 All right, so now what we're going to do is you've seen all the basics, you've seen the kinds of floors, you've kind of understood how to improve the quality of Maida by adding gluten, vital weight gluten, what salt does, what sugar does, what milk and yogurt and fats do in the context of making a dough. So now let's kind of understand in what situation do you use what. So let's start with, let's start with Maida. Let's assume you have Maida and you added salt, which is one or two percent salt, and you've added yeast or so you worked in the, you've added the powdered yeast into the, into the. Right. So this is, so this is where you are right now. So now, if you add 65% water. Okay. 65% of the weight of Maida, that much amount of water, right. You have a dough that is ready for focaccia, ciabatta, pizza and things like that. Right. Now, some qualifications here. So the assumption here, so you're going to add the water, you're going to need it and you're going to let it rise till it doubles. And then you're going to deflate it and then stretch it into whatever shape you want focaccia is a flat ciabatta is like a very rough looking bread loaf pizzas again flat. So it's just, you know, there's just some standard shapes into which you, so beyond the adding the water, letting it rise, then you need to shape it. And after you shape it, you're going to have to let it rise for a second time so that you know that the yeast is still alive and you know you can get the right shape you want. Then about half an hour later, you're going to put it in the oven. So that's the general workflow. So that's implicit in any one of these things. So Maida salt is 65% water, you can make focaccia, ciabatta, pizza, any of these things, right. If you add semolina to this, while you're doing this water, you also add a little bit of maybe a teaspoon or tablespoon of semolina, which is the rubber. That's the dough you can use for batura. Now, incidentally, you can make batura with baking soda which is usually what restaurants use because nobody's spending two hours trying to use yeast and make it rise and all of that they use baking soda. So that's essentially how restaurants do it. But batura made with yeast, as it's traditionally used to be made before baking soda came along, is tremendously way more delicious than batura made with baking soda. A ton more flavor. So the semolina here actually plays a very interesting role. So what's semolina? The semolina, if you notice, is sort of very tiny, very dry, has very little moisture inside it, right. So what happens is that the dough is wet, the semolina mixed into that is still reasonably dry inside. And it's only at a high enough temperature that the moisture inside the semolina is going to turn into vapor at which point it will expand. In fact, that's how you absolutely guarantee that either a puri or a batura or luchi or whatever it is you're making actually puffs up. Because you want the semolina to give up its water only when you're deep frying, at which point the water vapor then fills up so you get an absolute guarantee puffing up. So if you're worried about puris never puffing up, adding a little bit of semolina to the dough is how you achieve that. So this is how you make batura. Now let's switch to another kind. So let's say you use only 50% water but use 15% yogurt. We spoke about how yogurt also is mostly water. So if you use this kind still gets to about 65% hydration but 50% water, 15% yogurt. You can actually make naan, kulcha, kamiri rogi. This is the dough that is typically used, right. The yogurt adds a little bit of sourness, it adds a little bit of softness and so on. And again, if you're using yogurt and sometimes if you don't want to use yeast, you can simply use baking soda and which is how restaurants make naan and so on. Which is mostly just, it's not as airy if you notice, right. It's more chewy rather than a genuinely fluffy yeast based naan which is strangely enough not as common in India but pretty common say in the northwest part of say Pakistan or in United Kingdom and in the US where they tend to prefer not the chewy kind of naans but really the fluffy yeasted kind of naans, right. So this is how you make naans and so on. The distinction between kulcha, naans, et cetera is very, very tiny, it may have to do with slightly less water. Naans can have a little bit more enrichment in terms of sometimes you might add oil and all that. Bear in mind, none of this is actually meant to give you some kind of notion of authentic recipe. This is meant to be a cheat sheet for you so you can get started and with just one set of standard set of heuristics you can make like 15 different kinds of bread, right. Obviously then you can do your own research, add more things and do all of that but this is just a starting point, right. So this is, you can make naan, kulcha, kabir, et cetera, right. If you have a dough that's made from 40% water, 25% milk and butter, right. So you add like 10% additional butter also. This is the dough that you can make any kind of general purpose bread like pao, you know pao bhaji, pao, milk bread or buns like burger buns and so on, right. So it has a buttery taste and it has a little bit, it's a little bit sweet because of all the milk sugars and it is also super, super soft, right. Because of all the butter, because of all the fats, right. So this is, so these are in some