What Is Your Best Home Made Bread Recipe?

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Amber Fluid

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I am wanting to make just a simple white loaf today but have previously tried quite a few online recipes and all I have tried are just crap... the bread turns out heavy or has a yeasty taste instead of being light and fluffy which is obviously preferable.

I did a search here for a decent plain white bread recipe with no luck, albeit a lot about bread yeast for brewing, so thought, why not start a thread sharing your best home made bread recipe.

Also any successful experiments you have included with your bread would be good to see too.Any tips or tricks would be cool too.
 
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

I spent a couple months playing with this after buying the book. I have never succeeded with bread, but this was the closest i ever got.

I used the method for calzone and pizza bases pretty well and it was handy having the dough ready to go at all times.
 
www.wildsourdough.com.au
I did this womans course,
with old time member, Pistol PAtch,
I now make bread, about twice a week, its lovely , and enjoabyly variable.
if using good quality flours eetc,
its not really an economical benefit,
as the time,
and energy and ingredients, may often add up to more thant the 6-10$ a loaf you pay in the shops for this kind of stuff
 
There was a long thread on bread making in the brew food section a while back -

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=24339

I'm another sourdough fan. I make 5 loaves a week using my nearly 20 year old starter.

For bread its not so much the recipe that makes it heavy but the technique. Its all in the kneading and how much rise time you give it. It won;t be as light as commercial bread as they use all kinds of "improvers" and crap to get it that light and tasteless. Real bread tastes of something and has some texture to it.

Cheers
Dave
 
As above i bake bread and love sourdough. Sourdough is a labour of love that taskes time and effort but the results are rewarding.

But for bread for toast and fruit loaf i use a breadmaker.

I don't buy the premixes, apart from being uneconomical they also contain a vast amount of extra ingredients, improvers etc.

So i buy my flour in bulk; white, wholemeal, rye, spelt as well as things like linseed meal. I use these ingredients when baking sourdough, baguettes, ciabatta etc. I have played around with quantities and extra additions but the base recipe i use is flour, water, salt, oil, yeast.

I like the addition of good olive oil to bread but it is unecessary.

If you use straight white flour then yes, it is very light and fluffy but i always use the french setting on the breadmaker which involves longer proving and making times so the crust is darker than the stuff you buy for $1 in the supermarket. I don't make white bread as i don't like eating white bread. My usual mix is 50/35/15 white/wholemeal/rye although this is not measured per se, i simply add a combination of flour until i hit the required weight. This does involve checking on the dough during the kneading process as the less white flour you use the more water you need. The longer proving time negates the need for the added extras/vitamins/nutrients for the yeast.
 
Those links are great thanks. I must have missed the bread porn one and now I have seen it, I do recall seeing it before. Nevertheless, there is not a lot of recipes on there. Mainly all picks of what people have made which really isn't what I am after. Recipes for the beginner would be great.... However, I did see this one from you Dave which looks great to try, but what is strong bakers flour and where can I get it from?

If you want to make sourdough tomorrow night you have left your run a bit late... to get a starter going and get it ready for bread making will take at least a week.

A simple white dough may be a better option for a first go but even that takes quite a bot of practice to get the hang of.

500g strong bakers flour
2 tsp salt
15g fresh yeast (or 1 packet of dried)
Water - about 350ml but don't add it all at once.. its something that varies a little depending on temp and humidity. You can replace some of the water with beer if you want.

Mix together into a moist dough. Kneed (French or English method) until it is smooth and elastic. You shouldn't need to add flour unless you have made your dough really wet. How to tell when its done? An old baker once told me to kneed it until it feels like your girlfriend's breasts when you squeeze it. This only works for natural breasts. Falsies don't have the right feel.

Sprinkle lightly with flour, place in bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Gently scrape the dough out onto a floured surface and form into a long log. Cut in half to make two smaller logs. Shape into loaves (round or oval). Place of a floured tray to rise again (another hour). Slash the tops just before they go in.

You need to have the over hot. I mean really HOT. As hot as it will go. And make sure you pre-heat it really well. If the oven is too cool you won't get a good crust. Spray the oven with a fine mist of water from a spray bottle as you put the bread in. The will help it rise more by delaying crust formation.

As the bread goes in turn the oven down slightly to around 225 and bake for about 15-20 mins. Don't open the door to check on it you will let the heat out. You want it nice and golden brown.

Let it cool completely before eating otherwise it is heavy and indigestible. If you want it warm, bunk it back in a hot oven for a couple of minutes just before you serve.

Good luck.
 
Those links are great thanks. I must have missed the bread porn one and now I have seen it, I do recall seeing it before. Nevertheless, there is not a lot of recipes on there. Mainly all picks of what people have made which really isn't what I am after. Recipes for the beginner would be great.... However, I did see this one from you Dave which looks great to try, but what is strong bakers flour and where can I get it from?

OK... regular all purpose flour has about 9% protein. That's OK for most things but its the proteins in the flour that give the dough its strength. Too little gluten (protein) and the dough wont be strong enough to rise well and will collapse. You can make bread from all purpose flour but it won't be as light.

Baker's flour has around 11% or higher. Doesn't sound like much but it makes a huge difference. There is also a cake flour which is designed for cake baking and has under 8% protein. That's useless for bread but makes nice light fluffy cakes which rise though a different mechanism and go a bit doughy if you use high protein flour and over work the batter.

Look at the nutritional information panel on the flour to get the protein %.

You can buy it from most supermarkets in a 5kg bag (Defence is the brand I think). I buy mine in bulk (multiple 12.5kg sacks ata atime) from an organic mill called Demeter.

Cheers
Dave
 

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