Re: My Daily Bread

Those baguettes with chorizo sound delicious

Re: My Daily Bread

Maybe we should start up a Bread Making Class thread

Re: My Daily Bread

Better still you make more and we can buy it.

Re: My Daily Bread

I make my own bread , but nothing as sophisticated as that lovely looking loaf. I use strong white bread flour half and half with wholemeal bread flour. One and a half pound of flour three quarters of a pint of water 2tsps salt 1 tspn sugar a bit of vitamin c powder and a pkt fast acting yeast. Oh and a generous glug of olive oil.
I keep thinking I should be a bit more adventurous but it's a good all rounder and I freeze it in bags of 2 slices and get it out as needed. My husband prefers sliced bread from the supermarket. There's no accounting for taste.

Re: My Daily Bread

Well done you for making your own bread. Excellent stuff.

If you want to take your bread making to the next level then I have some suggestions for you.

Firstly, start weighing every ingredient in grams including the water. This is better for accuracy and consistency.

Secondly, your loaf is only 52% hydration. That's a low level of water content which makes for an idiot-proof "easy" dough that is super easy to manage but the down side is that the "crumb" will be dense. By crumb we mean the size of the holes in the loaf when you look at a slice. This image shows what I mean:



The top loaf is low hydration, the lower loaf much higher hydration more like 65-70%.

Hydration is just the percentage content of water in the loaf compared to the flour content.

Your recipe (in grams) has 680g of flour and 355g of water so your hydration level is

355/680 x 100 = 52%

The more water in the mix the sloppier the dough is and more difficult to handle so if you are going to try a higher hydration then increase it in small steps. You should be able to go to 60% with little problem so that's 408g of water.

Ok final suggestion.

I'm guessing that you make your loaf (assuming you don't use a bread machine) in about 1-2 hrs. Mixing it, kneading it a little and letting it proof for an hour or so. Knocking it back, shaping it and putting it into a tin etc.

You can change one little thing that will greatly improve the flavour of your loaf.

You are currently putting a standard sachet of yeast in the loaf. I believe that is 7g.

Next time, weigh out just 1-2g of that yeast and only put that in. Some scales struggle with such small amounts so if your scales can't do it just visually split the sachet into 4 equal piles and just use one pile.

Mix your dough late in the evening around say 9-10pm before you go to bed.

Put the mixed dough in a suitable plastic container or bowl and cover with lid or cling film

Then leave it out on the kitchen counter overnight.

Next morning at around 8-9am you will find it has risen spectacularly and the dough will have an amazing shreddy gluten matrix.

Tip the dough out and gently form it into a log or boule and put it in a tin if you are using one.

Let it proof in there another 30-45mins and then bake it as usual.

Your finished loaf will look the same as usual but should taste much better, deeper flavours etc.

Try it and see !

Remember, the only thing you are doing differently is dropping the yeast right down to just 1-2g and leaving the loaf to proof for many hours instead of just 1-2 hrs.

Actually one more change, please leave out the sugar, you really don't need it. The yeast will feed on the flour quite happily, no such is required.

Let me know if you try it

Happy baking!

Re: My Daily Bread

I'm going to give that a go tonight. I'm down to the last bag of 2 slices in the freezer so the timing couldn't be better. Thanks for the info Realist I will let you know how I get on

Re: My Daily Bread

Well realist I have had a go. Left the mix overnight, no sugar and a quarter of a packet of yeast. I also put a bit more water in resulting in a sticky mix. Left overnight it rose very well and smelled much more yeasty in spite of actually having less added in the first place. I think another practice will perfect it . I don't think I baked it long enough for the extra moisture. Flavour is very nice though and as you say it certainly doesn't need the sugar. I thought it was to feed the yeast but it feeds just as well on the flour.
Next time I think I will forget the tin and put it straight onto a floured baking tray to shape and bake in one motion.
I took a picture on my tablet so I'll try and put it on here.

Re: My Daily Bread

OMG Realist, that picture of your finished result looks so delicious, I can actually imagine my bread knife cutting through it for a lovely slice - just waiting to be slathered with lovely Lurpak butter. I absolutely love that type of bread but unfortunately mine comes from our local baker. and my Ciabetta warm rolls for brekkie at weekends are part-baked and popped into the oven for 7-9 minutes.

Well done indeed for your accomplishment.

Re: My Daily Bread

Well done you ! You can see the crumb is a little more open.

The yeast feeds on the flour and those yeasts multiply every 90mins roughly (remember they are a living organism). When the yeasts replicate they produce ethanol and CO2. The ethanol gives a bread its acidity and the CO2 of course creates the holes in the crumb.

Yep the loaf looks a tadge anaemic on the outside to me. Should be a lovely golden brown. Bake for at least 30 mins on at least 200 degrees C. Don't worry about over baking it. Leaving it longer creates a thicker outer layer which aids slicing. However hard a loaf seems when it comes out of the oven, I guarantee that it will soften by the time it is cooled.
It's important to be sure that the loaf is cooked well right the way through.

Yep you do get a better loaf this way.

Actually do yourself a favour and go to a large department store like Debenhams and pick up a pizza stone. They usually come round shape but you can also get oblong which imo is better. You can pick one up for about £18 which is well worth it.

With a pizza stone, you put the stone in the oven as soon as you turn it on (along with the roasting tray in the bottom). The stone will get nice and hot. When it's time to bake the loaf, take out the hot stone (be careful!) and transfer the loaf onto it. This can be a little tricky depending on what you did. If you shaped the loaf and put it on a baking tray then just gently slide it off the tray and onto the hot stone.

My recommendation would be to go buy a proofing basket called a banneton. They are made of cane. Round or oval doesn't matter. Your dough proofs in those and then you just turn them over and tip the proofed loaf onto the hot stone. You get a fantastic looking loaf as a result from the basket's own texture.

Anyways, as soon as the dough is on the hot stone, get it in the oven. The stone will generate lots of heat at the bottom of the loaf at the same time as the oven heats the rest of it and as a result you get more "oven spring" and more quickly.

Remember when you bake a loaf there is a race going on. The oven heat will quickly bake the outside of the loaf which will make it hard. When that happens it is difficult for the loaf to then expand and rise. So we maximise this rise or oven spring in 2 ways.

First we use a pizza stone to put heat in the bottom.

Second we generate as much steam in the oven as possible (using the roasting tray and glass of water trick) and that keeps the outside of the loaf soft and moist for longer so the loaf has more time to expand.