- Welcome to Baking with Ned.
(upbeat music)
We're baking bread, YOLO!
Hey, how's it going?
- Good, how you are doing in this crazy time?
- I'm good, I'm hanging in there.
- I'm Ran, I'm one of the Bread Lounge team members.
- Well, I'm very excited to chat with you
and a little bit of background of what I've been doing.
I'm trying to bake sourdough from scratch.
Oo, yeah, it is,
it smells a little nasty.
And I've tried to bake it a couple times
but it's not working out so well.
I feel really sad about this, this is embarrassing.
This is one of the worst loaves I've ever baked.
It came out like very flat, it came out like this.
- Flat.
- [Ned] This big.
- So sourdough is basically dough
that's made with natural yeast.
We have two type of bacteria in the starter.
- Mm-hmm.
- One giving it the sour flavor,
that's why it's called sourdough.
And the other one acts like, is the yeast
and it gives the volume to the loaf.
So if you have too much of the one bacteria,
let's say the sour one, but not enough the yeasty bacteria,
it will be very sour but it will come out very flat.
- And how do you create that balance?
- If the starter is good and healthy,
and nice bubbles, you gonna get a really nice loaf.
(mellow music)
- All right now it's time to make our sourdough starter.
Here I'm going to mix,
this is my 50/50 wheat flour and all-purpose flour.
Gonna add 200 grams of that to the bowl
and now I'm gonna add 200 grams
of my warm water,
so at the end you should have a kind of a mushy,
almost like a soup like porridge.
And you let it sit with a covering.
Here we go, covered with Saran wrap now.
- You want the starter to be bubbly.
- [Ned] Uh-huh.
- And after let's say 10, 12 hours from now if it's not
you want to feed it again with flour and water.
- Now what we'll do right now, Wes,
is called feeding the sourdough.
So we're gonna take our sourdough,
gonna throw away most of it, like 80%.
Now to the remainder, we'll add more flour,
which is like our fuel.
The flour is a half whole wheat and bread flour mix
and then the flour water ratio is one to one by weight.
All right, so now we're gonna mix it all together.
Oh wow, we have flour everywhere now.
- Usually it takes about a week or two of refreshing it
just to get the right flavor and balance.
Bigger bubbles you have, healthier it is.
- [Ned] Really, so I'm looking for like--
- [Ran] So in the beginning--
- Monster bubbles, just like big ole, big bubbles.
- Not monster, let's say quarter inch.
- [Ned] Oh wow.
- You're getting there, the starter is not ready,
nothing gonna come out even if you do
all the other steps properly.
- Good morning, we're back, it's days seven.
All right, I'm gonna check on my sourdough starter,
see how it's doing, seven days in.
I mean it should really be getting nice and stanky.
Okay, okay, I definitely feel some stank.
Let's see if it passes the float test.
Oh,
oh!
It's not floating at all.
What am I doing wrong?
There's just no floating here.
So do people ever do half sourdough starter
and half like store bought yeast?
- Yeah, you can mix it.
It will help it get the volume and looks nice
and you'll still get the sourdough flavor.
- Is putting in commercial yeast cheating?
- No, I don't think it's cheating.
- Okay, good.
- There's no cheating, you wanna get a nice loaf of bread
- Right.
- It's all good.
- At the end of the day, if it helps you make bread,
there's nothing cheating about it.
- No.
- All right, this is the ultimate lazy boy recipe.
Here's what we're gonna do,
350 grams of water,
and we're gonna add our salt now.
You wanna taste some salt?
Salt is very, very good.
Here you go.
Then mix it all together.
What are some typical like percentages
for how much water to put in,
how much flour to put in.
- It can be anywhere from 50% to 60 to 70 to 80% hydration
meaning percentage of the water
from the total weight of the dough.
I recommend to beginner,
to people that just start baking at home especially
not to start with high hydration,
it's just harder to work with.
Also hydration doesn't make the bread better necessarily,
it's just matter of preference.
- More salt!
- More salt?
- [Ariel] More salt?
(laughing)
- This is yeast, this is not for babies.
So if you're mixing sourdough starter
and store bought yeast, you want to only put
like a little bit, like a half teaspoon
or a teaspoon of store bought?
- Even less than half.
- Even less.
- Less than a quarter of a teaspoon--
- Oh wow.
