Bread making corner

[Ricard with an H]

I assume sugar helps the yeast wondering what the salt does.

Salt should never come into direct contact with yeast, if you mix by hand put the salt in under the flour. Salt actually inhibits the yeast though helps protect your bread in the long run. It really disturbs me that many bred baking books don't mention this in detail.

Yes, sugar helps though to much sugar of the sucrose type can also cause problems. Yeasts get their sugar from the starch conversion process though I can't explain that without going back to school and going through long chain carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates (Sugar)

Just a pinch of sugar or none at all will be fine, just keep that salt in a corner away from the yeast until it's all mixed and working.

[Colin2016]

Thank you Richard.

The recipe I have been using says 1 tps sugar, 1 ½ tps yeast & 1 ½ tsp salt and just bung it all in for mixing in the food mixer..

I have cut it down to 1 tps of salt as it tasted to salty but will give it ago with a pinch.

[Ricard with an H]

I think you'll find that for 500 grams of flour you'll need 2 tsp salt, at least 1.5 tsp. I tried reducing salt until I was reminded by the baker in his book and again on his course that salt acts as a preservative and adds flavour particular to white bread made with yeast that is largely devoid of flavour, nutrient and preservative compared to sourdough.

My regular loaf is a mix of malt flours and plain white, I still use 2 tsp salt even though 1.5 will do.

Play with the sugar amount, first try no sugar but 2 tsp yeast. If your yeast is viable it will find sugar in the flour, then see what difference the sugar makes. Some recipes use three tsp yeast, then you'll find the dough rises very quickly though this may not be convenient.

Generally speaking all recipes are variations of the same theme, the techniques used make more of a difference than slight adjustments to content though hydration is very important. A wet dough will give you a lighter and airy dough because the C02 developed by the yeast action is more easily able to expand the dough though a wet dough can be very difficult to handle, then you can end up deflating the dough as you put it in the oven.

Just to give you an idea, this is the ingredient list for my regular daily bread. 3 malt flour from Shipton Mill 200 grams. Plain flour from Aldi 200 grams. 300 grams of water. 2tsp salt. 2tsp yeast. A pinch of vitamin C powder.

If you are using a tin this won't be so difficult but for a free-formed loaf your technique needs to be practiced.

[Colin2016]

Thanks for the info on what you use.

I have been using 225 grams each of Allison strong & Tesco own normal flour, 1 tps sugar, 1 ½ tps Allison quick yeast, 1 tps salt and 300ml of water. I have been experimenting with the water by adding more.

I have been using a tin but intend to try a cottage style soon.

[Geoff]

My wife always says Hollywood uses too much salt. It's an easy way of exceeding suggested intake.

[Ricard with an H]

That book by 'Blue-eyes' with the highlites is a good example of variations on the same theme, he explains very little which I find very patronising. Lovely photos and perhaps a good way to bring interest into baking bread.

If you butter your bread then you may think what is the point of adding salt if no one tells you that salt is an important preservative for our home made bread. The Chorleywood process uses preservatives that would frighten you if you were sensitive to what ends up in your stomach.

Adding a little Vitamin C is to create a slight acidity the yeast likes but you don't have to put it anymore than you need to add sugar.

if you are serious about bread making I advise you to buy Andrew Whitley "Bread Matters". Very few photos but lots of information about the why and how things happen. Andrew does have opinions that you may not share as you learn though once you have met him and listened you will respect his views. Everything from the origins of bread and the ingredients to his travels and experiences in Europe and Russia as a BBC correspondent which turned into his obsessions with bread.

Most other books I have and/or have read/ flicked pages are just photos and little else.

[Ricard with an H]

This is a loaf I just baked made with Lidl plain white flour and the addition of 50 grams grains and seeds then rolled in sesame seed, it's as nice a bread as I baked. I stopped slashing the tops as a trail and found the loaf responded better to oven spring.

[Ricard with an H]

I did a comparison test, the next loaf I baked was with French T55. I don't need to tell you the price of flour, I think my T55 from Shipton Mill was four times the price of the Lidl flour I baked that loaf with. That was a text error, the flour I used for the previously photographed bread was Aldi plain white.

So, I'm not even going to bother taking a photo of the T55 loaf, it's lovely, it's light, it tastes good particularly with the extra grains (Must be soaked before inclusion) but it isn't better and I think someone is taking the Pixx.

