Any regular bread bakers ?

[Ricard with an H]

I know this is a kitchen garden forum and I dont expect to be able stretch that interest to far though the the kitchen part includes all-sorts of diverse subjects so I'm giving this a go.

Do any of you regularly bake bread ?

I don't want to join another forum that isolates itself to bread baking, on this forum we have chickens, good food tips and ideas. Why not bread ?

Tonight, before and after my dinner I'm sawing a large slice of 70/30 over baked White/rye with sesame seeds in the over baked crust that had to have a wet towel around it for hours before it could be used.

I'm stll salivating at the memory.

We can buy good bread from a lot of recently emerged artisan bakers and whilst I do have a source its been an ambition of mine to get this black-art de-mystified and sour-dough is still causing problems.

[Motherwoman]

I do bake bread when time allows, batches of rolls have been known to disappear before my eyes, but I cheat! I use a bread machine for the dough since my wrists don't have the strength they used to. Not a purist so I'll do what it takes to take the graft out, still have the pleasure of shaping, proving and then enjoying the smell of it cooking and eating. Had to learn how to get my wood fired oven to the right temp and then keep it there without it getting too hot and giving a rock hard edge! Steaming pan of water in the bottom of the oven helps.

Don't beat yourself up if you need to knead the dough mechanically to get a good rise.

MW

[retropants]

I make regular 50/50 white brown bread for dh, and a complicated gluten free recipe for me, both in the bread maker. I salivate over the smell of the regular bread, but sadly, I'd be quite poorly if I ate any

[Ricard with an H]

Ah,good.

I regularly use the bread maker for dough raising and occasionally for small loaves though I prefer to mix in a Kenwood then bake small shapes like ciabatta.

I'm on a course this weekend that will hopefully de mystify the art of sourdough.

RP, isn't that why I bought spelt flour ? So I can bake for people with gluten problems ?

I'll report any progress after my single day course, she went on a whole weekender with Andrew Whiteley but she never took to making any. Just eats mine.

[retropants]

Richard, spelt flour does have gluten, but not as much as modern flours. I make mine with about 8 ingredients. I forgot the salt last time, it rose beautifully, but tasted flat! I can't tolerate spelt, but others can.

[Ricard with an H]

I made spelt and einkorn flat breads in a sourdough, the breads are fried in oil both side to get some colour then five minutes in over.

I love then, my favourites. Each time I used spelt it went with another flour, khorosan was another I used.

My dark rye starter is in the airing cupboard though assisted by a professionals starter.

[Redfox]

I bake bread at least twice a week, I also make my own pizza's from scratch. Much prefer home made . Made naan's last week to go with the pumpkin and chicken curry I made. Did do sour-dough but most of the family wasn't too keen, the mix I do is 25% whole wheat and 75% white. makes a light tasty loaf.

[Ricard with an H]

the mix I do is 25% whole wheat and 75% white. makes a light tasty loaf.

I tried to make bread for years and always made stuff I didn't want to eat, sometimes I eat it because it was healthy. Mostly the problem in my case was that a 100% wholemeal was like a brick, then it didn't get eaten whereas I can eat a whole medium sized ciabatta style white bread with soup with gusto, someplace in the middle EH ?

So the bread making course was more to introducing me to the ancient grains grown and used for bread long ago, they are of course more expensive and not a stock item at the Co-op, et-al, Doves farm will deliver direct if you don't have a source but it's sensible to stock enough for six months because of postage costs.

Another problem I'm up against is I have to make small loaves and mostly freeze because of my mostly home-alone status, with a 500 gram flour mix I make three of four ciabatta style though so far always with engineered yeast.

Right now I have a 'Daphne' going in the airing cupboard and though most of my sour-doughs have either failed or tasted horrible I have been inspired by the bread I ate and made on Sunday.

Why do we enjoy sourdough ? Certainly a dark rye sourdough tastes different to a wheat sourdough which in case has always ended up in the bin. What I need to do now is weigh up the convenience of bakers years to sourdough.

One of the Alex Gooch flatbreads is finished with a cavelo nero, miso and olive oil pesto and includes black garlic. Black garlic ?

[JohnN]

I've been making simple 500g wholemeal loaves for several years, using Waitrose Canadian flour in a £20 Lidl breadmaker. The important things I've found is to use plenty of yeast (1.5 teaspoonfuls) and bake on medium setting, not dark, otherwise it goes hard crust. I also use olive oil, not cooking oil. If you want to experiment with different breads you probably need a posh machine, like a Panasonic!

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for that contribution and the tip John, I'll get Mo to pick up some Canadian flour as she leaves civilization and heads out-west.

I have a Panasonic bread maker though only currently use it occasionally for raising small amounts of dough, even then I split the dough to make two smaller baton type breads. It works very well at warming the contents of the baking pan then doing the mixing and creating the right temperature for raising the dough and yes I did have an overflow once when I got too eager with the quantities, what a bugger to clean out all around the element and driving thingy. I had even thought of selling it because I mostly prefer to mix in the Kenwood then raise the dough in the airing cupboard.

I hadn't realised it was posh.

I'm still waiting for some action from Daphne, not a lot going on after 20 hours and two feeds.

[robo]

Sorry to high jack the thread, just a tip to all you home bakers stock up on the almonds ground of whole the price will go through the roof this winter the crops in america who have cornered the market of late have all failed, nobody in spain have bothered harvesting almonds for 5 years up to this autumn they are getting nearley 2 euros a kilo at the syndicates where they take all they produce, it then goes through around 5 pairs of hands before hitting the shelves at supermarkets, ive been asked by 3 different people
can they harvest my trees which are mainley dead

[Tigger]

My husband bakes bread regularly though not as often as he did as he's on limited carbs and I (who am not on such limitations) work away from home during the week. I used to use a Panasonic bread maker but he prefers to make it by hand from scratch and i have to say the results are much better.

[Ricard with an H]

I prefer baking bread from scratch and I prefer free-form loaves rather than tin-bread though some recipes containing high levels of whole wheat or whole rye have to have a pour-able dough so a tin is the only way.

At the moment I exclusivly use the Panasonic to make dough for ciabatta, my ciabatta look like French sticks to be honest but it's the pour-able dough that falls out of the Panasonic bread pan and is shaped-stretched and bunged onto the French stick baking thingies that makes the whole process easy and with less attended time.

Rye sour dough on the other hand starts the day before and whilst the fermenting periods have set times and are mostly unatended the sourdough ferment is less reliable than with bakers yeast. Easy to under-prove and easy to over-prove.

I'm self-safified about my attemps with bakers yeast and whilst all my sourdough is getting eaten I'm still experimenting with the occasional mistake.

Clearly when you read the different ways people use to make bread a mistake is not an unrecoveable situation most of the time.

Right now I'm toying with the idea of an oven cloche though I'm not convinced I can't first emulate cloche-baking just to learn about the difference before investing in the item then having to find a place for it to live when not in use.

I have so-so many gadgets and so places for them to live, it's also messy. Even though I'm a tidy baker the flour and seeds get into every corner and sometimes take half a dozen cleaning sessions before I'm happy it's pass inspection by her.

Dried dough Eh.