Susan: How To Shape Dough Into Sandwich Loaves

Note: This is a continuation of my article on making basic white bread, which you can read here.

There are many ways to shape a lump of dough into a standard sandwich loaf. The easiest way is to simply pat the dough into the shape of the pan and plunk it in.
Whichever way you choose to shape your loaves, the most important thing to remember is that the finished dough should contact the short ends of the pan so they can help support the dough as it rises.

One popular technique is "jelly-roll" style: Press the dough into a rectangle that is as long as the loaf pan and slightly less than twice as wide as it is long. At the narrow end, roll the dough tightly, jelly-roll style. Pinch the ends and seam to seal, turning the ends under if necessary. I've also seen a similar version where the dough is rolled out to 1/4-inch thick with a rolling pin. That is way too much work for me, but it would be interesting to see the resulting loaf.

I use the "log" method, and it comes straight from the pages of the absolutely wonderful book, Amy's Bread. Here it is, word for word, because if you're like me and have trouble thinking three-dimensionally, this isn't the kind of thing you want to try paraphrasing. (Amy, please don't sue me.) It does take a little practice.

"When shaping your loaves, the most important thing to remember is to be gentle with the dough. Your goal is to form an even loaf with a taut skin, while leaving some larger air holes inside.

Very lightly flour the work surface. Start by forming an envelope: Place the dough on the table. Press and flatten it gently with your fingertips to form a rectangle with a short side facing you, leaving a lot of air bubbles in the dough. [Susan's note: I press out any large air bubbles.] Fold the top edge down over the middle of the rectangle, then fold the bottom edge up. Give the dough a quarter turn and repeat the process, folding the top edge down and the bottom edge up again and overlapping the edges slightly in the middle so the dough looks like an envelope. Pat the seam to seal it. Now you have a smaller, tighter rectangle.

Form a cylinder: Starting from the top edge of the rectangle, fold the top third of the dough over itself with one hand. With the heel of your other hand, gently press the seam to seal it.

Fold the dough one third of the way down again and work from one end to the other to seal the seam. Try to keep the skin of the dough smooth and tight but not so tight that the skin tears.

Repeat this process one or two more times, until the loaf is a nice round log. Seal the final seam completely with the heel of your hand. Ideally your seam should be straight and tight with no openings or flaps of dough hanging out; with patience, this will become natural.

If any dough is protruding from the ends of the log, poke it back in with your finger. [Susan's note: I tuck the ends into the log and then pinch them closed; I find this makes a neater looking loaf.]

The plain log shape can be placed in a loaf pan or left on a cloth for a free-form second rise. From the log shape, you can make other cylindrical shapes."

If you're making three loaves of bread at a time, the best thing to do is shape each one using a different technique and see how they compare. I found that shaping mine into logs resulted in the best looking breads, and I've been shaping them this way for years. But I may find myself switching to a quicker method once our little wholesale bread bakery is up and running and I'm making dozens of loaves of bread at a time. It's probably time for me to do another round of experimenting.

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Metaphor Gone Mad

Conan Obrien and Bread

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Break bread with us...

Beth: What the heck is the great plot? Susan sent me like two lines: "…baking bread… the three of us" And then she went away.

Kevin: The plot is a joint project between the three of us.

Susan: This was the original message I sent Kevin:

I had an idea yesterday about doing a bread baking thing/ongoing project/whatever with you and maybe Beth if she's interested, but then I realized I was already over my head with commitments, so I didn't tell you about it. Oops.

Beth: That does sound interesting. We have so much fun talking about bread, we really should let others join in. But I actually need to jump offline right now and make pizza to go on the 500 degree baking stone in my oven. Send me mail and we can talk about this more...it's a very cool idea!

Susan: Oh sure, now you leave.

An hour passes...the pizza was excellent.

Kevin: While you were eating pizza, we decided that we could create a blog called "A Year in Bread." One type of bread a month, we each do a recipe, then we discuss our efforts online. It should be very focused, and yet very personal.

Beth: This could be so much fun! Remember when you started baking bread and how nice it was to have someone to talk to about bread?

Kevin: I was about 14 the first time I baked bread. It was a 100% whole wheat brick.

Beth: Ouch.

Kevin: You could have built a house if you had enough of them.

Beth: Hey, I need raised beds built for my garden—you could bake me some. My first bread was challah.

Susan: Was it brick challah? I baked croissant bricks when I was in high school. That seven hour disappointing experience made me terrified of yeast for 10 years.

Beth: No, but then challah is very forgiving. I also stuck with 50% whole wheat for the first few years, until I had a clue what the heck I was doing.

Kevin: Ahem. Back to business. So every month we pick one kind of bread and each of us makes it in turn.

Beth: Do we all use the same recipe, or do we each use our own?

Susan: Doing the same recipe might be interesting…but if we each do our own, then people can try three different approaches to the same thing and see how different recipes actually work.

Beth: Yeah—it will be like having a series of intensives on a dozen kinds of bread.

Kevin: We can still bake each others' recipes if we want. Kind of as extra credit--and as a basis for explaining why our own recipe is superior of course. So...which breads?

A lot has happened since those first chats. Suddenly 12 months seems short. There are so many breads to bake—and so much more to bread than just recipes and baking.

We've had discussions about yeast and flour and how to measure them. We declared whose bread baking books we love and whose we don't like much, followed by a round of confessions of cookbook neglect. (I'm sure that each of us said "Oh! I have a copy of that…but I never use it" at least once. Hopefully we can do something about that.)

We argued the merits of mixing dough by hand or machine, organic ingredients vs. not, whether it's better to try a dozen different recipes or make the same recipe a dozen times—and quickly realized our blog will need to have a special rant section (as well as some serious bread porn).

We all agreed that we should cover sandwich breads, hamburger buns, and rolls that are good for summer barbeques. Then there are sweet rolls, as well as more rustic breads such as a pain a la ancienne and foccacia. Sourdough is a must, as are fancier breads such as challah, baguettes, and brioche. Baking with whole grains will definitely need
to be covered.

Some months we'll do three different recipes, and other months we'll take a pass at the same recipe, such as that now infamous NY Times No-knead bread. But where to start?

Susan: Pizza!

Beth: Hey! I already said pizza—forever ago in a chat.

Kevin: And I was about to.

Susan: That's why we should do pizza first—because it's simple and not as intimidating as bread. Plus everybody loves pizza.

Kevin: Yeah, and when you think of pizza as bread, you get the best pizza.

Three passionate bakers, 12 months, 36 recipes--and more fun than should probably be allowed in the kitchen. Come bake bread with us.

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