🍞 Cold Ferment Bread — Patience in Practice
There’s something deeply humbling about bread.
It teaches patience, demands gentleness, and rewards you only when you slow down enough to listen.
This week, I made a cold ferment dough — a method my dad would call “old-fashioned,” though the truth is, it’s timeless. The process is simple but deliberate. Cool water, slow fermentation, and time doing what only time can do.
The result? A ciabatta-style loaf with a tender, airy crumb and a crust that sings when you tap it. Bread that breathes.
🥣 Ingredients
- 4½ cups (20 oz / 567 g) unbleached bread flour
- 1¾ teaspoons (0.4 oz / 11 g) kosher(or sea salt) salt
- 1¼ teaspoons (0.2oz / 6 g) active dry yeast
- 2 cups (16 oz / 454 g) chilled water (about 55°F)
- 1 tablespoon (0.5 oz / 14 g) olive oil
🌾 Method
- In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt, and chilled water.
(For accuracy, I weighed my flour and water — the rest I measured by spoon and heart.) - Using the paddle attachment, mix on low for about a minute.
- Let the dough rest and hydrate for 5 minutes.
- Add the olive oil and mix again for another minute — the dough should be sticky, wet, and full of potential.
- Lightly oil a large bowl, then transfer the dough using a wet scraper or damp hands.
- Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes at room temperature.
🔁 Fold and Rest
After that first rest, the dough begins to change. Using the Stretch and Fold it gently, turn it seam-side down, and place it back into the bowl. Dust it lightly so it won’t stick.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and wait ten minutes.
Repeat three more times.
Now the waiting begins — the part that turns this from a recipe into a meditation. Wrap the bowl tightly and place in the refrigerator for up to a week.
🔥 The Bake
on bake day, remove the dough from the fridge an hour prior to allow the yeast to warm and begin working faster again.
Preheat your oven to its limit — 500°F or 550°F if it allows.
Place your baking stone and a steam pan inside (a metal broiler pan, not glass).
Then, with care, turn the dough seam-side up, stretch it just a little — seven inches or so for larger ciabattas — and place it in its final resting place before baking; either a bread pan or bread cloth/parchment for baking. Cover with plastic wrap.
Another hour of proofing, another quiet invitation to tidy the kitchen, feed the animals, or step outside and breathe in the day.
After the final rise, slide your loaves (with parchment) onto the hot stone or baking sheet.
Cover the oven glass with a towel, pour in a cup of hot water for steam, and close the door.
Lower the heat to 450°F and bake for about 12 minutes, then rotate and bake another 12, until the crust turns deep golden and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
Cool the bread on a wire rack for at least an hour before slicing — a test of restraint, but worth it.
You can freeze the loaves and reheat later to restore that perfect crispness.
As I waited for the bread to cool, the kitchen filled with that unmistakable aroma — warm, alive, familiar.
It reminded me that breadmaking, like faith, is about trust. You do your part — measure, mix, wait — and let unseen forces do the rest.
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”
— Psalm 37:7 (NIV)
Some blessings rise slowly — but they always rise.
