/ck/ - Food & Cooking

thefreshloaf.com
/thread
Also, wait for Fuck Flour/FF to post ITT. He will eventually.

>tfw I bake a loaf of bread for myself each morning.

>>4945222
Hit TFL. They have most everything. I would also recommend books like The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Crust and Crumb, Artisan Breads Every Day, Bread Bible, Whole Grain Breads, Tartine, so forth and so on. Crust and Crumb is probably a little advanced for a beginner baker, but once you learn how to use a scale and baker's percentages, it is a good resource for basic recipes.

>>4945315

This is good advice. I got started on bread baking when someone linked me to the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's a tough place to start, but it's a brilliant book and if you follow the steps you'll be making phenominal bread.

>>4945222

>How do I into cooking?

Introductory Vision Quest: You are a Racoon.
Cooking Math 101: Edible + Edible + Edible + ... = Edible.
Cooking Physics 101: Food + Heat = Cooking.
Cooking Health and Safety 101: Fountainmode = Not cooked enough; Blood = Be careful.
Baking 101: You got measuring cups? You were jewed. Get a scale.

>>4945222

Get a hold of some good quality flours and some yeast. The kind of flour you use really determines what kind of bread you can make. A lot of the flours we have in the US are sorta limited and not as suited to making different kinds of bread. If you want to make say baguettes, you'll need a european style flour. Want an amazing wheat bread? Gotta get a nice whole wheat flour.

What temperature should I cook a basic loaf at? I've been doing 350F/180C.

Also, how sticky should the dough be before cooking? Should it be completely dry or should it be sticking like mad to my hands?

Any tips on keeping a sourdough starter going? I've got one started but the yeast might have drowned themselves in alcohol

I really want to get into sourdoughs, but getting the culture going takes forever

>>4947113
You should crank dat shit yo, my oven only goes only goes up to 500F, but Id go higher if I could. Initially anyway, depending on the size of the loaf, it takes about 20 minutes to get the spring and color I want, than about another 20 at 425 to finish.

>>4947128
Make a fake-me-out starter.
100g AP
6g yeast
100ml water
Mix together, cover and leave undisturbed for 24 hours then place in the fridge to mature another 48. After that, just use it as you would normal starter and feed it regularly.
This is how it's started and maintained in south India, The Horn and Yemen for making dosa, injera/budena/canjiro and lakhookh/lahoh, just the flour used to start and feed it will vary.

>>4947113
In a convection oven, I bake at 550F with steam for 2 minutes, then drop to 475F for the remainder of the bake. If it's a high hydration whole wheat dough, then I'll often start at 475F with steam, and just keep it there for the duration of the bake.

The dough should be as sticky as you make it. Different breads require different hydration doughs. There is no hard and fast rule about how the dough should feel for every bread. In general, higher hydration doughs produce a more open and rubbery crumb. Low hydration doughs, on the other hand, produce a more dense and delicate crumb.

Assuming you are starting a starter from scratch, mix together flour and water in a 1:1 ratio on day 1. On day 2, take 1 part starter from the day before, and add in 1 part flour, 1 part water. Repeat daily until the starter is doubling more rapidly than 24 hours. At that point, you'll need to start multi-daily feedings (usually 2 is sufficient) when the starter is at the peak of its rise. When I start twice daily feedings, I often begin feeding the starter in a 1:2:2 (starter:flour:water) ratio to give it more food (and me more time between feedings). Once you reliably get a double in your starter volume within 3-6 hours of feeding (dependent on ambient temp), it's mature enough to use. This generally takes 2-4 weeks. A lot of people like to start the starter with whole wheat flour, since it seems to give it a kick start with the bacteria and yeast most commonly found on the bran of the wheat kernel. Once the starter is alive and well, you can transition it into a white starter by feeding it only white flour.

Pic related: it's one of my starters.

A quick question. Do you need a steam injector oven in order to produce killer crusty loaves? I mean literally pornographic loaves like pic related?

>>4948889
Not really, I personally spray my loaves with water using a spray bottle every 10 minutes or so while they're in the oven. Or you could also put some water in a container and place it in the bottom of your oven. It'll start producing steam.

Pic related, an attempt from few months back. Such amateur scoring.

>>4950297
Quick tip: Put ice instead of water, so your oven won't breathe hot water vapor to your face. Also makes the steaming more progressional instead of instant steam shower.

>>4950297
Also if your oven is quite shitty and lets the steam escape, you can try lining the oven door with towels, helps the isolation.

>>4948889
i achieve it by throwing a handful of ice cubes into a metal tray sitting at the bottom of the oven about 15 mins into baling