Black - One Dough, Ten Breads: Making Great Bread by Hand

Copyright 2016 by Sarah Black

Photography 2016 by Lauren Volo

Food styling by Molly Shuster

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Black, Sarah

One dough, ten breads : making great bread by hand / Sarah Black ; photography by Lauren Volo.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-470-26095-1 (hardcover); 978-0-544-57933-0 (ebook)

1. Bread I. Volo, Lauren. II. Title.

TX769.b57 2016

641.81'5dc23

2015004574

Design by Vertigo Design NYC

v1.0216

T O THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER, W ILLIAM J ASPER B LACK ,

who flew the highest kites of all,
and showed me how to reach for the moon

A ND TO MY MOTHER, A NN L A M ARCHE B LACK,

who showed me how to make the moon brighter once I reached it

FOUNDATION BREAD

FOUNDATION BREADS

FOUNDATION BREADS

S ARAH B LACK IS A WONDERFUL BREAD BAKER, woman, teacher, and friend. We met more than twenty years ago when both of us were blossoming as bread bakers. We enjoyed sharing ideas and information about baking. We appreciated each other and encouraged one another as women bakers in a largely male-dominated profession. At that time she was perfecting her craft and developing a reputation for her ciabatta and her business, which she had named Companio. Related to the word companion, it means with bread or with whom one eats bread. This perfectly captures Sarahs ongoing mission of sharing bread and sharing the knowledge about making bread with others.

I have always admired how Sarah works with her hands. She has a gracefulness and precision as she handles the dough. She knows just the right amount of pressure to apply to pat out the dough and to preserve the air bubbles trapped within. She has the perfect touch to make beautiful bread. Her book captures the essence of her philosophy: Use your hands, and your knowledge, to start with something simple and build it into something more complex as you develop confidence and skill.

Why do you need this book among all the others? Because it comes from the heart and gets to the heart of what bread baking is all about. Sarah has made the process of making bread accessible, fun, and enjoyable. She has so much knowledge to share, and she has made it available to her readers in this wonderful book.

After knowing Sarah as a colleague for so many years, we recently had the pleasure of collaborating on our bread baking school at Amys Bread. Sarah created a roster of classes, many of which she taught. With her meticulous organization, her precision and grace, and her warm and friendly approach, the students loved her breaducation. In addition, Sarah and I taught several classes together, and I have been so inspired by the process. It has been a great highlight to work with Sarah and to play with the dough together as true bread baking companions.

Amy Scherber

FOUNDER, BAKER

Amys Bread

New York City

M Y HANDS WERE TRAINED IN MAKING PAPER before they were trained in making bread. I apprenticed for Dieu Donn Papermill in New York City in the 1980s, and my job was to cut up old hotel-size cotton tablecloths into one-inch squares. These were thrown into a machine called a Hollander beater, macerated with water into a pulp, and then, with an artful dip, caught by a mold, pressed, and dried.

The finished paper was held to the light to see more clearly the fibril construction and to gauge its strength for future use. Little did I know that a few years later I would be stretching a piece of bread dough to the light to check for the same kind of structure. It turns out that all of the hand skills I developed at Dieu Donn made my first attempts at bread making feel utterly familiar.

The sense of touch is fundamental in any craft, but coaxing the hands to make bread out of dough is often perceived as impossibly difficult. After all, the mix of water, flour, yeast, and salt is alive and kicking and needs a little guidance growing up. Its mysterious and temperamental and not easily controlledno wonder it scares so many away.

As Ive taught beginners and professionals alike, Ive noticed their hesitation and awkward approach when the hands-on production of learning commences. Words of instruction can get in the waytheres a gap between processing information and the actual touch. But once the hands are in the dough something interesting happens: intuition kicks in and new insights are gained. Getting started is really the only challenge, and adults would do well to learn from the child who lovingly, joyfully, and confidently jumps in.

Many years ago during the Christmas holiday I taught my nieces, McKenna and Celia (then seven and five), how to make a few holiday breads. But before I had any chance to instruct, I saw clouds of flour dust whipped into the air. My advice was lost as they delighted in pounding ingredients into puddles of dough. They clenched and clumped and kneaded with fists, then patted and formed it into a kind of lumpy round mold.

They could hardly wait for the dough to rise and watched over it with intense curiosity, poking and prodding and mottling the edges. When it was finally ready to shape, they cheered with delight, squished it between their fingers, and rolled it back and forth like mad. The twisted, ragged, flattened form may have looked more like Gumby than a baguette, but I marveled at what they had learned for themselves. Their raw insistence and fearless handwork had helped them to get started.

This book guides the new baker in uncovering the inherent touch for making bread and gently prompts the feel for discovery. Skill and technique grow from this tactile experience, and with the intimate knowledge of just one foundation dough, breads evolve into classic flavors, shapes, and recipes. Companion instruction clarifies the science from theory into perceivable form, making learning both easy and authentic. Best of all, with knowing hands, large or small, the new baker becomes a bread baker.