Bread Making Basics

About Bread Making Basics

Gain the basic understanding of bread-making you'll need to make loaves that rise and taste great. In class, we'll have demonstrations of basic techniques, talk about what's happening in the dough, learn tips to avoid pitfalls, and have plenty of time for questions. Students will have a simple baking assignment each week that we'll discuss the following class. By the end of the month, you'll have a foundational knowledge of bread-making that you can use to explore the vast recipes of the world.

This class is presented in collaboration with the John C. Campbell Folk School & is limited to 24 students.

Class Materials Needed

White flour (both all-purpose and bread flours would be ideal, but one or the other will work too)
Whole wheat flour (ideally sprouted wheat, if you can find it, but otherwise regular whole wheat)
Water (tap water is fine, but bottled water can be helpful)
Salt (any table salt works, but ideally noniodized)
Yeast (instant yeast if you can find it; otherwise, active dry yeast is fine)
Semolina flour
Olive oil
Basic kitchen equipment: bowls, measuring cups and spoons, plastic wrap, a large plastic storage container (like a large Tupperware, a rectangular cake size is perfect), a sharp knife, surface for kneading and shaping (could be a clean countertop), oven for baking, a stiff plastic "bowl scraper" tool, metal pan for baking on, spray bottle of water, a non-fuzzy kitchen towel, parchment paper that can bake at 450 deg. F, potholders, cooling rack
More advanced kitchen equipment (optional but would be nice to have): scale, lame (razor blade for scoring bread), pizza stone and/or covered dish for baking (Corningware, pyrex, Dutch oven, Creuset, etc.), oven thermometer, probe thermometer with a range of (at least) from ~40 to over 200 deg. F.