Baking

In this chapter

• Autolyse — A rest of flour and water before salt and leaven, so gluten hydrates and becomes more extensible with less mixing.
• Bagel — A ring of stiff, high-protein wheat dough boiled to set a leathery skin, then baked — chew from gluten and the bath, not from hearth steam alone.
• Baker's percentage — A formula language in which flour is 100% and every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of flour weight.
• Bakery quality control — Checking that today’s dough and loaf match the formula you meant — taste, weight, temperature, and flour identity — not a software dashboard.
• Bakery yield — How much saleable bread you keep after dough is mixed — bake-off, cooling loss, trim, and hopper waste — not the baker’s-percent conversion that sizes a batch.
• Bench rest — A short uncovered rest after pre-shaping so gluten relaxes and the skin can be tightened in the final shape without tearing.
• Biga — A family of stiff yeast preferments, drier than a poolish, mixed ahead and later incorporated into dough.
• Ciabatta — A slack, high-hydration wheat loaf stretched into a slipper, aiming for irregular holes from water and gentle handling rather than a tight shaped skin.
• Cooling — The period after the bake when steam leaves the loaf and the crumb sets, before the bread is cut.
• Crumb — The interior of a loaf: gelatinized starch held in a gluten network, with a cell structure set by fermentation and the bake.
• Crust — The dried, browned exterior of bread, kept extensible by early steam and then dried so it can crisp.
• Deck oven — A stack of baking chambers with a solid hearth, separate heat and steam per deck — the shop tool hearth bread is named for, not a home range with a stone on one rack.
• Desired dough temperature — The target temperature of dough at the end of mixing, used so fermentation and the bakery schedule stay inside a planned window.
• Dividing — Cutting bulk-fermented dough into pieces of intended weight before preshaping, so loaves bake as comparable objects.
• Dough yield — Scaling a baker's-percent formula to a target dough weight by dividing that weight by the sum of the percentages — King Arthur's formula conversion factor.
• Dutch oven — A lidded pot used at home as a small steam chamber: it traps the loaf's own vapor for the first part of the bake, then is uncovered so the crust can dry.
• Enriched dough — Dough that carries a meaningful load of fat, sugar, eggs, or dairy, so gluten, mixing, and fermentation behave unlike lean bread.
• Fermentation scheduling — Using dough temperature, inoculation, and cold holds so bulk and proof land when the baker — not the clock — is ready.
• Focaccia — A high-hydration, oil-dimpled pan bread whose open crumb comes from water and a pushed proof, not from shaping a tight skin like a bâtard.
• Friction factor — An empirical temperature rise from mixing, used in the desired-dough-temperature formula, belonging to one mixer, batch, and protocol.
• Hearth bread — Freeform bread baked on a hot deck or in a closed pot, with more crust exposed than a pan loaf and a greater need for early steam.
• Hydration — The liquid in a dough as a percentage of flour weight, read from baker's percent after preferments are recast.
• Inoculation — How much leaven — commercial yeast, levain, or starter — is added relative to flour, setting how fast the dough ferments.
• Lamination — Folding fat into dough so that discrete layers remain, rather than mixing the fat through as in an ordinary enriched dough.
• Lean dough — Bread dough of flour, water, salt, and leaven, without a meaningful load of fat, sugar, eggs, or dairy.
• Oven loading — Moving a proofed loaf into a hot chamber — with steam already planned — without losing heat, shape, or the score.
• Oven spring — The rapid rise of a loaf in the first minutes of the bake, when trapped gas expands before the crust sets.
• Pan bread — Dough baked in a tin so the sides set the loaf’s geometry — more crumb, less exposed crust, and a proof you can push farther than a freeform hearth loaf.
• Pâte fermentée — Prefermented dough held from a previous mix — old dough that already contains salt — and later added to a new batch.
• Pizza dough — A lean wheat dough stretched thin or pressed in a pan, fermented so gluten is extensible, then baked fast enough that the rim browns before the crumb dries out.
• Poolish — A liquid yeast preferment of equal weights flour and water, mixed ahead and later folded into the dough.
• Pre-shaping — The first tightening of a divided dough piece into a rough round or log, before a short rest, so the final shape has a skin to work against.
• Preferment — A portion of flour, water, and leaven fermented ahead of the dough, then mixed in so part of the bread's flour is already mature.
• Prefermented flour — The share of a formula's flour that ferments in a preferment before the final mix, visible only after baker's percent is recast.
• Production scaling — Matching a baker’s-percent formula to a real mixer, oven, and shift — dough yield is the arithmetic; the practical question is whether that weight fits the shop.
• Production sequencing — Ordering mixer, bench, proofer, and oven so dough arrives as equipment and people are free — not the temperature-and-retard math of fermentation scheduling.
• Retarding — Slowing fermentation by chilling dough, either in bulk or as a shaped loaf, so the clock and the flavor window move together.
• Rye bread — Bread in which rye flour is a real share of the formula — stickier, less stretchy, and often denser than wheat bread, not a caraway-flavored white loaf.
• Sourdough — Bread leavened by a culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria rather than commercial baker’s yeast.
• Spiral mixer — A bowl that turns while a spiral arm kneads — a dough-first machine, not a planetary mixer with a hook swapped in.
• Steam — Moisture in the first minutes of the bake that keeps the crust extensible, then is vented so the crust can dry and crisp.
• Viennoiserie — Yeasted pastry built as a family — croissant, pain au chocolat, morning bun — where laminated layers must still proof, cut, and bake as bread, not as pie crust.
• Whole-wheat bread — Bread whose structure must survive bran and germ in the flour — thirstier dough, less gluten per gram, and a denser crumb than white-flour bread unless the baker changes water and time.
• Yeast bread — Bread leavened primarily with commercial baker's yeast, as distinct from a sourdough culture, including doughs that still use a yeast preferment.