Baking your own bread.

[locum76]

i've got this amazing book at home with about fifty different bread recipes that all seem to work. in the past couple of months ive made wholemeal, granary, baguette, foccacia, ciabatta, pitta, split tin and pizza. thats the problem with breadmakers for me, you can only get square loafs.

 

[xylaria]

I've made bread on the camp fire using a box oven - just a cardboard box lined with foil - and it was great! Just put your risen dough on a tray over a few embers (not too many or the bread burns) and put the box oven over the lot. Takes about 20 minutes. Did this at cub camp and we made chocolate bread, banana bread, chocolate banana bread, all with and without raisins. Great fun

Woaw thats sounds so simple:You_Rock_ , I tried cooking my orange soda bread at NW meet as I had never tried it cooking bread on a fire. We used a wok with lid on it. It came out burned and wet in the middle. Soda bread is very forgiving if it is badly cooked thankfully.

 

[Rebel]

i've got this amazing book at home with about fifty different bread recipes that all seem to work. in the past couple of months ive made wholemeal, granary, baguette, foccacia, ciabatta, pitta, split tin and pizza. thats the problem with breadmakers for me, you can only get square loafs.

They are limited. The upside is that you can set the timer on them so that your bread is cooked and waiting for you when you get up in the morning.

Our household is wakened by the smell of freshly baked bread most mornings.

If you want a bit more variety you can use the machine to knead the dough. You take the dough out when the machine has finished kneading it and stick it in the oven. Most machines will also bake a few different weights of loaf.

Sour dough recipes like Ciabatta are a bit more complicated.

Bread makers will also make breads that aren't really bread but are a kind of cake (they don't use yeast), like banana bread and soda bread.

 

[redcollective]

Try some damper next time you have a nice substantial bed of ashes. There are dozens of damper recipes - the simplest of which use no milk or baking soda, and all are best cooked in ashes. Choose your wood to suit the cooking method though

Westnorfolk you said you lke hard bread - they don't come much harder! Tap it, if it sounds hollow it's done - they can be made in a camp oven, if you have that sort of thing.

Recipes will say cook over coals - that's hot but ash grey coals mind - anything towards the red hot end of the spectrum and you are making bricks.

 

[Westnorfolk]

[/QUOTE]Westnorfolk you said you lke hard bread - they don't come much harder! Tap it, if it sounds hollow it's done - they can be made in a camp oven, if you have that sort of thing.

Recipes will say cook over coals - that's hot but ash grey coals mind - anything towards the red hot end of the spectrum and you are making bricks.[/QUOTE]


Hi Redcollective
have tried this and found one of the best things is to make dampa biscuites the size of £2 coins (pirate money) whilst making up your chickpea curry or roadkill curry or soup and just drop them in when done. very nice and better than pourning in bread crumbs from the bottom of the a bag

thanks for the link, will be trying some of these as well.

 

[EdS]

which do folks prefer to use of bannock etc baking powder or bicarb of soda (baking soda).

Advantage if bicarb is that it can be used for several purpouses inc indegestion - from eat too much fresh hot bread.

 

[aelf]

i generally use baking powder, for no good reason

 

[xylaria]

At the moment i am using Bicarb, but for soda bread I have used both in past and I dont recall it making much of differance. I think bicarb reacts better with acid and puts more gas into the bread. Most proper recipes for soda bread call for baking soda which i am not that sure if that means baking powder or bi-carb.

 

[Gailainne]

Is it possible to bake a loaf using 2-3 pots ? putting the bread mixture in the small pot and setting the larger pot overturned on top to create a kind of oven ? I'm thinking on an open fire. I was thinking between my 3 pots, which nest inside each other actually 2 pots 1 mini frying pan, a basic dutch oven could be made. What do you think ? possible, I need to stop drinking so much, or never tried it could work ?