sense, you know, rather than search for like a million recipes, just remember these things. Roughly you're aiming for between 60 to 65% water, right. Either it's just water or it's a mix of water and yogurt or it's a mix of water, milk, butter and things like that, right. And based on what you do, you could make pao milk bread. The rest of it is that you let the dough rise, you really need it well, you let it rise and then after that you shape it into whatever you want. So if you're making pao, it means that you've got to use a dough cutter and cut it into small pieces like 30 or 40 grams and then sort of, you know, shape it into small balls and let it rise again so that then you bake it. So that's how you get pao. It's one, so maybe I'll link to some videos of me making pao so you can get a sense of this, right. So this is the whole Maida 11 breads algorithm, right. Now, let's say you are actually, you don't want yeast, right. So you just want to make unleavened breads, right. So just you just Maida salt. If you add 55% water, salt, semolina, sugar, and work in 10% oil, right into the dough, oil into the dough, right. You get a dough that's perfect for some, what Bengali is called Luchi, which is, which is this Maida based puri, which is flaky, really, really soft and perfect as a breakfast with, you know, aloo sabji and so on. Fantastic dish in the streets of Calcutta, right. Now, instead of oil, if you add 10% butter, you get a dough that is perfect for parotta, your Malabar parotta. Now, how you make a parotta is something so, you know, so my subsequent mint column will have a instructions on actually how to do this. So, so you need to roll it out and cut it into small strips, apply butter on it, you know, then assemble it all and then roll it very gently and then make the Malabar parotta. So, so, but then this is how this is the dough that you need to make, right. Again, same thing, the semolina adds that crispness. It also adds a little bit of airiness while, you know, so this, you can just standardize this dough for, for, you know, Malabar style parotta, Lachar type parotta as well as the Luchi, right. Now, the last one is obviously if you have atta, right. So atta, please do not bake with atta. It's a terrible, but if you're, you know, if you're like super health conscious and you're someone who bakes daily. Yeah, then you can mix, you know, 30% atta and 70% mitre. Anything more than that will be, will result in very sad and disappointing bread. So in your general dough, don't use more than 30% atta if you're actually baking. But if you're making parotta or roti, you know, this is exactly what you use. So atta is a slightly thirstier flow. So a thirstier flow essentially needs more water, right. So it needs between 80 to 100% water depending on how comfortable you are and what brand of atta it is, how much fibrous it is. So that's why I said I can't give you a perfect number, but anyway between 80 to 100 is and by weight, right. So please don't put two cups of atta and two cups of water, you'll end with slush. Okay. It's a cup of water weighs twice as much as a cup of atta. So two cups of atta to one cup of water is general rule of thumb. But if you do it by weight, you'll find that it's about, you know, double. So that's the general idea of how you measure for water, right. And if you're using a very, very organic high fiber variety and so on, it's going to need more water. If you use a slightly cheaper, more mass market one if you need a little bit less water. And by the way, you'll also need less water depending on the humidity in your house that time at that point of time, and also how old the floor is and so on. So a ton of other things that factor that go into but trust your feel, it should feel like a pliable smooth dough. So that's the general idea. So this is how you make chapatis with this, right. Now bear in mind that there are many ways to make a chapati soft. And it's also there's also personal taste. For example, I like my chapati slightly chewier, not like ultra flaky and thin. So it varies, right. So if you want ultra flaky like break apart in your hands, kind of texture, then you use hot water as opposed to regular room temperature. What hot water will do it will cook the starches, some of the starches, it will gelatinize the starches that then gives you an ultra flaky soft texture as well. So, so this is, so this is that right. If you're how you use 80% water and use some oil, right, so you get what's called a paratha so it can vary between 60 to 80% you get a paratha dough. It needs to be slightly harder than chapati. And so this is what you make parathas with, not parota paratha. And then if you use 55% water and a lot more oil, you get puri very similar to luchi except without. And by the way, also I forgot about it you might want to add a little bit of semolina here. I think it will definitely improve the puffability of your cooking and so on. So this is the general purpose algorithm for really being able to bake any kind of thing. Now, so let's kind of summarize the broad principles before we get into Q&A. So let me summarize all the principles here. So first thing is, flour. Flour is bread flour is best. If you don't want to spend 450 rupees kg for bread flour, please use Maida plus vital wheat gluten. Ata is the worst for baking. So if you're using Ata use 30% Ata, 70% Maida of some kind. So that's that's the