Can you shake a bread?

I have 2 cup shake thing, my method of making bread involves two parts, first I make very loose 'root' that is taking some hours to get ready, after that I make a real dough.

For first part I wanted to test now my shaker thing, I just put in all I needed, then some shaking and at least that part was much more convenient than doing it in big bowl.

But now I was thinking that maybe I could poke and shake whole dough in shaking thing and only final kneading would need doing by hand.

I would save quite bit of wash up that way, but has anyone else tested and failed already in this?

I plan to make quite loose dough and put that on tinfoil 'bowl'.

Don't know all the words for cooking, so I'm not sure if anyone can understand a bit

Hmm, I've never tried that method. I have a bread baking machine that I basically only use for mixing and kneading nowadays, since I don't like the shape of the bread it makes.

I... honestly don't know what you mean by a "shake thing"... lol    Can you post a pic? or link?

When you say you start with a "root", are you talking about a sourdough starter?... wild yeast?  If so, I recommend Wild Yeast Blog for some info on baker's percentages, and how wild yeast works.  I've learned lots of tidbits just cruising through some of her recipes.

Anyway... I'm not sure a "shaker" would mix your ingredients enough.     I do know that kneading bread dough is very important to the formation of gluten strands which provide the structure for your bread.

Here is the very easy method to make wonderful bread. You need: one bowl, measuring cup, sturdy 2 1/2 quart oven-proof pot with lid, and about 20 hours, all told. Measurement in Imperial, sorry.

With thanks to Mark Bittman of the New York Times, and the Sullivan Street Bakery.

3 cups bread flour

1 5/8 cup lukewarm water

1/4 teaspoon instant rise yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Stir all together - makes a slack, wet dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise about 18 hours.

Lightly flour a kitchen towel. Definitely NOT terrycloth! Turn dough out onto towel, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

Lightly flour your hands. Gently pull top and bottom of dough to middle. Do the same with the sides. Making sure the towel is re-floured. Flip dough so folds are on bottom. Let rest about 2 hours, loosely covered with plastic wrap.

Before the end of the resting period preheat oven AND covered pot to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dust surface of dough with cornmeal or flour.

Carefully remove lid and flop dough into pot, cornmeal side down. Cover, and put back into oven for 30 minutes.

Remove lid and bake for additional 20 minutes or so.

Fantastic oven spring, great crust, good crumb, fabulous flavor. If it lasts long enough, makes great toast and / or French toast.

NOTES: I use a Le Creuset cast iron enamel pot. I've read that you can also use Pyrex. Important is that pot be heavy, have lid, able to withstand high temperature (I'd be nervous about non-stick coating for example.) Google no-knead bread and the Internet will provide you with numerous variations - olive and rosemary, whole wheat or multi-grain, etc etc etc

If you want more details I have an entry on my web site, with pictures. Email me and I'll send you the link.

Furmonster Mom said:

I... honestly don't know what you mean by a "shake thing"... lol    Can you post a pic? or link?

When you say you start with a "root", are you talking about a sourdough starter?... wild yeast?  If so, I recommend Wild Yeast Blog for some info on baker's percentages, and how wild yeast works.  I've learned lots of tidbits just cruising through some of her recipes.

Anyway... I'm not sure a "shaker" would mix your ingredients enough.  :dk:    I do know that kneading bread dough is very important to the formation of gluten strands which provide the structure for your bread.

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Think about glass with a lid, I think body builders use such to make their protein shakes?


I figured out that it is possible to indeed make first part with the shaker thing, but then I had to pour that all mushy dough into bowl and add more flours there to make it a real dough.

Oh yes, it is indeed called sourdough like here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough

It appears to be that I made Dark Rye Bread, shaped them like baguette as my dough did not end up as soft as it should of been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_bread

My method is perhaps bit odd, I don't use measurements, I put cold water half the size of what I want to dough to be, then I add very tiny amount of dry yeast (they say it needs warmer water than normal one, don't believe, works just fine with cold water too when making sourdough and does not taste + gives really soft bread) and some flour so that what I have in bowl is not quite as water but not thick either.
After that I let it be for hours in warm, so that it gets all mushy.

After that I add salt, and rest of the flours.

Then more than hour again in warm place, after that shape bread from dough and put to oven pan, cover and let rise again to double in size, which may take more than an hour again. I put oven to 200C and put pan at lowest place, I don't know how long, but maybe 20, 30 minutes, if making single big bread it needs to be longer.

I probably won't use shaker again, it was as much dishes as before and almost as much work to do the dishes too, I try some kind of spatula next, that would give me only two pieces for dishes, bowl and spatula. Shaker did make that sourdough 1st part much faster, but washing dishes took as much longer as it saved time and there was more work, so it is not really good way.

For white wheat bread try Psyllium, makes wonders to bread.

