to knead). Mixing is essential because it speeds up the hydration process and ensures that water is evenly dispersed throughout the flour.

When hydrated, the glutenin and gliadin proteins almost immediately bind and form gluten. The longer glutenin pieces link up with each other via disulfide bonds to form strong, stretchy units of molecules. These interlinked strands are among the largest protein molecules yet identified. More compact gliadin proteins allow the dough to flow like a fluid, whereas glutenins contribute strength.

Although hydration happens quickly, it takes time to form the chemical attachments that knit gluten proteins together into a strong network. Proteases (protein-snipping enzymes) begin cutting strands of gluten into smaller pieces that are able to make additional connections. Protease is found in very small amounts in wheat flour; an excess of it would cut gluten strands too much and have the opposite effect on the gluten network.

As mixing continues and the ingredients transform into dough, the chains of proteins become more numerous and elongated; they organize into a sort of webbing (the network can be seen in the image above, which was taken with a scanning electron microscope) that has both elasticity (the ability to stretch) and extensibility (the ability to hold a shape). Without this little protein tango, bread would be a very different thing: flatter, crumblier, denser, and less chewy.

The network of gluten will continue to develop, gradually becoming stronger and more complex, up until the dough is fully proofed. Enzymes have even more time to act while the dough rests and begins to ferment. Chains of gluten grow longer and stronger as more and more molecules stick together. During bulk fermentation, bakers periodically fold the resting dough to help align the gluten strands into an even, organized structure, which gives the dough the integrity it needs to expand as the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast and water vapor are introduced into the bubbles.

When the gluten network is strong enough, the dough can be shaped. Bakers check gluten development by performing the windowpane test, which involves stretching a portion of dough in your hands. A well-developed dough can be stretched so thin that it’s translucent. Gluten strands tighten and reorganize once again as the dough is divided and shaped. The tension created during shaping helps the dough expand at a steady rate, producing uniform loaves.

Most of the carbon dioxide production during fermentation happens in the final proofing stage. The largest volume increase comes during baking when the dough nearly doubles in volume in the oven. To expand during both processes, the dough must be strong enough to retain the gas that’s produced. Gluten makes the dough elastic enough that the bubble walls can expand like a little balloon without tearing up until the point where the bread overproofs. When carbon dioxide exerts more pressure than a proofed dough can withstand, the gluten structure weakens, releasing the gas and deflating the overproofed dough.

Other Factors

There are other factors that influence gluten development, such as the type of flour you use. Generally, bread bakers are shooting for an 11%–13% protein level, which will give good volume and texture to a loaf. Protein content varies among flours, and in most cases the higher the protein content, the more gluten the dough can typically form. This doesn’t mean that one flour is better than another; rather, different types of flour are better suited for different purposes. We use lower-gluten flour when we want to make cake, for example, because it won’t form a gluten network that can make a cake’s texture rubbery.

Some wheat varieties, including semolina and most ancient grains, don’t have good gluten-forming properties, which is why they are often blended with other wheat flours in bread recipes. Whole-grain wheat flours contain plenty of protein, as well as bran and germ, which chemically and physically affect the strength of dough. The thirsty particles prevent proteins from fully hydrating, excrete compounds that weaken gluten, and can create microscopic holes in the wall.

Other grains, including rice and corn, can’t form the gluten protein at all, although they do contain other proteins. Rye is a special case. It has some gluten, but not the kind that creates a network that makes for a light and airy bread. Rye becomes bread largely by means of pentosans. These polysaccharide molecules form a sticky gel when mixed with water. That gel—not gluten—is what gives breads with a high percentage of rye their structure.

The quantity of water present also plays into the gluten-forming process. Adding too little water won’t work; the flour must be sufficiently hydrated to activate the proteins that form gluten. Too much water also causes problems, resulting in more of a batter than a dough, in which a gluten network will form but never produce a cohesive mass.

Salt provides more than flavor—it strengthens gluten bonding. Although the gluten proteins naturally repel one another, the chloride ions in salt help them overcome that repulsion and stick together. You can see this change happen within dough when you add salt later in the mixing process: as the salt mixes in and dissolves, the tacky dough firms up.

Fats, such as butter and oils, slow down the gluten-forming process by coating the protein strands, which is one reason enriched doughs such as brioche call for longer mixing times. The coating acts like a barrier that prevents gluten proteins from sticking to one another, stunting the growth of long chains. It’s because of these clipped strands of gluten that we can intricately shape enriched doughs, such as challah. With a small addition of solid fat (1%–3%), lean dough becomes stretchier (allowing it to rise higher) and easier to handle. Fat-enriched recipes, like brioche, can call for large amounts of fat. Fat in these quantities hinder gluten formation and lead to a soft, tender crumb that is more like that of a cake.

Certain inclusions can have the same weakening effect. Any inclusion that contains lots of gluten-killing enzymes, for example, is generally tough on dough. That includes raw papaya (rich in papain) and pineapple (high in bromelain). A workaround is to cook these ingredients first; high heat destroys the enzymes.

Time serves as a general tool for controlling gluten development; the longer the flour and water spend together during the hydration process, the more numerous the gluten bonds will be, while a longer mixing time will speed up hydration by forcing the water into the flour. Time also allows enzymes to assist in gluten development, and most notably extensibility.

Mixing methods also matter. Hand-mixing techniques won’t hydrate the dough—and develop the gluten—as fast as machines. Using an electric mixer can make many breads feasible that would otherwise be difficult to mix by hand, like challah.

The next time you make bread, keep these factors in mind. If you want a taste of Modernist Bread, give our Chocolate and Cherry Sourdough, Portuguese Sweet Bread, and Pork Cheek Hum Bao recipes a try.