Garp
31-03-2007, 15:35
One of the little tasks I've taken upon myself in out house is to make bread regularly. I don't know about anyone else here but I love fresh made, home made bread. Breadmaker made bread is nice, but there is something nicer about hand made bread.
Hand made > Bread Maker > mass produced bread.
Making bread consists of nice and simple techniques that even someone who has never cooked before can cope with. So I thought I'd introduce you to how to bake bread. If you've got a spare bit of time I'd highly reccomend giving it a shot.
So what do you need?
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/ingredients.jpg
450g Bread Flour, personally I prefer Stoneground but as you can see from the picture I'm using ordinary Brown Bread flour.
15g Dried Yeast. Its almost impossible to find ordinary Yeast these days in supermarkets, the main thing you'll see is packets of "Fast Yeast". Either will do but there will be a change to the instructions if you use ordinary yeast.
1/2 pint of warm water. Its important that it is warm, and not hot or cold. This is one you'll learn to judge for yourself. Too hot and you'll activate all the yeast, two cold and it won't activate any :)
1 tsp Sugar, preferably Brown.
1 tsp salt.
9g Butter / Margarine.
1 Mixing Bowl
1 2lb loaf tin, lightly greased
Instructions
Measure out 450g of bread flour and put it into your mixing bowl, and then add your tsp of salt, followed by your Butter / Margarine.
Take the yeast and pour it into your half pint of warm water, then add in the tsp of sugar, and give it a good stir.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/badpint.jpg
Doesn't that just look so appetising?
Pour the whole lot into your mixing bowl and then its time to get your hands dirty. You could cheat and use a mixer if you have one with a dough hook, but thats just being lazy. Mix everything together really well using your hands. The object of the exercise is to end up with a single piece of dry feeling dough, and no flour left in the bowl, it should all be part of the dough. This never seems to work out perfectly each time I've made it. Sometimes I've needed a bit more water, others a bit more flour. Ideally you should find that most of the dough that was on your hands and fingers when you started mixing it all together will have come off.
When you're happy that you've got a nice dry feeling piece of dough and its not sticky at all, then put this down on a lightly floured surface.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/kneed.jpg
This part is great for your wrists. We get to the kneeding stage. Depending on how warm your hands are this can take between 5 and 10 minutes to do. People with naturally warm hands will find this a lot quicker than those who don't. A little tip for those people that don't have warm hands: Run your hands under a hot tap to warm them up before starting the kneeding.
Kneeding should be full on, no half-hearted efforts here. Press down on the dough with the heel of both hands and push it firmly away from you, so that it stretches out. Repeat, turning the dough back in on itself every after every few stretches to ensure it doesn't just become like a long sausage!
After 5 minutes (or anywhere up to about 10 for cold hands people) you should notice that the loaf has reached a fairly elastic state, you can prod it and it will slowly start to retake its prior shape. If this happens before the 5 minute mark, great, but don't stop kneeding till you've done at least 5 minutes. When you're happy with the dough, take your dough and place it in your loaf tin, stretching it out to fill the tin, and then lightly score the top of it in the shape of a cross:
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/pre-prove.jpg
Now take some clingfilm and wrap up the bread tin. You need to leave some space at the top for the loaf to rise to, but keep the sides as tightly wrapped as possible so it doesn't spill over the top and down the sides (as happened to me last week.. whoops)
Now you need to find a nice warm and dry place. As with the "warm" water, this is a bit of a difficult one to guage. I'd generally advise somewhere around 20 degrees or so, and then leave it to prove. Our Airing cupboard here is a little too warm, but you may find thats the ideal place in your house. I just left it in my room on a shelf.
This is where there is a slight difference in approach depending on the type of yeast used.
With Fast Yeast
Leave your dough for at least 2 hours to prove, letting it rise nicely. This should now be really elastic and reform to shape if proded.
With Ordinary Yeast
Leave to prove for 30 minutes - 40, take out of tin and kneed again for another couple of minutes before placing it back in the tin and leaving to prove for another hour or so.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/ovenready.jpg
Remove the clingfilm cover, and turn your oven up to 220 degress C / 425 degrees / Gas mark 7.
Place your loaf in its tin on a shelf in the oven and leave for 30 minutes until it is a nice golden brown colour.
