/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.4798142]

Does anyone have any links for someone who would like to get into bread baking? I've never baked bread in my life but I would like to start learning. Are their any good guides out there?

[FF No.4798151]

What's bread?

[Anonymous No.4798173]

Bump for baking, I wanna learn too

[FF No.4798204]

Flour, water, salt, yeast. Mix till windowpane, bulk ferment till doubled, portion, preshape, bench rest, shape, proof till doubled, slash, bake, cool, eat.

[syd No.4798218]

bump for bread baking

[Anonymous No.4798225]

>>4798151
>>4798204

Come on Fuck Flour, throw us a bone here? Please?

[FF No.4798233]

>>4798225
What do you want to know?

[Anonymous No.4798244]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QpQ9Kd3t5I
really basic, but the guy who does the video has some other cool bakery videos as well

[syd No.4798254]

>>4798244
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QpQ9Kd3t5I
this is a good place for me to start thanks.

[Anonymous No.4798365]

>>4798233
babby's first bread recipe, please

I've made pizza crust before, but bread scares me!

[Anonymous No.4798374]

OP im about to make some bread ill post some pictures for the next ~3 hours with steps n stuff, gotta do dishes then I'll start it

[Anonymous No.4798400]

>>4798374
Can't find monitoringthread.jpg so have some fruit

[Anonymous No.4798427]

How do you make whole grain bread rise well? Mine always comes out dense as fuck. The last loaf I baked was wet as fuck, a gloppy sponge of dough, and then I trapped some steam in the oven, and it still came out the same way it does when I just stick dry dough in the oven

[Anonymous No.4798432]

Six months ago, I was asking the same question. Allrecipies > Amish White Bread is my favourite recipe for a basic white bread. It's very forgiving, and easy to make. It's also really fucking tasty.


You can reduce the amount of sugar by more than a half (the unaltered recipe is very sweet), and you can replace it with honey and use 1/3rd the amount of sugar. You can also replace the oil for any kind of fat. I recommend following the method as given with one exeption: leave the oil out until the dough has mostly come together, and add it in 3-4 small increments. By the time the last bit is combined, your dough will be kneaded enough. Resting the dough for 5 minutes between increments will help the flour absorb water and will reduce the overall amount of work you have to do.

After you've made it 3 or 4 times, change elements of the recipe to see how it alters the outcome - Try a dryer dough or a wetter one. Try whole grain or bread flour. Use an egg yolk to replace a portion of the fat.

You'll learn a lot about which element is responsible for what by doing this, and it will make it easier to learn new techniques.

Periodically google search bread related articles (it's very popular blog fodder so you're almost guaranteed to find a new trick to try each time you make it.

If you have any questions I'm happy to give feedback.

[Anonymous No.4798438]

>>4798427
Post your recipe.

[Anonymous No.4798448]

>>4798374
Okay, First picture, everything I am going to use to make it. The dutch oven is what I will bake it in, cost $20 on amazon, just needs to be baked with a lid over it.

[Anonymous No.4798452]

>>4798448
Next, add 6 cups flour, 2 tsp yeast, and 2 tsp salt and mix

[Anonymous No.4798457]

>>4798452
Add 3 cups hot water, doesn't need to be heated, just as hot as it gets from your tap, and mix with a wooden spoon. Make sure there are no flour pockets on the bottom of the bowl. The dough will be really shaggy, and will stick to the spoon a lot, thats fine just scrap it off into the bowl as well as you can. I sometimes do this with my hands instead of a wooden spoon since its dirty sometimes or I can't find it. Picture shows consistency when finished mixing, its smooth and sticky

[Anonymous No.4798458]

I spent 2 years trying to bake bread from scratch but only got think dense crap bread. I tried every kind of yeast they had at several supermarkets.

Then I bought a huge bag of Red Star yeast from Amazon. All my bread has been good since then. This makes no sense as I had bought those little glass jars of Red Star yeast several times from the markets.

[Anonymous No.4798468]

>>4798457
Next you let it rise. I cover it with a plastic bag because I don't have any spare dish clothes, but you can cover it with a moist dishcloth as well. I put it over my oven cause the pilot lights keep it a bit warmer then the rest of my kitchen. Let it rise for 2~ hours. So brb 1:00am PDT.

[Anonymous No.4798465]

>>4798457
>just as hot as it gets from your tap
People told me this over and over, but my tap does NOT make water hot enough. I heat water in a kettle to 130F now and everything is much much better.

No two hot water taps are made equally.

[Anonymous No.4798471]

>>4798468
>picture guide
>forgot picture
>fuck

[Anonymous No.4798474]

>>4798465
my tap probably only gets to about 110F, always works fine for me. If I am adding the yeast to heated water before mixing it with the flour and dry goods though, I usually microwave the water for 15-20 seconds to about 125~

[Anonymous No.4798486]

Heating the water for your bread is pretty much negligible and actually not very smart because the risk of killing the yeast by heat (which is very easy) is greater than the meager benefit of quicker yeast activation.

