I started baking bread as a sophomore in college. I didn’t eat enough by myself to warrant buying a whole loaf, and I was tired of losing bread to mold, so I started putting loaves in the freezer. That is great for toast, but very unideal for making anything else like a sandwich. I figured that if I were to make bread myself, I would be more inclined to use an entire loaf. That turned out to be correct!

Bread baking is incredibly simple at its core, and you can choose to make it as complicated as you want. You want to combine 6 ingredients together: flour, water, salt, yeast, temperature, and time. You get a ton of control how you want to combine those together, and whether you want to add anything else as well.

A basic recipe

Take ground up grain and mix it with water until it’s a thick paste. Introduce it to yeast somehow—whether through the air or through manufactured yeast. The more powerful the yeast, the more salt you should add to prevent it from colonizing too quickly. Quick colonization means the yeast unevenly distributes, making big bubbles instead of small ones in the final bread. Let it sit out for a bit, but keep it covered so nothing else tries to colonize the dough. The dough should rise as the yeast makes gas.

After a while, the dough will have stopped rising, and may have deflated a bit. This is the perfect time to take the dough out and put it in an oven to bake—somewhere between 350 and 450°F, or 175 and 230°C. After 30 to 60 minutes, you should have a brown loaf of bread which makes a hollow sound when you tap its bottom. Let it cool, and you’re done.

A proven recipe

1. Add 5g of instant yeast to 750g of warm water. The water should be warm to the touch without being uncomfortable.
2. Add 20g of salt to 1000g of white flour.
3. Add the flour and salt to the water and yeast, and combine decently well. Mix it by hand, by mixer, by food processor, by whisk, whatever. I use a Danish dough whisk. You should buy one if only to brag to your friends about owning the coolest sounding kitchen utensil ever. It’ll be pretty thick once you’re done. This is enough to make 4 to 5 loafs of bread.
4. Let it sit out at room temperature for 2–4 hours, covered, then place it in the fridge overnight, covered. Leave it in for up to a week, though the sweet spot is 2–4 days.
5. When you want to make bread, take as much dough out as you need, shape it into a ball, let it sit out for an hour to readjust to room temperature, and then put it in a 450°F (230°C) oven for 50 minutes.
6. Let it cool all the way down. An hour or more. It really helps letting the steam finish the baking process.

Things learned

• I don’t like a super thick crust that hurts your jaw to chew. The two ways you can prevent that are to 1) let the bread rest in a plastic bag to let it steam itself, and/or 2) use wet heat during the baking to allow the crust to expand.
• Humidity can be added during the bake in a number of ways. One is to use a closed dutch oven to bake in—it’ll keep the water in. Remove it for the last few minutes to get color on the crust. Another is to spray water in the oven every few minutes for the first 20 minutes of baking, or until the crust no longer expands. Finally, you can place water in a baking sheet or broil pan under the bread, and it’ll boil off while it cooks.

• Again, you can make it as complicated as you want. The book Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast shows you how to make real French-style boules. It is laborious, but rewarding. The recipe I provided is adapted from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, which shows you how to make artisan-style bread, with plenty of variations, with only five minutes of active work.

  Is there a difference in the final product? Absolutely. It’s up to you to decide what you want to do. There is a ton of customizability in techniques, materials, and recipes.

• You may be saving money, but it’s nothing amazing. Bread was the main food of humanity for millinea—we can make it dirt cheap now. Even buying a similar quality of product will likely be saving you on the order of a few dollars, and you’re putting in way more time and effort than money you’re saving. It’s just a hobby. Though, it’s a delicious hobby!