Making homemade bread

[otuatail]

Hi. Never done this before. I have looked at a recipe on line
400g malted grain brown bread flour, or wholemeal or granary bread flour
100g strong white bread flour
7g sachet easy-bake dried yeast (or 2 tsp Quick dried yeast)
1.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp soft butter

4 tbsp mixed seed (optional), such as linseed, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower, plus extra for sprinkling

I was wondering about the yeast. I have heard that you can either add it into the flower or mix it with warm water to activate it. What I have seen is Allinson's Dried Active Yeast

Do I
1) Add the yeast to the flower or
2) Mix the yeast with warm water for (10 minutes?), then add it to the warm water to mix it in. Then mix with the flower, butter and salt. (more butter even? OR add double cream?)

Love to have a go. This recipe does not give any indication of the size or amount of bread this would make.

 

[WhateverYouWant]

I add the yeast to warm water with a little bit of sugar. Mix the salt and other dry ingredients separately, and then add to the yeast mixture after it gets foamy.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I have n't as exact. But trust me, this bread comes out great. As the measurments are in English cup/tns./tsp. they are not as prescise as in your recipe. But trust me, follow the directions and you will get very good, and tasty bread, with a great texture, and wonderful flavor. This can also be made by sbstituting whoe wheat bread flour, and making the dough a little bit sticky (more moist). If you want to make multi-grain bread, simply follow the ratio of 2 parts wheat flour to part other, such as spelt, rye, buckwheat, with various seeds and/or nut pieces. It must be at least 2/3rds part wheat flour. To get a more elastic, i.e. more chewy bread, add 2 tbs. vital wheat gluten. If you want a heavier, more harty crust, as is good with soups, au jus, chili, and such, brush the crust with water before baking, and bake with a bowl of water in the oven. Here's the basic recipe:

Ingredients:
For 5 loaves
1 quart scalded milk
3 tbs. Yeast
2 tbs. Salt
7 tbs. cooking oil
1 cup honey or sugar
15 cups all purpose white flour

Warm liquid to tepid. You should be able to touch it without burning yourself. Add the sugar and yeast. Stir with a wire whisk to dissolve. Let sit until the yeast forms a layer of bubbles on top. Add the oil, then the salt and remaining ingredients. Stir until mixed with a heavy wooden spoon. The dough should be sticky. Pour another cup of flour over the dough and knead by hand until the flour is completely blended into the dough. If the dough still sticks heavily to your hands, add another half cup of flour and knead it into the dough. Continue this process until the dough is smooth and elastic, and doesn't stick to your hands. Then knead another ten minutes to develop the gluten.

Lift the dough from the bowl and rub softened unsalted butter over the surface. Place the bowl in a warm place and cover with a damp clean towel. Let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in volume. When the dough has finished rising, fill greased loaf pans 3/4 full and let rise in lightly warmed oven (no more than 100 degrees F.) until again doubled. Remove from the oven and heat the oven to 350'F. Place pans in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. Test bread by tapping lightly on top with a knuckle. If the loaf sounds hollow, it’s done. Remove from the oven and remove the bread from the loaf pans by inverting onto a cooling rack. Brush all sides with softened butter. Let cool completely before slicing and storing in plastic bags.


I shared this recipe with Charlie D. Then, Later on, I saw this post and am sharing the recipe with everyone. It was taught to my MIL by her mother, then to DW, and then to me. I figured out the changes for multi-grain. The recipe is tried and true, and has worked for me at sea level in San Diego, CA., when I lived there, and here in U.P. Michigan at an elevation of 67 feet above sea level. Not sure how it would work in the mile-high city of Denver. And there you have it. I hope you get as good results with this brad as I have. I have won a bread baking contest or two with this recipe.

Oh, and to turn it into a pastry dough for yeast-raised doughnuts, add 1 2/3 cups instant potato flakes or granules to the flour mixture, making it lighter, and more tender.

Seeeeeya; Cief Longwind of the North

 

[otuatail]

Hi Chief Longwind Of The North. You sound american. I am in York(uk). The words like rye and buckwheat are not common. I do like the idea of 1 cup honey or sugar.
Here we have a company called Allisons who make a good wholemeal flower. But a question! Why use yeast when you can use self raising flower?
Self raising flower obviously has its own yeast added. Is the 7g of yeast okay or maybe even a bit more? SR flower does not state how much yeast it has.

