One-bowl Bread
Yesterday I felt like baking bread. Whenever I get this urge, my wife exhibits two simultaneous reactions. First, she starts salivating, then she remembers how the kitchen ended up last time and she rebels. I can't blame her, I don't like to clean up either, especially after slaving over the bread that we both enjoy.
As the cliché goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Yesterday all the neurons in my little brain lined up just right and invented the one-bowl bread solution. I made a fine loaf of bread and only got one bowl dirty. One bowl to clean, and it wasn't even hard to clean. I don't expect to win a Nobel prize here, it should be pretty easy for just about anybody to figure out once he has the idea in his head.
The first step in eliminating the mess is to figure out what the mess is. To do this, I used something called imagination, combined with memory. When I make bread, I make a mess of the mixer, a bowl, measuring stuff, the counter, and a bread pan. So I methodically started eliminating as many of those dishes as possible.
The mixer was easy: knead by hand.
The measuring stuff wasn't too hard to eliminate, since I have a scale. I put the bowl on the scale, dumped in 500g of flour, and poured in 350g of water (the cup used for this doesn't count as a dirty dish!). The yeast, oil, salt, and a bit of herbs thrown in just for kicks were estimated, not measured. If you aren't confident in your estimations, go ahead and use measuring spoons this time - measure it out into the spoon then pour it into your hand or something to give you an idea of how "big" the measure is without a container. For my part, I think I used too little yeast this time around, but next time I'll do better. If you don't have a scale, you could estimate the flour and add water until the dough is the desired consistency. But you really want a scale if you want to be a serious bread baker.
I skim the rec.food.sourdough newsgroup, and I had heard rumors there of a
kneading technique called "stretch and fold." Whenever they bring it up they
negligently leave out the details of just what this is, and so my first attempt
at doing it was completely off. Still, my mistake remains to this day one of my
favorite kneading techniques. I understand I'm not the first to think of it, so
I guess I won't win any prizes for that either. Although it's not the same
"stretch and fold" technique that is in vogue, it will serve our purposes.
Here's what you do: dig into the flour/water mess and make it into a dough. No
spoon allowed, remember. Once it's dough and can be lifted from the bowl, take
it in your hands and stretch it. Now bring your hands together, thus folding
it. Rotate 90° and repeat ad nauseum. This works as well or better than
kneading on the counter, but it is a bit more of a workout on your hands. Don't
worry, they could use a good workout. It will stick to your hands. Don't fret
it. When it's kneaded, or you're pooped, throw it back in the bowl and wash
your hands. Let it rise.
All we have left is the bread pan. You know, the non-stick one that sticks every time. The key here is to have parchment paper and a baking stone. If you don't have those, maybe you want to settle for two-dish bread instead. If you do, you probably know what to do.
When you use fewer dishes, you not only have less mess to clean up, but you have less things to fiddle with. You get closer to the bread, and the whole process goes faster (if not at first, in the end). Bread-making will seem less of a hassle and more fun. So go do it, and enjoy that bread!