- Of the yeast.
'Cause too much commercial yeast
will just kill the sourdough yeast.
(upbeat music)
- Swirl that around.
- Mm!
- Then, one quarter cup--
- Baby!
- Of the sourdough starter.
You're not gonna get much yeast from it
but you might get some flavor.
- Baby, baby, baby.
- And then, 450 grams of flour
and 50 grams of whole wheat flour.
And there you go, check this out,
this is lazy boy sudo sourdough bread.
(mellow music)
Like how long do I wanna let it rise for,
what am I looking for when it's rising?
- After you take it out of the mixer,
you gonna put it in a container with the lid,
you're gonna cover it.
And you basically want it to double its size.
Another way to know if its ready or not
is with your finger to punch the dough on the top,
if you press it gently and it leaves a strong mark,
it means it's already over proofed.
- [Ned] Okay.
- Now if the dough springs back
and there's no sign of your finger on the dough
that means it still has a lot of power
and needs more time to rise.
I've been in the middle of making this one.
- Press with your finger so I can see.
Yeah, this is all, that's too,
it's been sitting for too long.
- Ah man.
Things have really not been going well
on the sourdough journey.
But, look at this, oo yes.
That's bubbly.
If this doesn't float, I (sighing)
I'm just gonna go to Panera.
Hmm.
Not gonna lie, I was expecting that to float.
So here is the status of the bread
after two hours of rising.
Hardly anything,
really not getting a ton of rising here.
So. (heavily sighing)
I feel like I failed.
Do people ever proof their bread in the oven,
with the oven off?
- If your room is very cold.
- [Ned] Mm-hmm.
- You can do that but you don't want the oven to be too hot
'cause then you'll cook the dough when it's raw.
- So we had a little bit if a miscommunication
on the bread front between me and Ariel.
You see what had happened was,
I put the bread in the oven
when it wasn't hot just to proof it,
give it a nice, stable environment.
But then my wife didn't know that
and she stared preheating the oven to cook broccoli
and this is the result.
(drum roll)
(laughing)
Oh no.
- Oh yeah, communication problems.
That's the biggest problem we all have.
- I should of left a note.
What's supposed to be a video about me
teaching everyone to bake bread
and it's actually some of my lowest, worst bread moments.
Which really just shows that baking bread is a journey
and everyone's on that journey at a different stage.
You can go forward, you can go backwards,
you're just, you know, where you are, where you are
and that's okay.
And right now, this is where I am.
So today I'm going to take my bread to the next level
and make it with sourdough.
Ariel just wants me to make my normal yeasted bread.
- Can you please just make regular bread?
I need something edible.
(laughing)
- Why don't you want the sourdough journey anymore?
- I just want bread that I can eat.
- It's getting dire over here from the people.
We really have to get this right.
We have to get this right.
Let's check in on Sven, the sourdough starter.
How's he doing?
Oo, he's getting bubbly,
now this is great, this is what I need
to use to bake my bread.
Yeah, yeah that's floating.
Yeah.
(mellow music)
So we got our water, we got our sourdough starter,
it's floating pretty nicely.
We're gonna go for it.
400 grams of bread flour or all-purpose flour,
50 grams of spelt,
50 grams of whole wheat flour.
You combine it all together with your hands,
this is the most fun part.
(upbeat guitar music)
Oh, ah!
(blowing raspberries)
- I want a cat.
- Where is the cat?
- So you're gonna remove the cover,
it should of solidified a little bit.
And now you're gonna add the salt
and your 50 extra grams of water.
Then you're gonna combine it all together,
kind of squeeze it together with your thumbs in the dough
so that the whole dough gets the salt incorporated.
Now, from this point forward,
you're not gonna wanna work the dough as much.
Now it's time for the bulk fermentation.
You're gonna wanna watch over it
and give it a turn every 30 minutes
by pulling up the bottom of the dough
and flipping it over itself.
Doing that develops tension in the dough
when it bakes it's gonna be a nice, round shape,
and it's gonna rise really well.
After about three to four hours
or when it doubles in size and passes the poke test,
then it's ready to shape.
We'll tilt it out,
boom, now at this point you wanna really
not work it as much as you can.
Scoop it, flip it, scoop it, flip it.
Kind of scoop it around and make a little ball out of it.
Put out a little blankie,
and let it rest for some time.
