Any bread nerds here

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

i kind of freaks me out that some many of you seem to take pictures of your bread.

Here is why I started taking pictures of my bread. A close friend of mine, my sister, and my daughter, all wanted to get into bread making and they can't necessarily always just come out to my place to see how it is done. They have had initial lessons so kind of are in the know about baking bread but sometimes things go wrong and they need to trouble shoot.

Also, I make many varieties of bread, some of them quite similar, so when I open up a recipe on my computer, I like to check the picture to make sure that is really the bread I was wanting to make.

If I try a new recipe and think my friend or sister or daughter would like it and if they were capable of making it, I send it to them with the picutre of the finished product. Many people do not like to try new recipes without seeing a picture of the finished product.

So I take pictures of my bread, attach it to the recipe I am using, usually the loaf or roll as well as the inside crumb, and then they at least know what the finished product should sort of look like.

If something goes wrong at their end, they take pictures, send them to me, and I can do a bit of trouble shooting for them on the spot, while things are still fresh in their mind about making that recipe.

[Komskies]

I don't find your bread pictures weird at all. Post more please!

Do you bake any pastries?

As someone who tries to limit her carbs, this is like pron for me!

[Sled]

Sorry to admit that I read "Any beard nerds here?"

[afc wimbledon]

salt kills yeast so you want to minimise salt for a good rise and mix the salt or yeast into the floor first then add other after. basically don't dump salt on top of yeast

[malcolmk14]

Wow.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Yasa

I came into this thread prepared with some sarcastic remark to Peter. But now I just wanna want someone to make me some bread.

Fixed. But I totally agree with the general sentiment. Some mighty fine loaf depicted in this thread.

[Northendzone]

Not as much humor in here as I expected....leaving somewhat disappointed, but I will check back.

[To Be Quite Honest]

I have 2 year old sour dough starter if anyone wants some. You just keep adding water and flour and subtracting starter through the weeks and it makes good stuff!

[redforever]

This will be a long post giving some further tips to keep in mind when making bread.

Bread dough needs a warm, moist environment to proof properly. The warm part is obvious…the yeast needs to be warm to activate and work. Why moist though? Well, if the environment is dry while your bread dough is proofing, it will develop a skin on the exterior of the dough and that skin can affect bread in a number of ways. It can prevent the final bread product from rising properly in which case you will get a loaf that is not very high and that is dense and not very fluffy. Most breads that are made and baked properly, outside of some Artisan breads made with flour from heavy grains, will feel light for their size.

There are multiple ways to provide moisture while the bread is rising or proofing.

You can put the bowl of dough inside a food-safe plastic bag, inflate with some air so the plastic does not touch the dough, and then tie shut. You can put the dough in a bowl and put a plate over the bowl, as long as the plate seals the bowl so moisture stays trapped inside.

You can put the dough in a bowl in the microwave along with a cup or two of boiling water to provide moisture. You can use that same idea to proof the dough in the oven. Turn the oven on for 3 to 4 minutes and then turn it off. Put a large pan of boiling water on the bottom rack, put the bread dough on the middle rack, and close the oven door. The oven light can be turned on to provide a little warmth as well. I use the oven for the initial proofing of my bread dough but not for the final proof when the bread has been shaped. In most cases, the oven has to be preheated to bake the bread and then you would have to take the dough out and cover it anyhow. I don’t like to disturb bread dough too much during its final proof or rise.



You can also invert plastic tubs over the dough while it is initially rising or after it has been shaped and is rising. Just use your imagination to figure out what works for you.





If a skin forms, and the bread cannot rise properly, the dough that is rising inside can burst on the side or on the top of the loaf. The final bread product will still be edible and quite good but it will not as fluffy as it should have been and it certainly will not be as pleasing to the eye. Take a look at these two loaves to see what I am talking about.





There can be multiple reasons as to why bread bursts in this fashion during baking but the three main culprits are under-proofing of the dough prior to putting it in the oven to bake, not deep enough slashing of the final dough before it goes in the oven to bake, and not enough steam or moisture provided during the initial 5 to 10 minutes of baking.

Most bread dough should proof until it is about doubled in size. At that point, if you very lightly poke the bread with your finger, the indentation should slowly fill up.

