Bread Baking

[Mia]

The apple cider, ginger beer and guinness beer breads sound quite good. I've not made any breads with beer but have with apple cider. How does the beer affect the taste and texture of the bread?
I like the soda breads as they're so versatile and fast, and can be any shape you can think of. I'll grind oatmeal, kamut, barley, spelt, and quinoa flakes together and use about a quarter to a third of a cup in the bread depending on what I have. It makes it dense, but it's mealy which I like.

Another bread you may want to try making, that has no flour: The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread - My New Roots
Also an interesting place:
Around the World - in favorite recipes: Breads

 

[pushpin]

Whoa! That sounds so cool, the grinding of the different cereals. I don't know enough about bread to tell you whether or not the beer affects the texture, but it did affect the taste: the Guinness provided a malty flavor. I'll let you know what the others do if I'm able to discern the flavors well enough. What I believe affected the texture the most was my choice to use high gluten bread flour instead of all-purpose or even pastry flour. The texture improved once the bread cooled completely. It was tasty

How long have you been baking? Do you have any tips for a beginner like me?

And thank you for those links! I'd love to make a seed-filled bread like the one in the picture. I have so much to learn. I like this.

 

[Maelstrom]

Hmm...we grind fresh whole wheat flour it is nothing like bought whole wheat flour at all...very good.
regular bread is 1/2 whole wheat with 1/2 white flour so it isn't so heavy, with a little extra gluten added for fluffiness.

Also a lovely white flour dill bread with cottage cheese in it very tasty buttered.

 

[Mia]

How long have you been baking? Do you have any tips for a beginner like me?

You'll have to ask me questions, when things happen Much of bread baking is a personal voyage that you learn as you go. I ran a bistro for years as a chef and made many kinds of bread.

Have been baking since I was eight, and I'm 57 now, my Mother and Grandmother made bread regularly, so I watched them growing up. Taught myself bread baking from a book called Beard on Bread, which I was given as a gift. Had a habit of making everything in every cook book I owned, as I wanted to try every kind of food. Before the internet of course, now I compare recipes online, looking at four or five of the same recipes so that I notice if there are any differences, methods, omissions.

Would keep notes on the back of the recipes, so that each time, I could improve them or improvise, or indicate a problem.
Making mistakes is part of the process.
It's usually good to make the 'tested' recipe once exactly the way it's written, and then change it to your liking afterwards. That way you have a ideal/model to work from.
Sift flour as it settles in the bag after packing. Measure after sifting.
It's also good to spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup and level it. Or weight it if you have a scale.
Always proof dry or instant yeast first. Use a thermometer to test the warmth of the liquid used to proof the yeast if you have one.
Let the dough rest ten minutes after mixing, so it can absorb all the flour. Each time you knead or punch down let the dough rest, covered for a little while, then let it rise, before it's baked, even soda bread.
Oil or butter the inside of the bowl that it's being put in for the first and second rise, or a single rise, turn the dough so it's coated with oil on all sides. Or you can use a proofing basket and cloth, that won't require oiling.

For the moment those are the basic things that come to mind. It really is dependent on the kinds of breads you are making.

 

[Bolletje]

Have you decided what breads you're going to make?

I was going to bake a Guinness chocolate cake today, but I decided to drink all the Guinness instead. Don't feel like baking anymore Probably making pumpkin bread or soda bread tomorrow though.

 

[Judge]

You'll have to ask me questions, when things happen Much of bread baking is a personal voyage that you learn as you go. I ran a bistro for years as a chef and made many kinds of bread.

Have been baking since I was eight, and I'm 57 now, my Mother and Grandmother made bread regularly, so I watched them growing up. Taught myself bread baking from a book called Beard on Bread, which I was given as a gift. Had a habit of making everything in every cook book I owned, as I wanted to try every kind of food. Before the internet of course, now I compare recipes online, looking at four or five of the same recipes so that I notice if there are any differences, methods, omissions.

Would keep notes on the back of the recipes, so that each time, I could improve them or improvise, or indicate a problem.
Making mistakes is part of the process.
It's usually good to make the recipe once exactly the way it's written, and then change it to your liking afterwards. That way you have a ideal/model to work from.
Sift flour as it settles in the bag after packing. Measure after sifting.
It's also good to spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup and level it. Or weight it if you have a scale.
Always proof dry or instant yeast first. Use a thermometer to test the warmth of the liquid used to proof the yeast if you have one.
Let the dough rest ten minutes after mixing, so it can absorb all the flour. Each time you knead let the dough rest, covered for a little while, before it's baked, even soda bread.
For the moment those are the basic things that come to mind. It really is dependent on the kinds of breads you are making.

Have you ever used cumin in any of your recipes? Just wondering. Years ago I discovered one restaurant serving such bread. Marvelous!

