My first Bread

[rancid badger]

I had a go at making bread for the first time today

It came out lovely in the end, I admit it was a just a bread mix but the faff on with the mixing had my head spinning at times.
Only real fluff up was forgetting to use warm water, discovered when my bread failed to rise
I thought to myself; well, I've nothing to lose, so I popped my buns in the microwave for about 30 seconds, then put them in the airing cupboard again and away they went!

It was Wright's bread mix, mostly used for bread machines I think, full of sunflower seeds too, very tasty

Next time its just the plain ingredients and we'll see what we get

i'll add a picture a bit later on
cheers
R.B.

 

[Andy2112]

Nothing better than home made bread RB. Wright's do some nice cake mixes as well. Great for my breadmaker btw. One of the best christmas presents i have ever had.

 

[rancid badger]

As promised
cheers
R.B.

 

[Andy2112]

As promised
cheers
R.B.

mmmmmmm, i can smell em from here. really nice mate, hope you enjoy them.

 

[MartinK9]

Eaten with lashings of Butter I do hope?

 

[robin wood]

Nice buns mate.

I always think breadmaking is mans work pastry for girlies. Not that I am sexist in the kitchen, its just that we tend to have hot heavy hands which ruins pastry but is good for bread.

 

[rancid badger]

I only snuck into the kitchen while the lady of the house was out "hunter gathering" at the Metro Centre

I used to love cooking but all too frequently, my clean up standards failed inspection from the senior officer, so I don't do much now.

They really are surprisingly nice.

thanks for the kind comments
all the best
Steve

 

[John Fenna]

OI!
My choux pastry is phenominaly good!
My short crust is meltingly good!
My bread making is poor...
so what are you saying!:bluThinki

 

[Pang]

the only bread i've made in the open is naan or unrisen bread

 

[robin wood]

OI!
My choux pastry is phenominaly good!
My short crust is meltingly good!
My bread making is poor...
so what are you saying!:bluThinki

Well choux doesn't count cos you melt the fat nor does water crust or suet pastry, I can do them but I am impressed at any man that can make a wonderful shortcrust. Have you got cold hands?
Maybe we will get together one day and I can show you bread and you can show me shortcrust.

 

[Shewie]

Nice baps Steve

Anyone got a recipe from the cupboard, I haven`t made bread since I was at school.

 

[robin wood]

Nice baps Steve

Anyone got a recipe from the cupboard, I haven`t made bread since I was at school.

flour, water, salt, yeast, mix, rise, shape bake.

I use dried powdered yeast that you add direct to the flour which makes life easy but use whatever you have. I only use wholemeal which is a bit harder to begin with and rises less, I made some serious bricks when I started.

There are two reasons why things go wrong one is it is not kept nice and warm all the way through and the other particularly with wholemeal is its too dry, the bran sucks lots of water out and then the yeast has no water to do its thing.

So mix flour with yeast, say half a bag of flour to a level desrtspoon of powdered yeast and a couple of teaspoons of salt. mix well. Add warm water, what you are aiming for is when you have added the water the mix should be blood temperature so if your flour and bowl are cold make your water a little warmer than blood temp but not so hot you can't keep your hand in it. Add water and mix with a big stick, aim for very thick porridge consistency for wholemeal or a bit thicker for white. cover with towel and leave in blood temp place if poss. It can do a long slow rise in a cool environment equally well.

When it is about twice the size it was (30-60 minutes) shape it into buns/loafs or whatever, leave to rise in a warm place maybe 15 minutes until it is well on the way up again then bake. Hot oven to start then turn down to 180 till its done.

 

[Shewie]

Cheers Robin, I`ll have a blast at that tomorrow while I`m waiting for npower to turn up.

 

[bigbear]

And for anyone who is seriously interested then I cannot recommend highly enough Elizabeth David's "English bread and yeast cookery"- a fascinating historic and social document plus tons of recipes. You can read it cover to cover like any good book, or just use it for recipes.

 

[robin wood]

And for anyone who is seriously interested then I cannot recommend highly enough Elizabeth David's "English bread and yeast cookery"- a fascinating historic and social document plus tons of recipes. You can read it cover to cover like any good book, or just use it for recipes.

I will second that, it takes you through each of the few ingredients by chapter and explains exactly what they do. eg salt, without it the bread tastes insipid, too much slows fermentation...well it is a preservative. It's a big book though and the one thing it doesn't give you is a feel for how warm, how wet the stuff needs to be that has to come through experiment. When I started I thought needing bread dough should be hard work, I made it like plasticine, too dry. It should be light and fluffy and you should need to add lots of flour to the surface or else it would be sticky to handle.

 

[calibanzwei]

OI!
My choux pastry is phenominaly good!
My short crust is meltingly good!
My bread making is poor...
so what are you saying!:bluThinki

"Arrrr, you have a woman's hands, my lord!"

 

[MickG]

Hi
Just read your bit about bread making
Dont have a bread maker used the microwave oven
The bread was ok but hard as rocks the next few days
Asked the baker in Morrisons what was the problem and he said dried yeast, use fresh
looked every where but none sold local
Found a site on ebay that sells 100g for abour £2 and £2 p+p
Keeps for about 2 weeks in fridge
much better results
Mick

 

[John Fenna]

"Arrrr, you have a woman's hands, my lord!"

Yes I keep them next to her nagging tongue in the freezer.......

 

[John Fenna]

Just been playing with bannock in a Dutch Oven - it is the best I have ever EVER made!
Scrummy!

 

[BigShot]

Congratulations on your first bread - it's a great feeling isn't it (and a lovely smell too)!

Have a crack at Soda Bread.
I'm all for the Traditional Irish variety...
...some people put all kinds of gubbins in and call it "traditional irish soda bread" but it's not.

Flour
Buttermilk
Baking Soda
Salt

Soft flour is probably best. Personally I use Spelt flour quite a bit, it makes for a pretty nice bread. Sieving it keeps back the "bits" which is good for white bread, or for a light brown, sieve it and dump the bits in after or (like my granny used to) don't sieve it at all.
www.sodabread.us has some decent recipes and directions on it, along with a bit of history if you're into that kind of thing - personally I just like to make and eat the stuff!
I tend to use the "white soda bread" one.

Just don't chuck all the buttermilk in at once. Even with the recipe adjusted for the exact volume of buttermilk in the tubs I get I usually don't use it all before the consistency is right. Not to make it sound compicated, it's dead easy stuff, but too much buttermilk wouldn't be any good. It should be kinda sticky, not coming off onto your fingers in chunks every time you touch it, but not dry to touch either.

You'll get a couple of days out of it before it starts to get a bit tough, it's great to make the night before you head off on a trip - a few times I've had a loaf (along with butter and jam) in the car on surf trips from Manchester down to north Devon.
We got some very amusing and quite jealous looks from other cars in huge a traffic jam when I was leaning out the door to avoid getting crumbs on myself while cutting it up with a bread knife.

I need to get some buttermilk and make some now! Great stuff!