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Nothing says
"home" like the fragrance of freshly baked bread. |
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Bread comes in many different types, shapes and
sizes. This is a compendium of them for quick reference.
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SPECIAL BREAD MAKING TIPS: |
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 There
are few aromas more delightful than the smell of home baked bread. It is
an activity that has diminished in the hectic pace of modern life, and
is a very satisfying and rewarding experience. But, it does take some
skill. |
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Menu:
BREAD TOPICS:
HOW TO MAKE BASIC BREAD:
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Good bread is the
most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh
butter is the greatest of all feasts.
- James Beard from Beard on Bread, 1980
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 Bread
Baking101 contains step-by-step information so you can gain or enhance
your bread-baking skills and be successful. It is for every level of
bread baker: it is for those of us who want to bake bread, but don't
know how; it is for the occasional baker who needs help
remembering skills and techniques when the time comes to bake; and, it
is for the experienced baker who wants to pick up a new skill or learn
more about the hows and whys of baking.
Happy
Bread Baking, Sarah |
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Bread has
been around for over 10,000 years. The Egyptians are credited with
inventing the oven and discovering leavening agents. Flour milling is
credited to the Greeks. The Romans improved on the process, and then
brought the art of bread making to Europe. |
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I hope you explore
baking yeast bread at home with "Bread Baking 101" at your side. Start
with a
basic recipe and go
from there. If you have any questions along the way, just
Ask Sarah, which is
me ! |
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Thank you
for your web site. It has excellent information.
I
have baked bread in the past, but it was too 'hard' and dry, eatable, but
not what I knew it should be. Didn't know what I was doing wrong until I
read your info. I was so excited and as we say here in Barbados, I was
very 'fussy' about the results. First, I had been adding too much flour
when kneading, making for a stiff dough. Second, I think I was kneading
the bread for a little too long. Thirdly, my baking time was too
long. Then, your tip about adding the dry ingredients to the liquid
ingredients was for me a real breakthrough. I was running from computer to
the kitchen, trying to incorporate your tips. The results were amazing,
great!! I have now arrived at where I wanted to be for so long with my
bread making. I really believe that despite the modern day, bread making
is an important skill. Deborah, Barbados, via email |
If you have never
baked yeast breads at home, then you don't know what you're missing; baking
bread with yeast is so rewarding. Don't be put off by the time it takes to make,
because the rewards are so big.
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Carmen
says: "(Bread
101 is) very useful for the beginner, to troubleshoot and make bread. This
website (baking911.com) saved me!" |
A basic bread loaf
can be made with four ingredients, being flour, yeast, water or additional
liquids, and salt. To this short list, you can add a variety of interesting and
delicious ingredients such as seeds, nuts, nut butters, dried fruits, raisins,
dates, to name a few to create hundreds of unique and flavorful breads. The
preparation techniques involved and even the weather influences the end result
you'll get in some way.
Yeast breads rely on
yeast
a live organism,
more specifically a
fungus, a one-celled form for its leavening which also affects flavor and
texture in the bread through a process called
fermentation.
There are two types of yeast: packaged from the grocery store in a dehydrated
form, such as active dry or instant active dry or fresh cake yeast and yeast
that you cultivate and ferment at home with a sourdough or sponge starter.
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division of baked breads is between yeast dough breads and
quick breads. They
are so named because they rely on baking
soda or baking powder for leavening. These "quick" leaveners activate as
soon as they are moistened and with baking powder, again when heated. They
do not require kneading and long rising sessions which develops the gluten
(structure) and allows the bread to accumulate carbon dioxide gases for
leavening from the yeast. Popular quick breads include nut and fruit loaves,
corn bread, muffins, biscuits, waffles, pancakes, and many coffee cakes. |
From that, different
types of bread are made depending on the type of yeast used and the way it is
introduced into the recipe: there are two basic kinds of yeast breads made from
packaged yeasts – those made from kneaded dough and those from stiff beaten
batters, called
batter
breads. Kneaded
dough includes
homemade yeast breads,
rolls, many of the sweet holiday breads, sweet rolls,
and yeasted coffee cakes.
From a sourdough or sponge starter,
breads can be made such a sourdough, ciabatta, French and Italian bread as well
as waffles, biscuits and cakes. Bread made
with packaged yeast takes
1-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours to prepare which includes mixing, kneading, two risings and
one shaping. Bread made with starter such as sourdough can take up to 5 days to
start its fermentation, plus additional time for making the bread.
Nutritional Composition of Bread.
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Use only the best and the freshest ingredients. Quality always pays. |
The perfect yeast
bread is varied. It can
be coarse, heavy, crusty, chewy and flavorful, while others are light, tender
and delicate in taste. Flavors in yeast breads can range from sweet to savory to
mildly sour. Bread dough can be baked in loaf pans, as free-form loaves on
cookie sheets or as individual-sized buns, twists, sticks and many other shapes.
 QUESTION:
I made an egg bread recipe today. It turned out okay, not as great as your
white bread recipe though... (The Classic White Sandwich Bread Recipe from
the
Baking 9-1-1 Book
). The egg bread recipe's crust was nice,
crisp, and golden, and the bread itself was nice and soft. The texture was
fluffy, but it kind of "sticks to your teeth" and is kind of chewy when you
bite into it. It also tastes quite heavily of yeast, almost a parmesan
cheese taste (a little sour). Is it because of overkneading? I had to knead
for quite a while because no matter how I did that
"Stop Kneading Test", the dough
window kept breaking! (I'm probably not going to use the egg bread recipe
again... I'll find another one.)
From Jenna,
Ask Sarah,
2-7-04ANSWER:
I'm so glad you had great success with the Classic
White Sandwich Bread Recipe from my
Baking 9-1-1 Book.
It's one of my family's favorite recipes. (I often make the recipe into
rolls --have you seen the picture? Click here
and scroll almost to the bottom of
the page.)
Anyway, the egg bread recipe you made being "gummy" and yeasty sounds like
it wasn't baked enough and there was a problem with the recipe (see below).
Do you have an Instant Read Thermometer?
Read Step #3 - Bake
The heavy yeast taste could be from the egg bread recipe -- perhaps the
ingredients are out of balance, which isn't your fault. Too much yeast,
eggs, sugar, milk, etc can be the culprit. When's there's too much food for
the yeast, it produces too much carbon dioxide, hence a sour taste. Bread
recipes are a delicate balance of ingredients (food for the yeast) and
carbon dioxide production (rising) and release (punching down).
Proper mixing steps are very important when making a bread recipe. The fact
that the dough in the Window Test
kept breaking tells me that the gluten was never developed in the early
mixing steps--
When making bread (or any recipe) it's like building a house--you have to
get the foundation right before you build the rest of the house otherwise
the whole thing will be out-of-whack! Look carefully at my Classic White
Sandwich Bread Recipe from my
Baking 9-1-1 Book.
I have you slowly add the flour to develop the gluten in the bread - most
recipes have you dump the flour in and then mix it. I bet the second recipe
you tried didn't have you go through such important mixing steps to fully
hydrate the flour and develop the bread's gluten structure---so it's not
your fault that the bread's structure was not formed properly. This also
caused the bread to be gummy in the end--the flour was not fully hydrated in
the beginning, hence there was extra water sitting around causing a soggy
middle......
FYI: You can apply my bread making steps to any recipe you find....
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