Second "Flour Water Salt Yeast". I've been baking bread for a few years now following his techniques with great success. He also has a 2nd book called "The Elements of Pizza" that I highly recommend.

I had a similar experience when starting. The process seemed time consuming and complicated, but now I can bake a couple loaves any day of the week with a small amount of planning and little effort/thought.

In both books he provides techniques and recipes for being able to start baking bread and pizzas with little or no upfront investment (some containers, a couple bannetons for bread and a peel + stone for pizzas). The best part of the process is experimenting with your own recipes. Here's a couple shots of some recent loaves and pizzas I've baked recently:

https://i.imgur.com/0cKI4ad.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/iMkzJJB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ZEIlGy9.png

https://i.imgur.com/gr0qO2t.png

These look great!

The thing that blew my mind is that I've tried making various bread products before, with terrible outcomes...my first attempt to make something from the book was with a Poolish and it turned out astonishing; "That is the kind of thing hipsters would pay big bucks for!" - Amanda (my partner)

Thanks! I was intimidated by the poolish before I tried it, I commend you for going for it first! Now it's one of my go-tos because its timings are really convenient for my schedule (plus it tastes great). I personally like to make the poolish with 20% wheat.

Haha, funny because the first time I made it I did something a novice should never try and made it with 40% whole wheat (because i bought the wrong flour by accident...).

It's certainly a great bread to make in terms of timing, this conversation is going to make me get one started tonight!

I would suggest to score the bread in the middle before baking. That way you will have a higher rise in the oven.

I did an experiment here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BhERhlnDgdQ

Basically it's like cracks in the surface. At an angle the rise can be much higher.

Forkish suggests not scoring your bread. From what I understand it can be somewhat of a contentious issue in the bread-baking community.

I've experimented with scoring with mixed results, although I'll admit I don't have the right tool for it and my technique may not have been correct.

A community is basically defined as a group of people squabbling about something that outsiders find laughable.

He doesn’t suggest scoring because the creases in his recipe end up on the top of the dough, which does the same thing as scoring which controls the rise so it doesn’t blow out the side. Tartine and other recipes suggest scoring because the creases from the dough formation are on the bottom.

At the bakery i worked- we used forks - and only little punctures

Funny you say this. If you read the particular book we're talking about, he specifically talks about not scoring the bread.

The pizza looks great. Do you have a high temperature oven?

WOW dat pizza

Second his book. The best part of his book in comparison to other cooking books is...a schedule (instead of the duration). Start mixing flour and water at 9:30 AM and then do X at 10:30 AM, etc, etc, and you will get the bread at 5 PM for dinner. Simply following the schedule ensures sufficient time for the yeast to develop and the dough to rise. I have never failed with his schedule and friends think the bread is competitive with what's purposed.

Ken also has a YouTube channel with some helpful demonstrations for certain methods like turning and shaping, which are harder to convey in text and still photos.

For anyone using his book for the first time, there is an error in the amount of leaven he has you create in the leaven-only recipes. Just make the amount you need for that recipe plus some extra to keep the colony going, you don't need the huge amount it calls for.

^ 100% agree, that's the best book. It does a great job of explaining the exact reasons, science, and tradeoffs between the critical factors, and you come away with not just instructions, but a deeper understanding of bread and how it really works and why. It's a really great book.

Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread" is also a great book. He really digs into the science of bread, and he also offers up an incredibly wide variety of techniques that will really expand your repertoire.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with the dough (ha ha) for Modernist Bread...

After reading Sloan's _Sourdough_, I ended up buying FWSY and have been making sourdough for about 6-9 months. I find the entire process remarkably fun, relaxing, and exciting. Unfortunately, I still can't get that real "sour" taste from my breads.

If you refrigerate your dough after shaping for the 2nd proofing, for 12+ hours, you’ll get those more sour flavors.

You can buy sourdough cultures that kickstart your starter. Basically it’s a culture that’s been cultivated for years and the starter gets frozen or condensed right before shipping and all you do is rehydrate it a bit and then maintain it.

> I bought a book on the topic by Ken Forkish "Flour water salt yeast", and I've fallen in love with the process.

Does this book actually have a process that makes a "fluffy" interior like the baguettes and boules I can get everywhere in France?

Normally, my bread excursions always come up what I term "artisanal"--nice flavor, but kinda "chewy". I have no idea what I need to change to fix that, and I can't seem to find anybody who does.

I would even be happy making "Ye Maligned Plain White Sandwich Bread" just to know the process as I could probably figure out what the differences are. But I can't seem to find anybody who can tell me how to do that either.

I've been searching for the same answers and from what I've found online, you want to make a higher hydration loaf.

I've been following recipes from a blog called The Perfect Loaf, going to try this one next: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/higher-hydration-sourdough-br...

Another good book is The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. If you're also into homemade pizza, his book American Pie is also great.

Just to throw in another title, Tartine Bread is excellent. The sourdough recipe from that book is the official recipe we used at the restaurant where I cooked in Park City, called Handle.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8185785-tartine-bread?fr...

On this topic. I'm a terrible cook (and non-existent baker), but love fresh bread. I came across this 5 minute video [1] for a no knead Ciabatta and use it from time to time to make a loaf of fresh bread. Total time for my involvement runs under 10 minutes and I get fresh bread the next day. The only modification I make to it is to add a bit more salt for flavor and I skip the corn meal and shaping step. I pretty much just dump the ingredients in, stir, wait and then dump the dough out of the bowl onto the baking pan and shove it in the oven.

It makes a beautiful simple loaf with a hard crust and a very simple body, which I usually cut up to go with meals or to use as the base for some simple bruschetta snacks or garlic bread. It makes lousy sandwich bread.

One day, I may throw some olives in and make an olive loaf, but meh.

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX_6l2bmvQI

I'll have to checkout Ken Forkish's book, but, in the meantime, I feel the need to throw out a quick mention of Jennie Shapter's Bread Baker's Bible [1]. I'm not much of a bread eater, but it's one of my favorite cookbooks despite that fact. There is a fair bit of information on the science behind the recipes, and she doesn't take any shortcuts for convenience's sake. Her recipes for English muffins, pizza dough, and many other things have never left me wanting. Some of them take a lot of work to prepare, but they're absolutely worth it.

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Bible-Traditional-Recipe...

He followed that up with a book on pizza. I was happy to find out that you can make pretty close variations of NY or Neapolitan pizzas at home. Now our Sunday evenings are pizza experiments.

You may really enjoy the classic 'Tassajara Bread Book':

https://www.amazon.com/Tassajara-Bread-Book-Edward-Brown/dp/...