Oh yes, so my bread has been proofing all afternoon,
let's check it out.
Ah, look at that, I gotta say,
I really like how this has turned out.
There's a sweet smell that's coming off of it
so I got some sourdough flavor but not too much.
Now let's talk about like shaping.
- When you shape it, sometimes the dough
has a lot of air in it
so when you shape, you wanna get rid of the big bubbles.
- Hmm.
- The big bubbles are just gonna be holes
in the middle of the loaf.
- All right, so the last step is to shape the loaf.
Take it up, flip it over,
then perform a series of folds.
Just like that,
the the last fold like so.
I just kinda like button it into a little,
oh yes, it's so smooth,
so round, so pure!
Ah!
Is this a thumbnail?
What a perfect little nugget.
Okay, I've got my bread basket here with plenty of flour.
Scoop!
So I've shaped my loaves, now I've put them in the basket
and then it goes for like another couple of hours.
- So here again, you want it to double in size.
- Really, huh.
- And this is where you can control the process.
So let's say it's nine at night now.
- Yeah.
- Nine in the evening, you're already tired,
you just shaped your loaf,
you're like, okay, now I have to wait until about 11
to put it in the oven,
and then I have to bake, I'm too tired,
I don't wanna deal with it today, no problem.
You put it in the refrigerator,
you go to sleep.
- Huh.
- The, you know the cold, coldness in the refrigerator
won't let the yeast keep on working
so it will stay the way it is.
- So basically putting it in the fridge
is like hitting pause.
- Yeah, and then instead of being ready
after two hours because it came out from the refrigerator,
it will take it three or four hours.
Again depends how cold is your refrigerator
and how cold is the room.
- Wow, now I'm gonna let this proof in the basket
for an additional three hours,
the put it in the refrigerator over night
and then tomorrow morning we'll bake delicious,
fresh sourdough that I made myself,
on the counter here almost two weeks later.
Good morning, this is my sourdough
ready to go into the oven,
it has been sitting in the refrigerator all night.
So for baking it, I have been using a big cast iron pot
and I read somewhere that your supposed to keep the lid on
to like help develop like steam or something.
Like what are some tips you
have for actually baking the bread?
- So the cast iron,
it's better for dough with a lot of hydration.
- Hmm, okay.
- But also keep the shape.
- Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause if it's too wet it's gonna be flat
and as you put it on open surface.
But if your dough is not as wet,
you don't necessarily need the cast iron
so you wanna put it in the oven
before you start heating it.
- Put the cast iron in ahead of time,
preheat the whole thing, then put the bread in.
- Yeah.
- I've been preheating my cast iron pot,
it's all nice and toasty.
Oh yeah, it came right out.
All right I give myself a nice box cut here
to help the steam expand properly.
Oo, and you can see on the inside,
check it out, you can see there's like a good amount of like
rising and bubbling there.
Let's do this.
Ned time bread time!
I don't thing you're bready
for this bread.
All right,
and I'll take that down to 450, set timers.
(upbeat bass guitar)
And then what should I look for
when it comes out of the oven,
like when is it done?
- The best way to look is at the color,
if it has a nice color, brown color,
some people like it darker than others.
- Mm-hmm.
- But the color is a good sign.
- So it can be anywhere from like golden brown
to like kind of nutty, nutty brown.
- Yeah.
- All right, it's done, let's check it out.
Oh my goodness,
what!
(exuberant music) What!
That is bread!
Here it is, my final sourdough loaf.
I feel very accomplished,
this is very pretty.
It's beautiful.
All right, here we go.
- Mm.
Mm-hmm
- Perfect.
- Thank you.
Yeah it has a nice brown crust,
that was very crunchy, it's a little sour but not too sour.
I'm pretty please with how it turned out.
- Very nice.
You are officially a professional baker.
- Well thank you. (laughing)
Oh my goodness, wow, like I can't wait
to continue this journey
and thank you so much for all of your help.
- Your welcome and come to our bakery
and get a loaf of bread.
- I will, I will, thank you so much.
- Mm.
- Mm there's like a rich,
sourdough flavor.
It's very good.
- Good bread.
- [Ariel] Good bread.
- Good bread, good bread
(upbeat music)
We're baking bread but Wes has commandeered my bowl.
(laughing)
Bowl!