[Anonymous No.4798491]

>>4798486
>the risk of killing the yeast by heat
This is zero if you have a thermometer.

[Anonymous No.4798502]

>>4798491
agreed, although I don't use a thermometer for my yeast anymore, just dip my finger to check, but the last time I had a failed rise in a loaf of bread was at least 2 years ago, and I bake maybe 4-6 loaves a week so I don't mind heating it.

[Anonymous No.4798503]

>>4798502
I have a laser thermometer which I use for everything constantly forever.

[Anonymous No.4798675]

>>4798471
Okay I'm back, the bread rose woo. Here it is.

[Anonymous No.4798676]

>>4798675
Next step is preparing your counter for shaping the loaves, I use about 3/4th of a cup of flour because the bread is extra sticky, just dump it onto your counter and loosely spread it out.

[Anonymous No.4798683]

>>4798676
The next part is a bit tricky since this is a double batch, so there is a lot of dough. You can either dump it all onto the flour and then separate it into 2 loaves by gently pulling it apart, or just pull half of it out of the bowl at a time and shape it. When you get it on the counter, YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNEAD IT. Just shape it roughly into a circle, covering all of it with flour. I usually lightly blow off the excess flour, doesn't matter too much.

[Anonymous No.4798686]

>>4798683
Next step is easy, just grease the inside of your dutch oven bottom very lightly and then drop it in. I put honey over the top of my bread, just because I like sweets and want to see what will happen. You should have your oven set to 400, and then PUT THE LID ON THE DUTCH OVEN, and put it in the oven. Heat with the lid on for 25 minutes, then pull the lid off and finish for 10-12 minutes, depending on if you want it crunchy or soft on top. If you want to mix in any flavorings or herbs, do it when you are shaping the loaves and mix it in gently a few pinches at a time, folding the dough over. Try not to get pockets of flour inside the bread when you fold it like this.

[Anonymous No.4798687]

>>4798686
I rubbed the honey evenly over the top of the bread after this picture was taken. It looks gross in the picture, I'm hoping it isn't.

[Anonymous No.4798703]

>>4798438

1 cup of 80% whole wheat bread flour, 1 cup of multi-grain bread flour (wheat, millet, barley, oats, brown rice, corn, and rye), 1 cup of warm water, 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon coconut palm sugar, 1-2 tablespoons gluten powder

I activate the yeast, mix the dry ingredients in slowly, knead that dough, then put a little olive oil in the bowl, grease it all around, and let the bread rise for atleast an hour. Then I take it out, knead it again, pre-heat the oven to 425, shape the dough and let it proof, slice a few quick gashes in the top, and either put it in like that or get it wet as fuck since I heard really wet dough makes better bread but it doesn't seem to be the case for me

The bread still comes out tasting good and the inside has that chewy bread texture thanks to the gluten, but has practically no "oven spring" effect and there's no bubbles in the crumb. Just a log of bread. I realize it has a lot to do with me not using white flour, but surely whole wheat bread can be more fancy than THIS

[Anonymous No.4798709]

>>4798686
All done. Its pretty basic but tastes nice.

[Anonymous No.4799032]

remember that when working with yeast always add a bit of sugar as a boost for the yeast a table spoon is good
and if you are making white bread add a bit of powdered milk
but if you want the best taste make your own yeast plant from potato

[FF No.4799052]

>>4798365
Get a scale. Try 100% flour, 55% water, 2.5% salt, 0.9% yeast. If you're feeling crazy, mix in nuts/seeds/grains at the end of the knead, before bulk proof.

>>4798427
>>4798703
Whole grain flour, while it does have gluten, also has a lot of bran particles getting in the way of gluten formation. As a result, you're never going to have a high-percentage whole grain bread rise as much as its white flour counterpart. It's just not going to happen. Try cutting back on the amount of whole wheat flour you're using, and adding in some high-protein white bread flour. Also, multi-grain flour is going to further inhibit gluten formation. The result, as you've learned, is an ultra dense, moist loaf.

>>4798457
>>4798465
>>4798474
>>4798486
>>4798491
Adding water that is much north of 120F isn't very good for the yeast, in general. The best bet is to use water that is just warm to the touch. It accomplishes the same thing (waking the yeast up) without knocking back some of the yeast population. Additionally, with water nearing 130F, you're risking gelatinizing the starch in the flour, which is going to change the texture and rise of your bread. I've never tried it, personally, so maybe it produces a good loaf, but it definitely won't produce a loaf that is similar to what you get in most bakeries. In general, hot water doughs are usually reserved for pastry and deep frying applications.