I agree, long slow rise gives excellent flavor. What you are making is a pre-ferment or a mother dough. You can also take a  small piece of your risen dough, before baking. Refrigerate (or in your case, put in a cool but not freezing place.) This is called a poolish, or biga. Next time you go to bake bread, add the biga. After several repeats, you'll find it really adds a nice flavor to the bread.

When I was learning how to make sourdough from scratch, I did it all by experimentation. 

Once I got the basic flour/salt/water bread down, I started adding different ingredients.  I did this one at a time so I could tell how each ingredient affected the bread.

So that's how I learned that a little bit of oil will soften your bread, and a little bit of sugar will make it "fluffy".

Thing is, sugar will mellow the tart sour as well. 

Catapault said:

I agree, long slow rise gives excellent flavor. What you are making is a pre-ferment or a mother dough. You can also take a  small piece of your risen dough, before baking. Refrigerate (or in your case, put in a cool but not freezing place.) This is called a poolish, or biga. Next time you go to bake bread, add the biga. After several repeats, you'll find it really adds a nice flavor to the bread.

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We call that pre-ferment and biga both as "root of dough", that is direct translation, I don't think that there is separate word for biga, but how to use is exactly as you tell here too

One problem comes when you really put effort on bread making, it is impossible to eat those breads they sell in shop, they are horrible almost tasteless, but bark is very sour, there is ton of salt and they are not even nearly as soft as my own making, but still they break too easily when pulled.

Rye bread is something that usually is not meant to be very soft, very thin slices, no more thickness than cheese you put on top of it, it makes great combination when one learns proper proportions of topping and bread, but bread alone is quite sour and if using thick slice as with white bread it will overpower the toppings.

Of course everyone has their own preference what hits the spot, so experiment!

We have around 1500 years of rye bread tradition, it has always been dark and sour, but I guess since 70's there has been lighter variations. Wheat is actually very recent here, it still does not grow very well where I live, but they grow it at southern part of country. I know one elderly lady that mentioned of how they were told to eat wheat bread as it is better for you, that was time when wheat appeared to fields, that was some 60-70 years ago.

It is only about 4000-5000 years ago (about same time as great lake in Sahara had dried up) that first settlements were build here and ice from ice age left even northmost part of this country, so there is not as long tradition in farming and baking as some other places.

So as there is no long tradition in bread making, I make white wheat bread almost same way as dark rye bread, adding from one tradition to another, but I add oill to wheat dough, also that Psyllium that I did mention, sometimes honey, sometimes sweet sugar syrup, but I do pre-ferment like in rye bread, seem to be working quite well.

One can use also oil instead of flour when handling the dough, that allows dough to be let softer and thus bread becoming softer, I sometimes use this with wheat bread when I want it faster, but usually I just wait long enough to bread really rise.

The tradition of bread making in the US has definitely fluctuated over the years, at least to my observation.

My mother used to make bread all the time, but she used mostly commercial yeasts and bread machines (a home Hobart mixer), and it was always in big batches of 6 loaves at a time.  I don't think my mom really had the patience for sourdough, which is why she used fast rising commercial yeasts. 

In any case, she stopped making breads before I was old enough to pick up the knowledge, so I subsisted on commercial breads for many years.  Eventually, I took interest in homemade breads again, and picked it up on my own.  Once I realized how easy, cheap, and tasty it was, I became more reluctant to buy it at the store.

There have always been pockets of society where bread making holds a strong tradition, but in the larger cities it's not as "convenient".  I do wonder if the resurgence of healthy eating awareness will make it a more popular option again.

I'm an avid bread baker, have been for years. I've never shaken my yeast mixture, but I do stir the mixture rapidly in the bowl before adding enough flour to make a kneadable dough.

I'm not familiar with the "shaken not stirred" bit at all.

I hadn't heard of it for bread either.  I have heard of something like that for making ice cream.

Shaking part is my new addition, which was partly success, it might be good if you have running water so cleaning up is easier, I don't have such.

I sometimes make bread, sometimes I don't, now I had to start doing again as I have to live few months without income thanks to bureaucracy and I found again how great it is, so bureaucracy is good?

I have one old wooden bread dough 'bucket' stored, that was used in 1940's to make dough for those big batches. I usually make only for 2 days because of limited space, I would need more room for bigger table to make more.

At old days there was big wood heated oven that was used to heat the house and bake the bread, without need to burn extra wood for bread making.

At old days there was big wood heated oven that was used to heat the house and bake the bread, without need to burn extra wood for bread making.

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When my father was a young boy his family lived in Malmo, in Sweden. He told me how he would come home from gymnasium, in winter. Get a piece of rye bread and spread it with goose grease with onions sauteed it it. Snuggle up to the tile side of the kartoffel oven (big stove that went through the wall, tiled on the "family" side.) And warm up, thaw out.