Most Artisan breads that are baked at very high temperatures need steam and moisture during the initial part of baking. In the first few minutes of baking, loaves of bread will rise rapidly as the gases trapped inside expand and the yeast has a final burst of activity. This is called oven spring. Providing steam or moisture during this time helps keep the crust soft and that allows the bread to continue expanding freely. If the crust gets hard too quickly, the dough can’t fully expand evenly and so it cracks where the pressure points are.

There are multiple ways to reduce the risk of your bread bursting while baking. You can capture steam by baking the bread in clay bakers or in cast iron Dutch ovens, even under a make shift inverted baking pan of some sort. La Cloche and Romertopf make clay bakers for making bread. There are multiple brand names of cast iron Dutch ovens on the market…just be sure to use one that can withstand high heat, particularily the knob on the lid.

There are various schools of thought as to baking bread in a clay baker or cast iron Dutch oven. Some say to preheat the containers first and then transfer the risen loaf to the container to be baked with the lid on for the initial part of baking time and with the lid off for the last part of the baking, to ensure proper browning of the loaf of bread.

Some say to proof the dough in an unheated clay baker or Dutch oven and only preheat the lid.

Others say to just bake the bread normally...in other words, don't preheat the container or its lid. I have pretty well tried them all and don’t find any noticeable difference. Personally I prefer not having to transfer dough to containers that are very hot. I even have some recipes that call for putting the risen dough into a cold oven rather than a preheated oven. All seem to work fine. I think what is more important is the actual dough that you are putting in those containers to bake.








You can also provide moisture in the oven by putting a cup of boiling water into a pan placed on the lowest rack in the oven at the same time as you put the bread in the oven to bake. You could use a couple of cups of icecubes instead of boiling water. Never put either directly on the bottom surface of the oven. You can also spritz the oven and the risen bread dough liberally with water when you put the bread in the oven to bake.

If you are slashing the bread dough, make sure that the slashes are deep enough. I find that a very sharp serrated knife with a long blade works best to slash the top of the risen dough, prior to putting it in the oven. Cut into the dough about 1/4-inch deep and at an angle of about 30° to 45° from the vertical, not directly downwards. If the knife sticks, either dip it in cold water between slashes or coat the blade with oil.

I bought a lame but I find it does not work as well. It is basically a device to which you attach a razor blade. I will admit that a lame is handier if you are slashing bread that is inside a cast iron Dutch oven though. However, a razor blade held on its own basically serves the same purpose.

You might wonder why bread dough is slashed. One reason is for decorative purposes. However, most Artisan breads that are baked at a high temperature are slashed to prevent the dough from bursting during baking. Basically what you are doing is using the slash to provide pressure relief points. In other words, you are estimating where the bread might burst and slashing at those points.




This dough is not proofed enough and is not slashed deeply enough.


Fully doubled in size, nice deep slashes. Notice the air holes where the slashes are?


Baked nicely, did not burst during baking.

And sometimes you might not have checked the dough early enough and it has over-proofed. That means it is starting to break on the surface.



There are a few things you can do to try and remedy the situation. If the surface of the dough is just starting to tear, as shown in the picture, you can try to bake the bread as is. It will further tear though as it bakes and it won't get as much oven spring once it has over-proofed. You can also try to slash the bread where the tear is starting. It is not a perfect solution, but if you are short on time, and the dough is not badly torn, the slashing sometimes works.

If the surface of the dough is badly torn, simply reshape the dough and let it rise again, keeping in mind that the next rising time will be shorter than the last one.

[Mazrim]

I'm going to bake some bread today. (no joke)

[Ducay]

Agreed; I made the "No knead bread" recipe last night for baking this afternoon. My only concern is I followed the recipe exactly, which given Calgary's dryness, might mean my dough is a bit dry.

Time will tell I suppose.

[Wormius]

The worst part about bread making in particular is the effort and time involved and having it come out like a brick, and then doing it all over again making minute variations in water, sugar, flour, yeast or rise times and then not getting any improvement.

[peter12]

Made some variations to my recipe today, and it turned out even better. I live in Ottawa though, and the climate is MUCH more humid than Calgary. I will be coming back to live next summer, so I've bookmarked this thread.