Thanks for the recipe idea.

P.S. A gram is a gram. An ounce is an ounce. A cup of flower? How big is the cup?

 

[taxlady]

Hi Chief Longwind Of The North. You sound american. I am in York(uk). The words like rye and buckwheat are not common. I do like the idea of 1 cup honey or sugar.
Here we have a company called Allisons who make a good wholemeal flower. But a question! Why use yeast when you can use self raising flower?
Self raising flower obviously has its own yeast added. Is the 7g of yeast okay or maybe even a bit more? SR flower does not state how much yeast it has.

No, self-raising flour doesn't have yeast, at least not on the left side of the pond. It has baking powder. Wikipedia: Self-raising flour

Thanks for the recipe idea.

P.S. A gram is a gram. An ounce is an ounce. A cup of flower? How big is the cup?

A US fluid ounce is not the same size as an Imperial fluid ounce. It's bigger. When discussing weight, an avoirdupois ounce is the same in North America and in England and so are Troy ounces.

A US cup is ~237 ml. It's one quarter of a US quart. It's 8 US fluid ounces.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Taxy is correct. Self-rising flour uses baking powder as its leavening agent. It won't give you that wonderful yeast flavor. It is great for quickbreads (banan bread, pumpkin bread, sppice bread, zuchini bread, fruit cake, etc,), biscuits, and such. The recipe I gave you is slightly sweet, but just enough to compliment the yeast and wheat flavor. It is the best tasting bread I know of for bread rolls, sandwiches, and toast. The flavor stands on its own and is enhanced by butter. It really doesn't need much else.

Many breads have a more airy texture, but are very bland in flavor. They are meant for dipping, and are great for holding sandwich fillings. This is not that kind of bread.

This bread can be the star. Bake into mini-loaves to serve with a good roast, pasta, or stew. It's also great when either toasted, or un-toasted, and eaten with a spread of butter. When made into dinner rools, or hot-crossed buns, I personally find these better than the best biscuits.

Caution; Don't cut off a slice of the hot-from-the-oven loaf, slathered with butter and consume. If you do this, the whole loaf may be gone in a couple of minutes. This bread goes fast at my house.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[pepperhead212]

otuatail, I don't see any liquid listed in that recipe. However, judging from the amount of flour - 500g - and using 65-70% hydration, that would be 325-350 ml of water, or whatever you are using, using a higher amount for all whole grain flours. This will give you a loaf a little over 800g.

I remember seeing some mention of that "easy bake dried yeast" on a bread forum, by some bakers from the UK, and I found out that it was instant yeast, which had ascorbic acid added to it. They said that it was nothing bad, since acetic acid is often added to bread dough as an ingredient, but adding it separately lets you know how much you are getting. That yeast can be added to the flour, before the liquid is added. I'm not familiar with the term "quick dried yeast", but it sounds like it may also be instant yeast, which is dried in a different way than the old type - "active dry" - and has a lot more live yeast, and dissolves much faster, which is why it can be added to the flour. The old stuff was always added to some of the liquid, with some sugar, or whatever sweetener was used, and if it got foamy in a while, it was good, and you could use it! The instant yeast is almost the only kind you can find, in the US, and it's probably the same over in the UK.

That granary flour is not entirely whole grain - another thing I found out from those UK bakers. That is something I haven't seen around here, though I have seen that term in some cookbooks, for some recipes, using malted barley and wheat, plus white flour. So if you are looking for whole grains, get those.

 

[Bama-Rick]

Hi. Never done this before. I have looked at a recipe on line
400g malted grain brown bread flour, or wholemeal or granary bread flour
100g strong white bread flour
7g sachet easy-bake dried yeast (or 2 tsp Quick dried yeast)
1.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp soft butter

How much liquid does your recipe call for?

Add the yeast to about 50ml of warm water and about 5ml of sugar wait for the year to stop forming it well after 10-20 minutes. in a mixing bowl add the yeast mixture to 250ml of warm water the water should be no hotter than 45C hotter will kill the yeast.

Add the flours, salt, and melted butter. Mix thoroughly, the dough should not be overly wet. If the mix is wet and sticky add a little more flour, if the dough is too stiff add a small amount of water.

After everything is mixed well, put a little flour on a counter or other wooden surface and kneed the dough for 5-10 minutes. If the dough sticks to the counter top sprinkle a bit more flour on the counter and continue the kneading process.