Remove from the oven and then tip out of the Bread Tin. Voila:
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/finished.jpg
Your lovely loaf of handmade bread :)
N.B.Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before you try and eat any of it.
Hand made > Bread Maker > mass produced bread.
Making bread consists of nice and simple techniques that even someone who has never cooked before can cope with. So I thought I'd introduce you to how to bake bread. If you've got a spare bit of time I'd highly reccomend giving it a shot.
So what do you need?
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/ingredients.jpg
450g Bread Flour, personally I prefer Stoneground but as you can see from the picture I'm using ordinary Brown Bread flour.
15g Dried Yeast. Its almost impossible to find ordinary Yeast these days in supermarkets, the main thing you'll see is packets of "Fast Yeast". Either will do but there will be a change to the instructions if you use ordinary yeast.
1/2 pint of warm water. Its important that it is warm, and not hot or cold. This is one you'll learn to judge for yourself. Too hot and you'll activate all the yeast, two cold and it won't activate any :)
1 tsp Sugar, preferably Brown.
1 tsp salt.
9g Butter / Margarine.
1 Mixing Bowl
1 2lb loaf tin, lightly greased
Instructions
Measure out 450g of bread flour and put it into your mixing bowl, and then add your tsp of salt, followed by your Butter / Margarine.
Take the yeast and pour it into your half pint of warm water, then add in the tsp of sugar, and give it a good stir.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/badpint.jpg
Doesn't that just look so appetising?
Pour the whole lot into your mixing bowl and then its time to get your hands dirty. You could cheat and use a mixer if you have one with a dough hook, but thats just being lazy. Mix everything together really well using your hands. The object of the exercise is to end up with a single piece of dry feeling dough, and no flour left in the bowl, it should all be part of the dough. This never seems to work out perfectly each time I've made it. Sometimes I've needed a bit more water, others a bit more flour. Ideally you should find that most of the dough that was on your hands and fingers when you started mixing it all together will have come off.
When you're happy that you've got a nice dry feeling piece of dough and its not sticky at all, then put this down on a lightly floured surface.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/kneed.jpg
This part is great for your wrists. We get to the kneeding stage. Depending on how warm your hands are this can take between 5 and 10 minutes to do. People with naturally warm hands will find this a lot quicker than those who don't. A little tip for those people that don't have warm hands: Run your hands under a hot tap to warm them up before starting the kneeding.
Kneeding should be full on, no half-hearted efforts here. Press down on the dough with the heel of both hands and push it firmly away from you, so that it stretches out. Repeat, turning the dough back in on itself every after every few stretches to ensure it doesn't just become like a long sausage!
After 5 minutes (or anywhere up to about 10 for cold hands people) you should notice that the loaf has reached a fairly elastic state, you can prod it and it will slowly start to retake its prior shape. If this happens before the 5 minute mark, great, but don't stop kneeding till you've done at least 5 minutes. When you're happy with the dough, take your dough and place it in your loaf tin, stretching it out to fill the tin, and then lightly score the top of it in the shape of a cross:
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/pre-prove.jpg
Now take some clingfilm and wrap up the bread tin. You need to leave some space at the top for the loaf to rise to, but keep the sides as tightly wrapped as possible so it doesn't spill over the top and down the sides (as happened to me last week.. whoops)
Now you need to find a nice warm and dry place. As with the "warm" water, this is a bit of a difficult one to guage. I'd generally advise somewhere around 20 degrees or so, and then leave it to prove. Our Airing cupboard here is a little too warm, but you may find thats the ideal place in your house. I just left it in my room on a shelf.
This is where there is a slight difference in approach depending on the type of yeast used.
With Fast Yeast
Leave your dough for at least 2 hours to prove, letting it rise nicely. This should now be really elastic and reform to shape if proded.
With Ordinary Yeast
Leave to prove for 30 minutes - 40, take out of tin and kneed again for another couple of minutes before placing it back in the tin and leaving to prove for another hour or so.
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/ovenready.jpg
Remove the clingfilm cover, and turn your oven up to 220 degress C / 425 degrees / Gas mark 7.
Place your loaf in its tin on a shelf in the oven and leave for 30 minutes until it is a nice golden brown colour.
Remove from the oven and then tip out of the Bread Tin. Voila:
http://www.paulgraydon.co.uk/bread/finished.jpg
Your lovely loaf of handmade bread :)
N.B.Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before you try and eat any of it.