 

[Mia]

Have you ever used cumin in any of your recipes? Just wondering. Years ago I discovered one restaurant serving such bread. Marvelous!

Bakers in India, Spain, the Middle East , Czechoslovakia, Greece, and many other countries use cumin in all kinds of bread, flatbreads, rye, rusk, sourdough, regular loaves. Jeera bread has cumin as its main flavouring, the cumin seeds are toasted in a pan and then added to the outside and ground and added to the flour. Makes it quite savory and aromatic. I've made flatbreads with cumin but not jeera.

 

[pushpin]

I was going to bake a Guinness chocolate cake today, but I decided to drink all the Guinness instead. Don't feel like baking anymore Probably making pumpkin bread or soda bread tomorrow though.

Let us know which one you do and if you liked it!

 

[pushpin]

Resource: No-Knead Bread Central | Hosted by Steve Gamelin (a.k.a. ArtisanBreadWithSteve)

 

[Mia]

Mmmm pumpkin bread

 

[Bolletje]

Mmmm pumpkin bread

I never made it myself, but when I was a kid my mom and I went shopping in the same little city in Germany once a year, and we always had lunch at the same little bakery where they sold pumpkin bread buns. Something about the color and the texture of that bread was so appealing. Haven't had it for twenty years or so, but I'm feeling nostalgic

 

[Chris Russell]

It' odd that, in our present fast food, eat and run, too busy to cook society, the successful bread baker is still revered... It must be some instinctual cultural memory from a time when bread really was the daily staple food the vast majority. If you can make tasty, crusty, well-proven bread, you will be hailed a magician in the kitchen!

 

[Mia]

It must be some instinctual cultural memory from a time when bread really was the daily staple food the vast majority.

I'm certain it is, a staple for so many when bread was made well and sold by weight. Almost every country in the world makes some form of it including the Inuit of Nunavut, they make a fried bread known as bannock. Although I don't think this was part of their original diet.

As soon as some groups changed from being hunter gatherers societies to keeping animals and gardens, they began grinding corn and other grains and nuts and seeds and roots to create some sort of bread-like food.

Think that the back to the earth movement of the sixties and onward, had also influenced the present day culture. Right up to 'hipster' culture requiring something that they perceive of as real, like artisan bread.

 

[Bolletje]

@Mia is there a way I could convince you to never stop talking about bread? I love your informative stories

 

[Mia]

Oh @Bolleje Don't encourage me, I could probably write reams about food and culture and the history of food and make connections to art and literature. Think I may have opened a pandora's box of past interests.

 

[pushpin]

a great Irish soda bread recipe (tried it last night, tasted it today, and I think it's fantastic) Real Irish Soda Bread Recipe

 

[Mia]

Thought I'd put this in @pushpin it's from an old history of cookery:

Irish Soda Bread

The making of this traditional Gaelic bread may date from the Middle Ages. Owing to the shortage of wood fuel in the land, it is often baked in a shallow hearth oven over a smouldering peat fire.

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teas baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lard or olive oil
1 cup buttermilk or as needed.

Sift flour with dry ingredients. Cut lard into flour. Add buttermilk to make a soft dough. Turn out on a slightly floured board and knead lightly to blend, for one to two minutes. Shape into a round high loaf and place on a greased cookie sheet. Cut a deep cross in the dough with wet kitchen shears. Bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. If desired a 1/2 cup of raisins dusted with flour may be worked into the dough after kneading.


This has been adapted from an ancient Gaelic recipe. But it's ingredients are close to how it was traditionally made. From the Horizon Cookbook and History of Eating and Drinking through the Ages.

 

[Marmot]

Does anyone here live at altitude ? I'm at a little over 8,000' and baking anything (bread, cakes, even things like pancakes, waffles & cookies) is a nightmare. The typical 'high altitude' directions on cake mixes & the like typically only apply to and/or compensate a recipe to 6,000' but an additional 2,000' of atmospheric pressure loss above that is a fluff killer when it comes to anything in the leaven based baking realm.....

There's a pizza place in the area even higher than me (at 9,200') that makes their own dough and when I asked them their secret they said to use high gluten flour, so I got some pure gluten to add to things, but I'm still working on the quantities to add & a compensation formula for liquids etc....

You can buy this stuff on Amazon, but I wouldn't recommend it if you or someone you love, legitimately has celiac

 

[Bolletje]

@Marmot I live below sea level (yay Netherlands) so I can't say I share your difficulties Very clever though, asking the pizza place for their dough secrets. I hope you figure out the right quantities

 

[Judge]

Yeah I used to live at around 5500 feet above sea level. Even at 4500 it makes precise baking instructions a bit of a joke. Much of anything takes longer.