The Secret "Ingredient" for Bakery-Style Bread at Home

We've partnered with Miele for a special edition of our Change the Way You Cook series, all about the power of a simple, essential technique: steaming.

For bread with a spongy holes (all the better for catching ricotta) and crackly-crisp, dark brown crust (the kind that splits apart with such a creak, you’d wake someone sleeping in the next room), you need to crank your oven way up. (Warning: that’s how my oven knob got fused into the 500° F position, where it stayed until we disconnected the gas.)

But intense dry heat is not enough! In the first 5 to 10 minutes of baking, you also need the power of steam heat. (Because what’s better than a sauna? A steam room and a sauna!)

Why is steam such a powerful ingredient? In the first part of the baking process, the yeast grows like crazy and the bread expands (this frenzy is called “oven spring"). When steam is added during this period, the water vapor condenses on the surface of the dough, lowering its temperature. This delays the evaporation of moisture from the loaf, as well as the development of gluten, so that the dough stays soft and stretchy for longer. In other words, with a crust that's soft and expandable, the bread can rise to its maximum volume, achieving the beautiful, air-pocketed that many bakers dream about.

Steam is also the key to a dark but not too dark crust. It dissolves the sugars on the surface of the bread so that when the loaf stops rising and the steam begins to evaporate, the leftover sugars caramelize, giving you a glossy crust with a rich color and flavor. At the same time, the lower temperature of the dough's surface (thanks to the water vapor from the steam) gives the inside of the loaf enough time to cook all the way through without the outside burning.

Pain à l'Ancienne

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And because the crust takes longer to form, it ends up being thinner than it would be otherwise. Moisture can pass more quickly through a thin crust, so you're less likely to get a dense, soggy inside when the loaf is cool.

So you know when (and why) to use steam, but how about when not to? Well, after the yeast has died and the loaf has stopped growing, you’ll want to finish baking the bread in a dry oven so that you can achieve crispness. Too much moisture will lead to a thick, gummy crust (like a giant, much less appetizing version of a steamed bun). You also don't want to use steam with enriched doughs that contain eggs, dairy, fat, and sugar; as Nadia Arumugam explains on Slate, these extra ingredients increase the temperature at which the starches gelatinize, thereby delaying crust formation and doing the same work that steam otherwise would.

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Bread bakeries are equipped with steam ovens that enable the bakers to harness the power of steam at the exact right moment in the bread's birth. But if you don’t have a steam oven, there are still several ways you can replicate the effect at home. The bakers at King Arthur Flour tested and compared a few methods and found two to be most effective:

• Cast-iron skillet: Preheat a cast-iron skillet in the bottom of the oven, then pour in boiling water right after you’ve loaded the bread onto a hot baking stone.
• Cast-iron skillet + metal bowl: To take that method one step farther, cover the bread with a metal bowl—let the metal bowl hang over the front side of the baking stone so that the steam will have an entry point—then remove that bowl after 15 minutes of bake time.
• Dutch oven method: Preheat a Dutch oven and its lid, then carefully add your risen bread; recover with the lid, which keeps the moisture that rises off the bread close to its surface, then remove the lid after 25 minutes to allow the crust to crisp up.

What's not so effective? Spraying the loaf with a mist of water. It's a low-maintenance method, but it yields minimal results.

Ready to bake? Start here:

Pain à l'Ancienne

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Dan Leader's 4-Hour Baguette

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Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François' 5-Minute Artisan Bread

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Pan Rustico, Inspired by Salvador Dalí's "Basket of Bread"

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What's your biggest challenge with baking bread at home? Tell us in the comments below!

We've partnered with Miele to highlight one of our favorite wholesome, fast, and simple cooking techniques: steaming! Ready to make it even faster and easier? Miele's combi-steam ovens can do it all for you with the touch of a button—including helping you get perfect, bakery-quality bread at home.