brewed cappuccino. Then try shaping it again.

For a pan loaf, flatten the dough into a rectangle, fold into thirds like a letter and roll it up

tight into a long loaf. Place it seam-down in your lightly greased loaf pan. For free-form shapes

baked on a sheet your procedure is similar but you elongate the ends slightly.

Bake at an even temperature

Bake at an even temperature seems like a strange instruction, given today's thermostat-

regulated ovens, but some of our great-grandmothers went through much struggles with their

weekly bread baking to maintain an even temperature on their wood-burning cook stoves.

In Europe, before the large commercial bakeries, every little community had its own small

bakery or two. In towns there were many. Housewives still preferred to mix their own bread dough

in large wooden bowls, kneaded it, let it rise a couple of times, shaped the dough into several loaves,

set on baking sheets, then took them to the nearest bakery with their names stuck on the dough on a

slip of paper. The baker's oven was much more reliable than their own. The owners returned for

their fresh-baked, hot breads a few hours later, picked them out from the rows and rows of similar

but sumptuous, still-warm loaves on the shelf, each one with a slip of paper and a name scribbled

on. They wrapped their loaves them in several layers of towels, paid the baker for his services, and

home they went with their breads that had to last for a week. The best part, the freshly baked

mainly-crust heels, still warm from the oven, were divided meticulously among any family

members who happened to be home when the breads arrived.

The baker baked all the different types of breads in one single huge brick-lined bakery oven.

Knowing which bread required what temperature, he placed the loaves higher or lower on the oven

shelves. Some households brought in pots of beans with their bread loaves, which the baker placed

in the cooler regions of the oven to slowly bake for half a day.

The baking temperature, though not critical, is important enough that you should make sure

your oven thermostat is accurate by checking it with a good oven thermometer. If the oven

temperature is too low during the oven spring stage, the increased activity of the yeast occurs before

the gluten protein structure has a chance to solidify. The dough may collapse once the gases escape

through the semisolid gluten. If the oven is too hot, a thick crust forms too soon and prevents the

bread from rising properly.

All crusty breads bake with injected steam in the commercial bakeries’ ovens that contribute

to a heavy, crisp crust . Obviously, as a home-baker you are not equipped with steam-injecting

ovens but you can create steam to emulate commercial ovens. Without steam the air in the oven is

like a dry sauna, crust forms quickly but it is a thin crust. However, it is thick enough to prevent the

dough to fully expand. With steam the air is like in a wet sauna, the surface of the dough remains

fairly soft and let the dough expand to its fullest. Only during the first 10 minutes of baking does the

dough need a steamy oven. A thick, chewy bread crust forms later in dry heat.

To pretend you have a steam injection, pour a couple of cups of boiling water into a small

baking pan and place it on the bottom shelf or floor of the oven as soon as you turn it on to preheat.

Leave the pan in during the first 10 minutes of baking. For additional moisture spray the bread

dough with a spray bottle just before putting it in the oven and a couple of times during the first 10

minutes. Close the door quickly to hold the steam in.

Some professional bakers suggest a second method. Keep an old, heavy baking pan on the

bottom of the oven while preheating. Just before ready to bake the bread, pour a cup of water into

the hot pan, put your bread dough in fast and close the oven door. During this operation the oven

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