[GirlySports]

CP has experts in everything!

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Agreed; I made the "No knead bread" recipe last night for baking this afternoon. My only concern is I followed the recipe exactly, which given Calgary's dryness, might mean my dough is a bit dry.

Time will tell I suppose.

Did it rise nicely in the inital proofing, before you refrigerated it? And is the cold dough that is in the refrigerator now full of bubbles? If so, your bread should turn out fine.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Wormius

The worst part about bread making in particular is the effort and time involved and having it come out like a brick, and then doing it all over again making minute variations in water, sugar, flour, yeast or rise times and then not getting any improvement.

If you are continually ending up with bread that is like a "brick", you are either using too much flour or not proofing the bread properly.

When making bread, I think the following tip is just about the most important thing to keep in mind.

Less flour is usually better than more flour.

When I use a new recipe for bread, I always start with at least one cup less flour than what is called for. That is partly due of course to the very dry climate we have in the Calgary area. But it is also just good common sense.....just the same as less salt is usually better than more salt.

You can always add more flour if needed, a little bit at a time, but you can not take flour out. If your dough is too dense and stiff, your only recourse at that time is to add more liquid.....and let me tell you from experience.....it is MUCH easier to add more flour to bread dough than it is to add more liquid to bread dough.

Another thing you can try that is very easy is to use the autolyse method. Many don't add salt until after the autolyse but for you, I doubt you would notice a noticeable difference.

So make up your dough, purposely leaving it too tacky to handle, in other words with less flour than what was called for. Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes. Now try handling the dough again. You should notice that the dough is easier to handle and not as tacky as before. It should have developed more gluten by now and gluten is what binds your strands of dough together.

If you can now handle the dough without it sticking all over your work surface or your hands, just knead it and continue your recipe from this point on. If the dough is still too tacky, then of course you can slowly add more flour.

For breads that you will be baking in pans, in other words, in an environment that contains their shape, you can get away with dough that is quite tacky.

For breads that you will be baking free form, in other words where the bread is not confined and can spread sideways, then you can not get away with dough that is too tacky. The bread will still turn out ok but it will be more pancaked shaped with not as much heighth and of course, then you have more crust as well.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by redforever

Did it rise nicely in the inital proofing, before you refrigerated it? And is the cold dough that is in the refrigerator now full of bubbles? If so, your bread should turn out fine.

I think we're talking different recipes. I made the NY Times recipe (the one with the video posted). No refridgeration required.

Either way it does look quite bubbly, so Im hoping it will still turn out. My only remaining concern is the final proof covered in the towels, they don't specify to moisten them or anything; but I can see it drying out here in Calgary and making a skin, so I plan on then putting the towel wrapped dough it into a tupperware on the last proof.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by fotze

I don't much care for bread, but are there any good thin crust pizza dough recipes. redfanforever?

We usually just buy Scarpones dough.

I personally use Jamie Oliver's recipe for pizza dough. Once the dough is made, you can make it as thin or as thick as you want. I make half the recipe and I add about 1/4 cup finely ground semolina.

Pizza Dough by Jamie Oliver


7 cups bread flour or 5 cups bread, plus 2 cups finely ground semolina flour
1 Tbsp fine salt
2 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1 Put all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with a kneading hook. Start by using less than the amount of flour called for and slowly add more until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Mix and knead until the dough is soft and elastic, about 5 minutes

2 Shape the dough into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, and turn to coat. Cover with saran and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

3 Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. The dough can be used to make pizza immediately or it can be wrapped in saran and refrigerated or it can we well wrapped and frozen.

This amount of dough is enough to make 6 to 8 medium sized pizzas.

Note: Adding a bit of semolina will result in a chewier crust. If you are not sure about adding semolina, start with 1/4 the amount called for and go from there. If your semolina is not finely ground, process it in a spice or co coffee grinder. Process 3 to 4 Tbsp at a time.

Note: Any left over pizza dough can be frozen. I usually press it down into discs, wrap in saran, then wrap in foil, and freeze. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and use the next day.

[Wormius]

I went by Lina's earlier today and they were putting out fresh pizza dough. Looked good. The consistency was really soft, not like the stuff you'd see being spun around in the air like at a pizzeria.