Cooking with Jonny69: baking bread.

[Jonny69]

I really love fresh bread and a couple of events have turned me to baking my own. Firstly my local Sainsburys does really lousy bakery bread. It's dense, tastes undercooked and goes stale really quickly. I recently found out that they bring in par-baked loaves and finish them in-store, which explains that. The second event is my local bakery finally closed, which is a total blow to the high-street and all I'm left with is a chain bakery which does average bread at a premium price.

I've been meaning to start a baking thread for some time because I'd had a whole string of baking disasters and wanted some advice. I know there are keen bakers and breadmaker owners on here and you'd easily be able to point out where I was going wrong. Turns out a bit of trial and error was all it needed so I could learn what was happening and now I'm ready to start a thread on baking that I can kick off with a picture of my first really decent loaf!



It took seven attempts to get it to this stage, which might sound like a lot but getting the right amount of water and yeast, the kneading and proving times and the baking took a bit of trial and error because I'd read so many different ways of making bread. Hopefully I can share the details with you so you can jump in and make a decent loaf straight off. There are just a few tricks here that make it work at home in your home kitchen, with no special equipment.

This recipe will make one 500g basic loaf of white bread in your oven.

Ingredients:

300g strong white bread flour
25g olive oil or butter
1 level teaspoon sugar
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon dried yeast
180ml warm water

You need two 25cm bread tins, ideally.

The first thing to do before you do anything else, and this is very important, is to turn the oven on at the highest temperature it will go to. This ensures the oven is fully preheated, but the heat from the oven will warm the kitchen and it'll make the bread rise.

You must use 'strong' flour, which has a high gluten content compared to self raising flour, otherwise it'll come out like a cake. I would stick to a higher quality flour to start with, so avoid the basic supermarket brand and use Hovis dried yeast. There may be no truth in doing that but it eliminates the ingredients being to blame if the bread doesn't come out right and you can concentrate on your method.

Measure the flour into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter or olive oil, mix in the sugar, salt and dried yeast. Tip in the warm water and mix everything together with your fingers. You should have quite a sticky dough that sticks to your hands and fingers at this stage.

Now you have to knead the dough. This works the water into the flour and stretches the gluten. It's this stage that determines how springy and stretchy your bread is. If you don't knead it the dough will rise but the bread will have a texture like a sponge cake rather than springy and stretchy. You have a choice how you knead it. If you choose to knead it by hand then you should do it on a smooth surface for a minimum of 10 minutes, 12 is better. My hand mixer has a pair of dough hooks which I thought would be rubbish, but it's a lot easier and you can let it do its work for about 7 minutes.

After kneading, the dough is much smoother in texture, less sticky and it starts to feel rubbery instead. Put it back in the mixing bowl, cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it on the worktop near the oven for 30-40 minutes. You'll see it rise in this time, increasing between 1.5 and 2 times its original size depending how warm the kitchen is. The clingfilm is important here. It stops the dough drying out and traps heat in the bowl, which dough likes when rising.

Take a 25cm long bread tin, grease it with butter and carefully scoop the risen dough into the tin. Push it into the corners trying not to knock too much of the air out of it. It should fill the tin up to about half way and although scooping the dough into the tin will have knocked it back a bit, we're going to re-rise it to get the volume back up. The kitchen should be nice and warm and humid now, perfect conditions.

Put the other bread tin on top so the dough can rise into it and stand it on the worktop near the oven, as before. Leave it for 45 minutes to an hour and the dough will have risen above the top of the tin. Once it's that big it's ready to bake. If it hasn't risen high enough then just leave it longer; it will rise but if it's not warm enough it may need another half an hour or so.

I've found this second rise is what's needed to stop the bread tasting yeasty. So while you could put it straight in the tin and rise it in one go, I think it tastes better if you do two rises.

Take off the top tin, heavily dust the top of the dough with bread flour and put it in the oven. Bake it at top temperature in the oven for 12 minutes and you'll see the crust will go very dark, turn the oven off completely and let it sit for a further 10 minutes to bake all the way through. Take it out, allow to cool for a few minutes and put it on a wire rack to cool completely. You should have a nice crusty loaf with a soft interior full of bubbles that slices easily like this:



Cost:
Flour: 25p
Other ingredients: negligible.
Power: 250W mixing for 10 mins = 0.5p, 3000W oven for 2 hrs = 75p approx.
Total cost: max £1.

Ok bakers, now it's your turn. Tell us about your baking!

[Jimmy_Lemon]

Looks nice, but sounds easier just to find a new Sainsburys, my local one does lovely fresh bread

/me goes off to see if he has any flour

[Jonny69]

Welcome aboard fella (even though it appears you've been around a while )

Yeah, the one in Southampton where her folks live does fantastic bread but it's a pathetic offering where I am. Frustrating. I walk to the supermarket though, so I'm reluctant to go driving just for a loaf of bread.

[Burble]

I've not made bread for ages, I should get back into the habit. I must also remember to get my Mum's Irish soda bread recipe - lovely stuff.

[Jonny69]

And make sure it comes this way as well, of course

Unless it's a secret recipe

[Jimmy_Lemon]

Amazed that is my first post, sure I had 'spoken' before. Anyway had a look for flour, seems I only have some really old manky stuff, I did buy some bread mixes at Christmas which still seems to be in date....a bit of a cheat, but then I am a lazy mofo, so might give that a whirl over the weekend

[Burble]

Originally Posted by Jonny69

And make sure it comes this way as well, of course

Unless it's a secret recipe

It isn't a secret recipe so I'll be sure to post it once I've seen Mum.

[Will]

I miss eating bread Cyprus can't come soon enough!

[Jonny69]

Sunday's loaf. I didn't use any sugar in this loaf and I think I preferred the taste. The crust didn't go as dark but I think that's no problem as it was just as crisp.

[Aboobie]

Looking good.

I've been making my own bread for a few years now.

I'll throw a few random thoughts your way; I'm by no means an expert but it's good to share

I find the supermarkets bread flour more than adequate for daily loaves though these days I tend to use 30% whole flour to 70% white.

To cover the dough while it's raising I use a tea towel thats been run under the hot tap.

I use olive oil for the most part but do enjoy the taste of butter especially for all white bread rolls.

I stopped using sugar years ago and sometimes drop the salt.

Try making a stromboli; rolled dough with pesto / cheese / veg / salami inside easy than you think and absolutely nom.

The thing that surprised me a few years ago when I started (first with pizza bases) is how easy it is. I really recommend everyone has a go.