12/25/2025
Hi everyone and Merry Christmas!!!
So not super Christmasy, but more a need to touch dough and also basically sharing with you how you can make any bread dough without a mixer
There are other techniques but this is the one I use (when I have a mixer, I do things slightly differently, an “autolyse” on one side, to which I add the ferment later on, when the ferment is ready)
For a regular bread dough, same technique, except you would just not put the butter (it’s far more messy with the incorporation of butter in your dough when you don’t have a mixer, so if you just want a bread dough don’t put it), and you would want your refreshed starter to be more active (so more waiting time)
Here is the “Recipe” ⬇️
Ferment (Refreshed Starter):
Starter (aka Levain Chef): 60g / Honey: 2g / Bread Flour: 30g / Luke Warm Filtered Water: 30g > Mix all of this together and let sit in a warm place until active (depending on the temperature it can take between 2 to 4 hours. Here for a flat bread it was almost unnecessary so I only left it 1 hour, I just wanted to have fun and use that butter enriched bread dough doing something I had never tried)
Then I added the following ingredients to have the final dough:
Bread Flour: 315g / Chilled Filtered Water: 190g / Salt: 7g // Butter: 30g
“Mix” until you have a smooth dough with enough strength (window pan holds without breaking too fast when you stretch a piece of dough) / I am from the “more water school” vs the “more flour school” (until that point in the process), so I like to spread a bit of water on top / and hop in the Fridge overnight > this will develop the aroma and regulate lots of things
Et voilà. I keep it very simple, no science and crazy temperatures measurements of the air, the flour, the water. I know it goes against a lot of the literature about the subject, but I really like it that way. I am more someone that have failed and tried again over and over until my guts have developed a feeling of when the dough is right, than someone who is extremely focused on exact never ending parameters that keep changing
I look at the dough and I adapt to it
I guess a better version of myself would do both