general principles around flour. Hydration. So general rule of thumb, more water, better bread. Because the idea is that anyway in the oven at 200 Celsius all the water is going to boil off anyway. So you just need enough to be able to have enough water there so that the bread gets brown and the insides are still soft. You don't want the insides to get rock hard while the outside is still not brown. As I said, you can replace or enrich water with milk yogurt for softer breads and so on. By the way, you can mix and match. So nothing stopping you from making none with milk or none with yogurt or anything else. Or a paratha with yogurt. It's not uncommon for people to use yogurt in their paratha dough as well. So next thing is obviously yeast. If you're using industrial yeast, that's fast. If you're using a sourdough starter, it's going to be slow. And sourdough based doughs are better off with more water. They are tremendously painful to handle. So you might want to get used to that. So the other important thing is that as you are kneading, you will find that it's quite frustrating. It's sticky and it's not coming together and so on. When it's not coming together, when in doubt, just give it a break. So the single biggest magic when it comes to baking, the most amazing help you have out there is time. Time improves flavor, time improves gluten structures. You don't have to do anything. Let time do all the work for you. So resting the dough is absolutely useful. So you're trying to knead it, start coming to leave it for 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Come back, cover it, come back and then knead again, you will find that it really just works much better. Likewise, fermentation also, the longer you ferment, the better. So we'll talk about that. Kneading. So if you're dealing with very, very wet doughs, it's generally better to let it rest. So autoless is in the sense that you just let the dough rest with water and flour and you just gently stretch and fold many times over several hours. You can do this at room temperature or then you do it at room temperature, put it in the fridge, then bring it back and do it depending on how hot it is. Or if you want to hand knead, knock yourself out, great exercise, 15 to 30 minutes to get it. In my experience, if you're using bread flour, the kneading time is significantly reduced. If you're using Maida, you're going to need quite a lot to develop that amount of gluten, given that it has less protein. But if you're using machine, like a dough maker or a food processor attachment, or a dough hook and so on, or a stand mixer, if you're really portioned and so on, you don't overdo it, don't do it for more than 10 minutes, then do the final stage by hand because you have to run the risk of overworking and over kneading the gluten. So that's it as well. The next rule to keep in mind is that the slower and longer the fermentation, the better. This is often a problem in hot places like Chennai where the fermentation is so fast that it doubles. So the yeast has not had enough time to build a lot more complex flavor. So often what we would do is just refrigerate it. So seal the dough properly, put it in that glass vessel, refrigerate it. Eight hours later, the dough will still rise at that temperature you have in the fridge, but it will do it very slowly. That way you develop a lot more complex flavor. In fact, if you're making pizzas, it's not uncommon for you to just make a very, very wet and sticky dough. Don't need to do nothing, just shove it in the fridge, let it sit for 48 hours. And then you'll get amazing pizza. All the gluten development will happen inside. And then so that's basically the thing. So the longer, slower, longer better flavor. You can do this for naan too actually. So if you make the dough today, refrigerate it and let it rise and then make the naan tomorrow, it'll be much, much more tasty as well. Now, coming to the principles of rising, focus on volume, not time. So the first rise is to aerate the dough. So the yeast will produce the carbon dioxide, the dough will get fluffy and so on. And then you have to deflate it. When you're deflating it, you're only deflating the large air bubbles. The dough is still aerated for most part. And then you shape it, after you deflate it, you shape it into the shape you want. Now, let's really go through it. If you're trying to make a focaccia bread, you don't have to do anything, no shaping. All you have to do is deflate after the first rise, stretch it on this big flat pan and let it sit for 30 minutes. Then poke some holes, pour some olive oil or flavored olive oil on top and bake for 30 minutes at the highest temperature you have. And you're good to go. If you're making a loaf of bread, in which case then you need to shape, you can fold it. You can look at YouTube videos on how to fold a dough so that it forms the shape of a bread loaf. And again, you'll have to make sure that you have the right size. So which is why precision is important largely again only because you have this, a loaf will hold dough of a certain dimension and size. So if you're buying a 8 into 5 kind of loaf, you need to know that you need about 500 to 800 grams of dough. It's appropriately 500 grams of water, 500 grams of flour and 300 grams of water and so on. So you need to understand based on what kind of... But if you're not making like sandwich