Bread Success

[oldcoot]

Wayne, IO gotta hand it to you - you make a lot of sense! I totally atgree people generally have made bread-making a mystical rite, whereas in fact is seems to come down to little more than the tossing the ingredients together, mixing them well, letting the result rise enough, and baking at a temp that gives the crust desired. All the rest is nit-picking and changes the result very little

Like you, I bake for fun. With just the two of us, my baking is wasteful, for we toss out a lot of bread that has become stale. (Which reminds me: B/W puts the bread in a zip-lock and refrigerates it - it stays good for a week!)

Tomorrow I have been asked to bake a couple of Italian loaves for my son's 50th birsthday. Then Saturday I am going to tray a basic white bread 1 lb loaf incorporating some of the ideas you have proposed along with some of my own. I'll post the result..

[mudbug]

oldcoot, I had to shiver a little about the tossing out part. could you not use at least some of the stale stuff to:

make bread crumbs or croutons
crumble up and leave out for the birds
make bread pudding
make French toast
put a piece in the brown sugar container to keep it from getting hard

just for me, please?

[oldcoot]

:D The birds in our yard are extremely well fed, what with peanuts and BREAD CRUMBS. I hate bread pudding! French bread adds to my already too ample waistline, and B/W is diabetic. I thought brown sugar was s supposed to be hard.? :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Honestly, I deplore wasting food, too - being a child of the "great Depression". But the fact is that bread, home-made or store-bought, does not keep well, and a whole loaf is simply tooo much for the two of us to hhandle. Can't give it to my dog. She already weighs 35 lbs more than she should.

If I baked only when needed, I would bake very occasionally. And would not have the pleasure of italian breads with italian cuisine, etc.

[WayneT]

Old coot wrote:

Like you, I bake for fun. With just the two of us, my baking is wasteful, for we toss out a lot of bread that has become stale. (Which reminds me: B/W puts the bread in a zip-lock and refrigerates it - it stays good for a week!)

Like you I bake for 2 people, I make 2 large loaves which are actually 2 loaves in one tin. Below is a shot of a slice of bead that was frozen.
I part thaw the bread (sometimes microwave on high 1 min) and then slice, much easier. when the slices are fully thawed (a few minutes) they are as good as the day they were baked. The zip lock Idea is good when I have sliced a loaf but I find the excess loaves are better frozen.

[mudbug]

Originally Posted by oldcoot

:D The birds in our yard are extremely well fed, what with peanuts and BREAD CRUMBS. I hate bread pudding! French bread adds to my already too ample waistline, and B/W is diabetic. I thought brown sugar was s supposed to be hard.? :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Honestly, I deplore wasting food, too - being a child of the "great Depression". But the fact is that bread, home-made or store-bought, does not keep well, and a whole loaf is simply tooo much for the two of us to hhandle. Can't give it to my dog. She already weighs 35 lbs more than she should.

If I baked only when needed, I would bake very occasionally. And would not have the pleasure of italian breads with italian cuisine, etc.

I do understand (but not about bread pudding, altho everyone in this house except me hates it too). We refrigerate bread for the three of us, and it still goes stale. Ah well, it's not as if you were throwing out steak or something.

[jasonr]

"and we all know about putting the dough in the 'frig overnight, right? First time I read that one I thought "wow! neat trick! gotta try!" but the author neglected to mention that the dough will continue to rise in the 'frig."

Most refrigerators cannot keep a temperature below 40 degrees F, which is why dough will continue to proof, despite refrigeration. I don't worry about this when I'm making Pizza (pizza dough is almost impossible to mess up, in my experience) but I would be careful about croissants, and other doughs whose flavor you could mess up by overproofing.