The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [12]
2. Mixing the Ingredients
Using your dry measure, stir the flour in its storage container briefly. Scoop up three full cups, leveling the top with a knife or other straight edge. Measure both flour and salt into the bowl and stir them together lightly, fluffing the flour with air.
Put the yogurt in your liquid measuring cup and add very hot tap water to make a full cup total. (If you are omitting the yogurt, measure one cup lukewarm water.) Mix with the oil and honey in the small mixing bowl.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients and the yeast mixture into it. Using a rubber spatula or your hand, begin stirring from the center, gradually spiraling outward. In this way the flour will come into the liquid without lumping up—you can feel how smooth it is. Bring the flour gradually in from the sides of the well until the mixture reaches the consistency of a thick batter, and then fold in the rest of the flour, combining it all to make dough.
Squeeze the dough between your wet fingers until you are certain that it is evenly mixed. It will be very sticky.
3. Adjusting the Consistency
Now, before you continue, take a moment to evaluate the dough and decide if it is too slack or too stiff. You can learn to do this by feeling the dough. Clean your hands and moisten them slightly. Pick up the dough and squeeze it. Feel deep into the dough, not just the surface. It’s sure to be sticky and wet, but is it soft, or is it stiff? A soft, pliable dough makes lighter bread.
Does the dough resist your touch? Does it strain the muscles in your fingers when you squeeze it? Then it is too stiff. On the other hand, the dough must have enough flour to hold its shape. Does it feel waterlogged, as if the flour is not contributing much substance to it? Does it have a runny, liquid quality? Then it is too slack. Again, feel deep into the dough.
If the dough is either too stiff or too slack, return it to the bowl and flatten it out. If it is too stiff, sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of water on it; if too slack, 3 or 4 tablespoons flour. Fold the dough over and squeeze again until it is well mixed. Reevaluate the dough and add more water or flour if necessary until it feels right. Remember that even perfect dough will be moist and sticky at this stage, so don’t look for a firm, claylike dough—you’ll end up with a brick.
Whatever the ingredients in your recipes, if you are attentive when mixing, you will learn to feel small differences in the amount of water the dough holds. Developing this sensitivity is not difficult, and it will make an enormous difference in the quality of your bread—especially how high it rises.
4. Kneading the Dough
Kneading makes the dough resilient and stretchy, so the bread can rise high.
There are many styles of kneading. The important thing is to aim for a pleasant, easy rhythm that is not tiring. The traditional method is to work the dough with both hands, which gives maximum pushing power. You can also squeeze the dough between your fingers, or pound or push into it with your fists, or even throw it down on the table. Since this recipe calls for a very small amount of dough, and it is sticky, we suggest here a method that lets you use only one hand to push on the dough. In the other hand you hold a dough cutter or small spatula and keep that hand clean.
First, turn the dough out of the bowl onto your kneading surface. Clean out the bowl and pour in a cup or so of warm water. Most people knead with flour under the dough to keep it from sticking. Today, though, use a little water instead, just at the beginning, so that you will be able to watch the dough change. If there is water or flour on the kneading surface throughout the process the changes will be masked.
To knead with one hand, scrape the dough from the table with your dough cutter or spatula. Use the spatula to fold the dough in half. Then, with the palm of your other hand, push into the dough from the front, deep