Bread Head

I passed on some bread-making advice elsewhere recently, which I might as well also share here. Don’t like kneading? The solution is the stretch and fold. Also, time. Rather than work the dough for ages the moment you’ve mixed it, let it sit for half an hour to let the yeast do its thing. If you leave it long enough, the yeast will do all the work, but you’ll get a more even result by stretching and folding. Wet your hands and/or a dough scraper, get them under the dough in the bowl, and start pulling it out. It’ll stretch as the remainder clings to the bottom of the bowl. Fold the bit you’re holding back onto the main lump of dough, then repeat a few times, starting in a different spot each time. That’s for a wetter dough; if it’s a drier dough, you can pick the whole thing up in your hands and pull it apart by hand to stretch it, bring it back together, pull, and so on. Even for a wetter dough, the second time around you’ll be able to handle it that way. This works especially well…

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