After kneading shape the mass into a ball oil the inside of a bowl at least twice as large as your dough ball. Place the ball in the bowl and rotate the ball so its entire surface has a thin coating of oil. Vegetable or olive oil is fine.

Cover the bowl with a moist towel and place it somewhere warm 30-45C for about 90 minutes. At which time you punch down the bread. and place it in a greased loaf pan and let it alone for 60 minutes

After 60 minutes set the oven for 200-210C and bake the bread for about 45-55 minutes. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when you tap the top of it.

Remove the bread from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Let it cool for at least 30 minutes. Then remove it from the bread pan and enjoy...

 

[taxlady]

I only bloom my yeast in warm water and sugar if a specific recipe calls for it or if I don't trust my yeast. If I trust that the yeast is still viable and the recipe doesn't say, I add it to the flour. I started doing that in the late 1970s when instant yeast was still pretty new. I read that we didn't get the kind you can do that with in Canada; that it was only available in the US, but it worked fine for me, here in Canada.

 

[otuatail]

Yes there is a difference between fluid oz in the US and the UK. This dates back to the days before american independence. The brits made undersized gallon jars to cheat the americans into thinking they were buying a gallon. A long time ago but that is the reason. I am Irish so not part of that.

The water is not mentioned in the ingredients but it is

pour in almost 300ml hand warm (cool rather than hot) water

P.S. How about using milk or half and half. Would that make a difference. Also the use of cream seems interesting but I am out of my depth on this one.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Milk is a better option as it has lactose(milk sugar) that will feed the yeast, and improve the bread flavor. To much fat, as in cream, will produce a heavy bread.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[otuatail]

Cheers that is great. Thanks for your help. I got 2 kinds of yeast Easy bake and dried active. I have just started it with the dried active. Any preferences?

The recipe calls for 400g strong brown and 100g strong white. Any reason?

P.S. Just saw your one on doughnuts. That is a blast from the past for me sdo I will have a go at them.

Thanks again.

I don't know where you get your flower from but here in York (UK) we have a working wind mill

 

[GotGarlic]

Adding milk, eggs, etc., creates an enriched dough that will be softer and last longer than lean dough.

When you say brown flour, do you mean whole-grain wheat flour, or some other type of flour like rye? Rye flour doesn't contain gluten, and whole wheat has less than white wheat, which is necessary to create a strong protein network that allows the dough to rise in the oven. So to keep it from being too dense, bakers often add wheat flour, to help give it the strength it needs to rise.

 

[taxlady]

There is gluten in rye, but not as much as in wheat. Buckwheat doesn't have gluten.

 

[GotGarlic]

There is gluten in rye, but not as much as in wheat. Buckwheat doesn't have gluten.

I'd say it barely has any. I've made rye bread a couple of times and it hardly rose at all. Very squat and dense.

 

[dcSaute]

brown flour is

ORGANIC BROWN FLOUR (81% EXTRACTION) – N.R. STOATE & SONS CANN MILLS
the use of extraction percentages / ash content / etc is uncommon in USA but the norm for Europe.



@otuatail - working with whole/partial grain wheat and non-wheat flours like rye/etc is probably not the best place for a beginner to start. they pose interesting problems even for advanced home bakers.


"practice makes perfect" - applies very much to bread baking and omelets.

 

[taxlady]

I'd say it barely has any. I've made rye bread a couple of times and it hardly rose at all. Very squat and dense.

I mentioned it so no one gives something with rye in it to someone who is gluten intolerant or has celiac.

 

[GotGarlic]

I mentioned it so no one gives something with rye in it to someone who is gluten intolerant or has celiac.

Good thought.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Just remember, in 3 cups of flour, for multi grain bread, 2 cups need to be wheat flour. Other grais, nuts, and seeds will make up the remaining cup.

When making whole whet bread, the dough must be more moist, slightly sticky, as the bran will absorb some of the water.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[pepperhead212]

On that same subject, I always suggest to people new at whole grain bread making that they put most, but not all of the flour in, then let it sit for 10-15 min., before finishing the kneading. This lets the bran absorb the water, so you don't add too much flour while it is still absorbing the water, resulting in a dry sough. Something I do without thinking about it now - I just get the pans out (if using them), oil them up, clean up some of the mess (before I make more), then go back to the dough.