Autolyse is a process that I just read about in the baking books that I have been reading lately. Why it isn’t taught in normal recipes, the world may never know. But it is such an easy thing to do, and it is magical!
When making bread your goal is to develop the gluten structure by kneading and stretching it to form a web that will hold the gasses that the yeast produces to make the bread rise. The only thing is it takes a lot of work to get it there. I’m lucky enough to have a Kitchen Aid mixer to do a lot of the work for me. It takes a lot longer than you think even in a mixer. Trying to knead it all by hand you are probably going to spend 10-15 minutes of vigorous kneading to get the beloved ‘gluten window’. That is where you stretch a piece of dough to a near see-through thinness. If the gluten isn’t developed enough the dough breaks, but if it is then the dough will stretch thin.
However, with this autolyse technique you give the flour a head start before you add the yeast in. It’s so easy, I don’t know why it remains such a secret! All you do is mix the flour and the liquid together and let it sit for about 30 minutes. You don’t add any fats like butter or oil, or any other additives like honey, just liquid like milk and water. The flour gets a chance to soak up the liquid and start to expand and develop gluten even before you start kneading. You can achieve that holy gluten window in much less time and with much less effort.
Try it sometime!
