Bread!

[BlacknTan]

Things are a bit slow in the winter, so I have some time on my hands. My wife and I have been re-watching The British Baking Show. We enjoy seeing the amateurs bake their creations, and it surely beats watching the rubbish on American TV!
Anyway, the show has inspired me to start baking my own bread again. It's an extremely simple recipe, but it does require active yeast and a fair amount of kneading time... but, it keeps me out of trouble. I do not fancy myself a Master Baker by any means... If I can successfully bake this, anyone can, but I enjoy baking it, and making buttered toast with it in the morning.
I plan to expand my repertoire this winter into a bit more advanced breads... We'll see how it goes...

Anyone else here enjoy their own bread?

 

[JackHayter]

Things are a bit slow in the winter, so I have some time on my hands. My wife and I have been re watching The British Baking Show. We enjoy seeing the amateurs bake their creations, and it surely beats watching the rubbish on American TV!
Anyway, the show has inspired me to start baking my own bread again. It's an extremely simple recipe, but it does require active yeast and a fair amount of kneading time... but, it keeps me out of trouble. I do not fancy myself a Master Baker by anymeans... If I can successfully bake this, anyone can, but I enjoy baking it, and making buttered toast with it in the morning.
I plan to expand my repertoire this winter into a bit mor advanced breads... We'll see how it goes...

Anyone else here enjoy their own bread?

Bit of bacon on that with some brown sauce . Count me in.

 

[Tonyschin]

Things are a bit slow in the winter, so I have some time on my hands. My wife and I have been re-watching The British Baking Show. We enjoy seeing the amateurs bake their creations, and it surely beats watching the rubbish on American TV!
Anyway, the show has inspired me to start baking my own bread again. It's an extremely simple recipe, but it does require active yeast and a fair amount of kneading time... but, it keeps me out of trouble. I do not fancy myself a Master Baker by any means... If I can successfully bake this, anyone can, but I enjoy baking it, and making buttered toast with it in the morning.
I plan to expand my repertoire this winter into a bit more advanced breads... We'll see how it goes...

Anyone else here enjoy their own bread?

One of mine from last week, it doesn't last long.

 

[BlacknTan]

One of mine from last week, it doesn't last long.
View attachment 145146

Very nice! And you're right.. it doesn't last long!

 

[Vacumatic]

Cannot beat a nice bit of bread, as a sandwich, with soup, cheese on toast, even a make-do pizza with passata and cheddar.

When my daughter was 18 she told me I was a dinosaur for liking bread, 'No one under 25 would eat bread'

I thought I was safe making a couple of loaves of bread even though her friends were here.

The loaves came out of the oven and I set them to cool, thinking I had a job to do in the garage and then I would have a slice with some raspberry jam and a pot of tea.

I came in 30 minutes later to find nothing but a crust and barely a half inch of jam in the jar.

'WTH' I shouted,

'Don't worry, we will wash up'.

 

[slapo]

I've been baking my own since December 2012. Mostly sourdough since 2015 or 2016. I do buy a loaf sometimes as well, but generally prefer my own.

The above is a sourdough with caraway seeds and cumin mixed in.
Particularly nice with meats and cheeses.
And I do like to flatten my breads as above - more crust that way.

 

[BlacknTan]

I've been baking my own since December 2012. Mostly sourdough since 2015 or 2016. I do buy a loaf sometimes as well, but generally prefer my own.

View attachment 145186
The above is a sourdough with caraway seeds and cumin mixed in.
Particularly nice with meats and cheeses.
And I do like to flatten my breads as above - more crust that way.

That looks delicious!

 

[JamieM]

You can't beat homebaked bread, the only reason I no longer make it, is because it's far too time-consuming.

 

[BlacknTan]

You can't beat homebaked bread, the only reason I no longer make it, is because it's far too time-consuming.

Yes Jamie, I must agree that it is time consuming. But, at this point in time, I have some spare time... I guess I'm lucky in that regard.

 

[slapo]

@JamieM @BlacknTan It can be time consuming, but then if you'd leave the bread to rise overnight, perhaps not particularly troubling.
If you were to use, say, a quarter of a tea spoon of dry active yeast when mixing the dough in the evening, you could just shape the loaf in the morning before leaving the oven to pre-heat and then just bake the loaf.
The dough would improve if you could fold it a few times after the first 30 and 60 minutes after mixing the dough, but it isn't really necessary for a tasty loaf, though it would likely improve the texture.

The above is similar to what Ken Forkish recommends in his book (Flour, water, salt, yeast).

The way I use my sourdough starter is similar. Sometimes, I leave the poor thing unfed for weeks (in a sealed fermentation jar with a valve), but it still ends up making a tasty loaf. Texture suffers if I leave it unfed for longer than two weeks, but I'd say taste actually improves.
Unlike most, I use almost all of my starter - about 400g of it. The rest I feed with 200g water and 200g flour, pop it back into a washed fermentation jar and into the fridge it goes until I need it again.

 

[slapo]

Maybe I should mention - I also make my pizza dough in a rather lazy way.

I started with a bit of fresh yeast (maybe a tea spoon), flour (300g) and water(200g), mixed it, left it in the fridge until it rose.

Then I:
- took it out,
- took a table spoon of it off (to start a new batch with),
- mixed in salt,
- left it to rest while the oven would be pre-heating,
- stretched it on a sheet,
- baked just the dough until there was just a little bit of "skin" on it
- added tomato sauce and either cheese of choice (my Italian housemates would add mozzarella only for the last two minutes in the oven, I like my cheese a bit crispy) or something like aubergine or courgette with black pepper and a bit of salt,
- bake until done (I like it a little crusty, so I leave it in for a bit longer).

To start a new batch of dough from then on, I would mix the dough I spooned off before adding salt with 300g flour and 200g water, pop it in a container and into the fridge to let it rise.

Always makes for a tasty pizza dough, and requires little work.

 

[BlacknTan]

Great info slapo!

Particularly on sourdough starters, which I'm trying to work up the courage to venture into!

 

[slapo]

Great info slapo!

Particularly on sourdough starters, which I'm trying to work up the courage to venture into!

It's fairly simple, really.
I can post my approach to starting a starter, if you'd like.
It's effectively waste-free and it has worked for me repeatedly very well.

 

[BlacknTan]

It's fairly simple, really.
I can post my approach to starting a starter, if you'd like.
It's effectively waste-free and it has worked for me repeatedly very well.

Yes, if it's not too much trouble, please post it. It may help others as well.
I've got bread baking books here, but the procedure seems a bit daunting..

 

[Rufusdog]

I make Irish soda bread from time to time. My favourite bread, however, is sourdough. I haven’t been motivated to baking it myself because there is a bakery nearby that makes the most sumptuous sourdough; it is a bit expensive though.
.