By HAROLD McGEE

WHEN I started making bread back in the 1970s, whether an establishment loaf from James Beard’s “Beard on Bread” or a countercultural one from “The Tassajara Bread Book,” it was a hands-on workout, kneading a stiff, elastic dough for what felt like a very long 10 to 15 minutes.

In the 1990s, I kneaded many hours away getting the hang of the tangy, crusty breads from the Acme Bread Company in the Bay Area, starting with the recipe that Steve Sullivan, Acme’s founder, had supplied for “Chez Panisse Cooking.”

Today I wonder what else I might have done with all those hours. Labor-saving bread books are nothing new, but the current crop includes several by respected professional bakers, and a consensus that kneading just isn’t necessary for good homemade bread. Most proclaim the virtues of doughs that are too wet and sticky to knead, nothing like the resilient doughs of the past. What happened to the idea that prolonged kneading works a dough’s gluten proteins into alignment, making it more elastic and capable of rising higher into a lighter loaf? Is it really true that less work can make better bread?

To find out, I baked variations on the same loaves daily for a few weeks — firm and wet, kneaded and not. Then I got a professional’s perspective from Michel Suas, founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute, a school nearby.

Mr. Suas was a pastry chef in a restaurant with three Michelin stars when he visited the United States in 1986, tasted the beginnings of an artisanal approach to bread that had gone moribund in his own country, and stayed on to work with the likes of Mr. Sullivan and Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery.

Several things became clear from my experiments. Wet, unkneaded doughs can make very good bread. Manipulating them for 10 to 15 minutes usually didn’t affect the results. Firm doughs do benefit from a few minutes of kneading, but only because it helps mix the flour evenly with the smaller proportion of water. Prolonged kneading didn’t make much difference in the finished loaves.

So why did we ever bother to knead? Mr. Suas explained that like supermarket breads today, homemade bread in the 1970s was modeled on English pan loaves, with a tight, even, fine-grained interior ideal for tidy sandwiches.

A firm, well-kneaded dough makes good sandwich bread, but not the open, irregular interiors of “rustic” loaves now in vogue. These are best made, Mr. Suas said, with a looser, wetter dough and gentler handling to preserve the pockets of gas from the yeast fermentation. The elastic gluten network develops slowly as the dough rises, and the baker helps out by occasionally lifting the dough edges and folding them over.

Some wet doughs can still benefit from kneading. One is the whole wheat dough from the latest version of “Amy’s Bread” by Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree, published this month by John Wiley & Sons.

Whole grains tend to absorb more water and produce weaker gluten networks, and I found that kneading, as the recipe directs, gave a lighter, loftier loaf. This book has recipes that more closely approximate the wet, gently handled doughs Ms. Scherber uses in her bakery. When “Amy’s Bread” was first published in 1996, Ms. Scherber deemed such recipes too challenging for the home baker.

I wasn’t happy with all the wet doughs I tried. While some held their shape and baked into beautiful loaves, others would flatten out and turn themselves into something like a focaccia, with a thin crust and a coarse interior that seemed more gummy than bready.

Mr. Suas said that these disappointing recipes were too wet. “Water doesn’t give you any flavor or structure, so enough to hold the flour together is enough,” he told me. “Any more and you don’t get bread, you get thick blini. Or bread pudding without the eggs.”

He recommended choosing recipes under 75 percent hydration: a weight of water that is 75 percent or less the weight of the flour. (A calculator is handy for understanding baking.) His favorite hydration for a workable dough that produces a well-aerated, crusty loaf is 68 percent. Some recipes that I tested exceeded 90 percent. James Beard’s basic loaf was 60 percent.

So doughs of a certain wetness and little or no kneading can make delicious bread. But beware of other “revolutionary” ideas that are little more than industrial shortcuts on a small scale. This is true above all for methods that save time and effort with large doses of yeast. The doughs rise in a couple of hours, but the breads are harsh and acrid with instant-yeast flavor. Whole-grain flours or other flavorful ingredients can mask it, but only partly.

