Herb Bread or Pizza Dough

When it comes to making bread, many things affect the outcome, some more obvious than others. Most important is the flour. You cannot make good bread from mediocre flour. Choose flour that is unbleached, untreated, and free of additives. All flours, and especially whole-grain flours, will eventually spoil and taste and smell rancid. Try to buy flour that’s relatively fresh; your best bet is to look for a local organic food retailer with a rapid turnover who sells in bulk. The water makes a difference, too; both its temperature and its quantity influence texture. The type of leavening agent and the length of time bread is allowed to sit and rise will both affect the outcome enormously: quickbreads made with baking soda or powder are tender and almost cakelike, while breads leavened with wild yeast and given repeated slow risings will be the chewiest and crustiest, with the most complex flavors. Weather also affects bread: humidity, heat, and cold each exert their influence. All this makes baking ever-changing and forever fascinating. There is a world of breads: quickbreads such as cornbread and Irish soda bread that are easy to put on the table on relatively short notice; wonderful flatbreads such as tortillas fresh off the griddle or whole-wheat-flour puris that puff up when they’re fried or pita bread grilled over a fire; and the classic yeasted breads of France and Italy—including my everyday favorite, levain bread. Levain bread is leavened with a natural starter of wild yeast and allowed a long, slow fermentation and rising period in canvas-lined baskets. Traditionally, before each batch is baked, some of the starter is held back to leaven the next batch. Rather than give a recipe for a levain-type bread (which is a little complicated to make at home), I offer instead a recipe for a dough that’s versatile enough to be formed and baked as a flat crusty focaccia or a traditional pizza. (Kids love to stretch out the dough and make their own pizzas.)