Stephen

 

[aelf]

yes, it should work. I have used an old sweet tin to bake bread and it worked. I punched holes in the tin lid, put my dough on a metal plate and put that on the upside down lid and placed the sweet tin over the top to make the oven. The bread will burn if the fire is too big so place the oven on a small handfull of embers. By the time the embers have gone out, the bread is done!

did i say handfull? best pick the embers up with something else

 

[Gailainne]

I've made bread on the camp fire using a box oven - just a cardboard box lined with foil - and it was great! Just put your risen dough on a tray over a few embers (not too many or the bread burns) and put the box oven over the lot. Takes about 20 minutes. Did this at cub camp and we made chocolate bread, banana bread, chocolate banana bread, all with and without raisins. Great fun

Any chance of a few recipes ?

They sound great

Stephen

 

[aelf]

I use a recipe from my breadmaker book (for standard loaf) then add or substitute ingredients. For chocolate bread, i substitute some of the flour for a few spoonfulls of instant drinking chocolate powder. If adding fruit, i just chuck some in as an extra. For banana bread, mash the banana first, and use less liquid. Basically, i make it up as i go along. Use fast acting yeast and real milk n butter for better results. Also, prove the dough first for 20 mins in a covered container by the fire. Most important - temps get very high in a box oven so use just a small fire with a few embers or the bread will burn.

Experiment! Most things work. I'm going to put lumps of real chocolate in my next one, or maybe chopped up mars bar.

Have fun!

 

[Andy J]

Hello again folks, read all the posts on here a while ago,with great interest, then last week, my mother in law asked if anyone wanted a breadmaker, as they had never used the one they had bought. I of course, armed with my knowledge fro this very site said" Yes, I'll take it off your hands", Glad I did, the third loaf is in the maker now and will be ready for midnight, wonderfull smell! Thanks again folks, Andy

 

[hanzo]

My wife makes bread with a bread maker. I find it comes out hardier than store bought and delicious.

I make bannock at camp and at home. My kids love it and it is a quick and easy treat for them. Plus, I get them to help me make it. They like that. Especially the pouring in the chocolate chips part and of course, the hand mixing, and finally the eating.

 

[Brendan]

I've made acorn bread in my wood burning stove, similar recipe but use leeched ground acorns instead of half the flour you would use, nice and nutty!

 

[Snufkin]

I've been baking my own bread for a couple of years now. I've not used a bread maker as the kneading is the most enjoyable part of the process . I get my wholemeal flour from the last working watermill in Norfolk. My recipe is two thirds wholemeal to one third strong white bread flour as it makes for a lighter loaf. I usually bung in some oatmeal too and a handful of linseed (the golden linseed looks nice but the regular black stuff tastes the same). I usually make four 2lb loaves at a time as it just as easy to knead that much dough as a lesser amount. I tend not to bake as much in summer as I eat more couscous and rice at this time of year. My mum adds a tablespoon of yeast extract to hers as it gives a nice flavour.

 

[Andy J]

Interesting comments again folks, as in Rebels post earlier, about Soda Bread? I read an article on recipes for camping or similar website recently on " Camp Biscuits" Strange name! Self Raising Flour and a Can of Creme Soda, thats it, tried it at home with great success, except I used paper cake cases, and they stuck. These I haven't tried outdoors yet, but are dead easy and I can't wait to give 'em a go. Taste just like Scones. Thanks, Andy

 

[Tiley]

I bake my own bread, along with a good number of you, but I tend not to actually bake it in the machine as you end up with an oddly shaped loaf that is slightly clammy. I use the dough setting and then whisk it out and bake it conventionally in the oven. it also means that you can do rolls or loaves or whatever shape you want.

For baking in the wilds, NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) in the U.S. has two things worth pursuing: the first is their wilderness cookery book which has some superb ideas for variations on a theme of bread, including how best to prove your loaf and the second is their Fry-bakes - essentially a deep non-stick frying pan with a lid that is really useful for all types of baking. I've tried their recipe for brownies at home and hope to give it a 'wild trial' this summer. The other, more conventional bread recipes work really well.

 

[Hunter_zero]

Just a quick heads up

ASDA are selling bread makers for £11! and very good they are too.

John

 

[Andy J]

Nice one Hunter! got to be worth having a look. Been using one for a while now, don't buy bread at all now, so would be worth buying one now as a spare. Thanks, Andy