“Increasing the yeast to speed the fermentation, that’s a big no-no for quality,” said Mr. Suas, who likened it to trying to imitate sourdough flavor by adding vinegar or beer. “Why even bother to make bread like this? It’s bad!”

Among the recent books whose recipes I tried, Jim Lahey’s justly celebrated “My Bread,” written with Rick Flaste, puts together a brilliant technique trifecta: a wet dough that can be stirred together without kneading; a long, slow fermentation with just a gram of yeast, so that its flavor doesn’t dominate; and tipping the risen dough into a heated pot and lid, which heat the dough quickly and trap its steam to boost its “oven spring.” “Artisan Breads Every Day,” by the baker and teacher Peter Reinhart, is a lucid compendium of modern approaches.

Other notes from my baking bout:

Look for recipes that give ingredient weights, and avoid measuring in cups and spoons, which include variable amounts of empty space. This will also let you calculate dough hydrations and avoid overly wet recipes. Just divide the total liquid weight by the total flour weight, and if the answer is much above 0.75, expect a relatively flat loaf.

If your bread comes out bland, as a number of mine were, check the salt, which is essential for good aroma as well as taste. Mr. Suas said wet doughs need more salt than firm ones, around 2 percent of the flour weight. If you measure by spoonfuls, remember that it will take more kosher salt than granulated salt to get the same weight, because kosher salt does not pack as densely.

It’s easier to get a good oven rise and an open, airy interior with elongated loaves or small rolls instead of a large round loaf. These shapes also give you more surface area for a flavorful crust.

And there’s nothing like cutting into a loaf of bread you’ve just made and seeing the signs of its exuberant rise captured in every slice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24curious.html

Very cool, BlueB. Who knew?

I'd always thought - like most bakers, I guess - that the kneading "activated" the gluten that gave bread its "stretch" and chewiness - the opposite of lightly handling pastry doughs for maximum flakiness and delicacy. There's probably more to be said for the slow rise that allows the yeast to develop the nutty, tangy flavor.

I once dined at the estimable Mrs. Wilke's Boarding House in Savannah - justly famous for their celestial Southern biscuits - and, boy, were they ever! Couldn't wait to buy their cookbook, and was shocked to discover their recipe was the same-old-same-old basic baking powder biscuit recipe of yore..... Which brought to mind the old Southern saying:

"'Course I could give you the rule [recipe] that I make my biscuits by
But cookbooks no more make a cook
Than prayer books make a saint..."

It's all in the wrist, still......

There's always more to learn.

Cheers and thanks,

Selene

Me, too, Selene.

Sometimes it can be very therapeutic - but sometimes it feels like the longest 10-15 minutes of my life - especially when my children were small. Just let me start kneading bread and someone spilled something or hit something or broke something or something!

Once things slow down at work, I'm going to try my hand at this. I absolutely love artisan bread and am getting tired of paying Panera's prices for it.



Pssst - come here! I'll tell ya the secret.

1. King Arthur flour - no other flour produces such a tender biscuit, IMHO - see below
2. A mixture of Crisco shortening and leaf lard - my Grandmother used ALL leaf lard for hers - but I mix them about 60/40 50/50.
3. Calumet baking powder - no other.
4. Knead very, very gently about 5-6 times.
5. Don't twist the biscuit cutter. Straight down and straight up.
6. Don't bake them on a cookie sheet. Use a cake pan or 13X9 pan. Melt a dab of shortening in the pan while you heat the oven. Dip each biscuit in the melted shortening, turn over and place in pan with shortening side up. This is the secret to a high rise and well browned top.

East Texas once told me he married me for my biscuits, fried chicken and chicken fried steak!

I signed up to receive the King Arthur catalog. What a mistake THAT was! I have to wipe the drool off East Texas' chin each time we receive one.

For those who might be interested:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/

Scroll to the bottom of the page and look under "Shop." You can click the link there to request a catalog.

But be warned - it is wicked!