loaf, you're just making these very misshapen, broadly loose just focaccia, ciabatta type breads, then you don't need to worry. You just make whatever you want. So then it comes to enrichment, right? So if you want your bread to taste to be flaky and soft, you need fats, you add fats. How much you'll kind of figure out, 10% is a good starting point, but you'll figure it out. Then you can also use hot water and gelatinize the starch so that you get a soft and fluffy texture. If you don't want to use hot water directly into the dough because it makes it hard to knead, you can take a little bit of flour and heat it in water so that it forms a roux where the starch gelatinizes, it becomes the sticky thing, then you add that back. So that's one way of adding this as well. There are a couple of other things which I didn't want to spend too much time on. There are other add-ons like diastatic malt powder, which is basically made from sprouted grains. So it has the digestive enzyme called amylase. So amylase is the enzyme that breaks down amylose, which is the starch. So diastatic malt powder, what it does is that it really accelerates yeast activity because the amylase will break down the starches into sugar so that yeast can act much faster. So faster, stronger rice essentially means you'll get better browning when you're actually putting the bread in the oven. So professional bakers will use diastatic malt powder. In fact, if you've seen bagels, not very common in India, but at least you get that even golden brown color that's completely smooth. They do that by adding diastatic malt powder to the dough. So that's essentially a couple of other things that you can keep in mind and shaping. So the most frustrating thing for any beginner baker is dealing with the dough and shaping the dough if it's ultra sticky. Rather counterintuitively, the wetter your hands are, it will prevent stickiness. You remember the principle of how gluten works. All the water-loving parts are inside, the water-hating parts of gluten are actually on the outside. So if your hands are mildly wet, the dough is less likely to stick to your hand, which seems counterintuitive. So you just dip your fingers in a little bit of water when you work the dough so that it's easier. But if you press it too hard, then you're introducing more water into the dough. If you're gently folding, it's better for your hands to be slightly wet. So avoid using extra flour. In the beginning, it will be tempted to use flour for dusting. All this raw flour is going to burn in the oven. It's just direct powder, no water, it's going to burn and add accurate taste. So the lesser dusting flour you use, the better and you'll get better with practice. And don't worry about shape, misshapen breads are equally delicious. Your most misshapen bread will still be tastier than the fanciest looking industrial dough from a shop. We spoke about the differences between air fry and OTG convection oven. They're all operating on the same principle. Air fry is really small. OTG is slightly bigger and convection is the larger one. So if you want even browning, before you put it in the oven, it's common to either apply some milk on top of the bread because the milk, again, because it has proteins and sugars will add to the Maillard reaction when the oven is baking. So you'll get a nice even brown color. Otherwise, you'll only get brown where there are more sugars and proteins on the surface. So this allows you to do that. You can also do this with egg, to just add some egg wash. Break open an egg and just apply it on top. You get a very glaze, you get that very shiny surface. You get that with an egg wash. So this is before you put the bread in the oven. When you're baking, trust your nose and eyes and nose, not the amount of time and the temperature that is given in the recipe. You'll know when the bread is done. It will look brown enough. And remember that don't get, especially when you're baking like loaves of bread, the outer crust can get pretty, pretty dark. Don't worry about it. If you kind of stop when it's still very light brown, inside won't be cooked. And you'll figure it out. And not only that, other thing is that if you spray a little bit of water or keep a small little tray of water in your oven, that will improve the rice. Again, simply because what happens is that what's happening is that the dough is rising a little bit in the oven as temperatures are getting really, really hot. But the outer surface is getting assaulted by a high temperature air. So it's going to dehydrate and lose water. At some point of time, the outer crust is not going to be elastic anymore. So at that point, no further air can expand because it's not elastic anymore. So what steam does is that the steam keeps the outer surface wet for long enough so that all the air can expand inside and achieve its full potential for the largest loaf you can bake before all the water boils off and then it becomes really perfectly proper. So some steam ovens naturally have a steam setting but you can just spray some water inside and so on. So this is what it is. And then last but not the least, please wait for the bread to reach room temperature before digging in. So otherwise, it will be uncooked. And so you want to wait for that to finish. So with that, let's do Q&A. So go bake some delicious bread and please pre-order my book on Amazon. Thank you.