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Originally Posted by Rocio I´m new with bread and I want it to be as perfect as possible.
Thanks!
Rocio  |
Welcome to my world
Someone who used to post here (are you still out here TheBigHat?) gave me the best advice when I started baking bread. Go deep before you go wide. Stick with the Basic Bread recipe and bake it over and over again. You will, or you hands more specifically, will come to know what a well made dough should feel like. You'll learn when your dough needs a touch more water or flour because it's a humid or dry day. You'll learn what the dough shuold feel like when it is completely kneaded (your spelling is fine BTW). The smarter your hands are the better your bread will be
As to your first efforts, welcome to the door stop club! Most of us began our bread baking with many dense door stop like breads with nearly fossilized crusts. As others have pointed out you need to lubricate the container in which your dough rises for the first time, this is also known as fermentation. The knocking or punching down is a way to release some of the gases that have built up during the first rise. You don't need to beat the dough into submission to do this. I find that just turning the dough out onto the board and dividing it can be enough to degas the dough.
The 10 minute rest allows the dough to relax from the degassing/dividing experience. It also allows the gluten to relax which makes the loaves easier to shape. Once you have shaped your loaves they need to rise again, this second rise is also known as proofing. The loaves need to double in size during this stage. In general, a Basic Bread will need about an hour to double during the first rise and another hour to double during the second. DUring the second rise the dough continues to ferment. The gases that are produced get trapped by the gluten strands that you developed when you kneaded the dough. The expansion of these trapped gases is what causes the bread to tise. If you bake the bread before the loaves have doubled there won;t be any of those nice holes you, and the rest of us, are looking for.
Welcome to bread and keep at it. Please come here as often as you need to with what ever question pops into your head