Plain flour is fine for making bread, please let me know if think strong flour is a benefit to your baking. If you don't like big holes then constant kneading during the proving time will give you Chorleywood type bread but you went to France for the breads and now they are getting us back.

POLITICAL NOTE. I am not for leaving the EU and I don't hate the French, or the Germans, or the Poles,or the Etc-etc-Etc. I think our diet has improved in it's diversification since we started exploring other cultures. Taking the pixx is another matter.

That lovely loaf in my previous photo cost twice as much because of the mixed grains and seeds, yes it tasted different and I assumed it to be more nutritious though just in case I was wrong I lathered my sandwich with lovely things. Why worry about the bread if it pleases you ?

[retropants]

I shall just have to look at the lovely pictures of your wondrous creations.....I can't eat bread

Gluten free bread is just blah. I really miss it.

[Ricard with an H]

Strange thing Emma, Mo could never eat what we call "brown bread" from usual sources, she then found she could eat a brown type from what is called,' Welsh Bakery'. It's a small bakery with two shops that you could call artisan.

I like to make different breads so I tried to copy their brown which is a malted grain and multi seeds, Mo can also eat my malted multigrain so presumably some sources use a preservative that doesn't agree with her.

Putting to one side your bread sensitivity, or intolerance, it is a fashion to not eat bread. Some latest research suggests type 2 diabetes as well as type 1 exists more frequently in those who avoid gluten though the way it was worded by media it suggested that lack of gluten was wholly responsible.

After baking different breads for four years, and still making crap, I still like to make white bread with little nutrition value for certain uses and I regularly use a machine to get the dough ready. Using a machine reduces the hands-on time and contrary to an idea I had for poorly bread I made my machine kneads the dough more efficiently than I do or my Kenwood mixer would do. It's because of the clever asymmetric paddle and the stop-start programming.

I was going to make soap, but changed my mind. It's taken me so long to learn to make good bread, still making poor bread, I just don't have the time to learn and do everything else I do averagely.

[Colin2016]

If I make pizza dough, at what stage can I put it in fridge for use latter on in the day?

I suspect after knocking back but would like to make sure.

[Ricard with an H]

Hi Colin, good to see you are persevering.

You can refrigerate the dough at any point but remember that it still has to go through the remaining process of yeast fermentation after the dough gets back to the working temperature.

You don't have to knock back, it's just a way of getting rid of a build-up of CO2 in the dough and getting some oxygen in so you can keep the dough proving without dying. Ciabatta and many other breads are not knocked back.

Can I also remind you to try plain flour rather than strong bread flour, you may get a very pleasant surprise.

[Colin2016]

I made a loaf same way & ingredients as before.
Dough seemed to be on the drier side and was not sticky as it usually is. I could handle it very easy without having to have floured hands.

It did not rise as it has done in the past, as not very sunny today wonder if that could that be the reason.

Also noticed it came out whiter when cooked.

Turned out to be a cracking loaf though, just wonder why the difference.

[Ricard with an H]

Hi Colin. Over the years I get variable results, even a change in flour can result in a difference and being very accurate with quantities by using a digital scale is important in my findings. When your hydration level changes by just a few grams it makes a marked difference to what you are trying to achieve.

My recent findings are that when I hand mix my dough is never as good as the bread machine dough, when I mix with the Kenwood mixer the dough isn't as good as the bread machine dough. This is what I found; most instruction for mixing the dough is six to ten minutes with a dough at 65% hydration, this is writers making things easy for us but not better. I timed my Panasonic bread makers mixing cycle, it mixes for 20 minutes. Thats a long time with hands and arms so the book writers and so-on make it easy for us along with less water so the dough isn't hard to handle.

If you don't have a machine then I figure you have to knead the dough more but take a rest in between sessions.

Of-course this is all if you want your bread the way I want my bread light and open rather than like store-bough square bread made by the Chorleywood process.

[Ricard with an H]

This is my white bread, I convinced myself that lots of seeds help restore some health into white bread though it's more about using the seeds to stop the dough sticking to the baking clock. I also think that even if white flour has had most nutrients removed the finished bread is just a parcel for other goodies. A plate full of sandwiches with a lot going on inside is very tasty.

This bread and all my breads other than doing comparisons with Aldi flour are all organic, if I make bread with Aldi flour it still turns out like bread made with flour much more expensive. I prefer to use organic but I can't make a case for it, I'm 75 and eat a lot of crap over those years. Going organic isn't going to make much difference other than encourage organic growers.