Who likes BREAD?

[PAstrychef]

Ask the bakery person. In the US it's required to have that info available, if not on every item sold at retail. When one of my favorite regional bakeries sold out to a bigger concern, they not only dropped my favorite loaves altogether, the new ones they introduced had more sugars and less crust and texture. I stopped buying them.
I should be making my own breads, but I have a hard time getting excited about a batch of two or three loaves, I mean, doing 20 doesn't really take more time, if you have the oven space, and the mixer.......(not to mention that I try not to eat too much bread in general.)

[dubsola]

I'm making chapattis right now. But my intention is to learn how to make bread of all kinds - I want to start with a simple farmhouse loaf. There are loads of recipes out there and all of them seem quite simple, and I'd imagine it probably is simple, given that people have been making bread for quite some time. But I has questions:

What's the difference between fresh and dried yeast?
Is oven temp particularly important to be exact? My oven's dial has no numbers, do I need to buy an oven thermostat? I will, but in the meantime can I go ahead and make bread anyway?

[Nath]

What's the difference between fresh and dried yeast?
Is oven temp particularly important to be exact? My oven's dial has no numbers, do I need to buy an oven thermostat? I will, but in the meantime can I go ahead and make bread anyway?

For a second I thought these questions were in connection to the chapatis, and I was quite confused.

People have been making bread for longer than they've had thermostats, so I'd go for it, if you're up for a bit of trial and error. I've successfully modified bread recipes before (e.g. halving the quantities and experimenting with baking time), and I'm no baker.

[dubsola]

Nope, I kicked off with chapattis because I was actually making them, the first bread-like thing I've ever tried, and you'll be pleased to hear they turned out quite well. They are really, really easy.

And I think you may be right about the temperature. I just need to work out what sort of yeast to buy and then I'm good to go, I think.

[Nath]

Nope, I kicked off with chapattis because I was actually making them, the first bread-like thing I've ever tried, and you'll be pleased to hear they turned out quite well. They are really, really easy.

Yeah; I'm always confused by how complicated people make tortillas, when chapattis are basically the same thing made with two ingredients and a heat source.

[Zohar]

You can use any type of yeast, it just changes how you use them specifically. Normally dry yeast rise less, but are less prone to fail, if I recall correctly. As for heat, I got an oven thermometer for fairly cheap which is very useful.

[Bakemaster]

I made a recipe from our Sunset Breads book, which has had some really neat recipes, called Los Angeles Peda Bread. Here's the recipe on a blag; I made the whole wheat variant which is 2.5c AP and 2.5c WW flour, with 0.5c your choice of bran/germ/flaxmeal thrown in for good measure. I also did an extra coat of the glaze to hold a sprinkling of poppyseeds.

I think if I were to make this again I might try an egg glaze before baking to get a nicer color, and bread flour instead of AP as used in the linked blag. The rise after forming the loaves was not very good so I might not have been gentle enough. The end result was almost reminiscent of a pretzel in taste and texture; the former no doubt because the dough is fairly salty, the latter likely because of my rush in shaping the loaves. I was hoping for a lighter loaf with a more distinct crust.

Definitely going to make it again, though. It's just so pretty!

[PAstrychef]

CRAP. my whole thing on yeasties was eaten by the iPad. Go read Rhulman, at Rhulman.com on yeast. He's doing a month of stuff about bread, or did a month of bread at sometime, and he really knows how to explain this stuff.
Sorry you won't get my deathless prose today.

[dubsola]

I actually already came across that site, and thought it looked pretty good. Will try to find the yeast article. Thanks, despite your lack of thing on yeasties this does help me.

[Bakemaster]

I just read his blog article on the Cookulus app. Awesome!

[PAstrychef]

Decided to actually bake some cibatta as my loaf od sourdough is almost gone. Some thing about the tiny amounts needed to make just enough bread for one loaf makes me giggle. It will be so cute!

[clockworkmonk]

so, I just picked up a sourdough starter. Now what?

[PAstrychef]

Is it in powder or is it a gooey mass? If it's powder, follow the directions on the package and wait about a week. If it's an already growing culture, feed it a few times, then make bread. There are loads of sourdough recipies available, or I could type one out for you.
To feed the starter add 1/2 cup each of unbleached flour and water to it and stir well. Then let it sit, loosely covered, at room temp for 12-24 hours. It should bubble up and expand. Stir it well and stick it in the fridge until you use it. I find it easiest to mix just with my hand. I do wear a latex glove, but it's much faster than a spoon as well as easier to clean up.

[clockworkmonk]

its a gooey mess. I took some of my dad's starter when I visited him. just need a solid recipe to get a good starting point the number of recipes is the problem, as I have no idea of the quality of any of them.

[Ulc]

The best sourdough (long since dead, had to kill it with fire when he took over the refrigerator and styled himself king!) I ever made was started on a equal mixture of all-grain wheat flour, finely ground wheat flour, water and Greek yoghurt, and a little bit of a friends sourdough. Stir that together, and let it sit outside for about 24 hour, loosely covered - then close it tight in a much larger container*.

Then feed it a mixture of all-grain wheat flour and normal flour once per week, if you're not baking.

*Inside a plastic bag, it's *not* pretty if the glass explodes without a plastic bag around it.

[PAstrychef]

its a gooey mess. I took some of my dad's starter when I visited him. just need a solid recipe to get a good starting point the number of recipes is the problem, as I have no idea of the quality of any of them.

Peter reihart has several good baking books out there, also Bread Alone by D Leader is based on sourdough starters. Michael Rhulman has a bunch of bread recipes on his website, and his stuff tends to work well.

[mind404]

Beer bread made with Guinness and brown sugar instead of regular sugar is awesome and simple as hell to make.

[Chuff]

Just got home from a couple of weeks in the Bay Area. Already miss the sourdough. It's sooo good.

Bread tastes of life.

[Ulc]

I just got myself to restart a new sourdough - in a couple of generations it will probably be as good as the old one. It really does take some time for one to get really good.

And today I'm trying out baking with my oven stone for the first time - if that turns out well I might start baking very often to make sandwich bread

[Kevin88]

Yeah, bread, toast & honey, toasted cheese sandwiches made in the toaster oven at work out of cinnamon/raisin bread with mozzarella melted on it. Yum, yum. It smells so good, too. Must be the cinnamon. Before I started making those, I wondered why we needed a toaster oven in our staff room when we already had a microwave. Now I know!