Bread, Dough and extreme frustration...

[MoridinUK]

Ok so I'm not normally a bad cook, most things come right the first time I try them, including complex cakes and the like but...

I can't make bread.

This is so frustrating for me. I've finally got the temperature right for the yeast and I get a good rise but I can't get the dough right.

I can never get my dough to look like the dough in almost every youtube video I've watched. It simply never happens. The dough is either much too sticky that I can't kneed it, or much too stiff and it 'tears' as I kneed it and kneeding it for 30 mins doesn't result in a silky elastic dough.

I'm using the Great British Bake off reciepe as they are normally a good place to start:

700grams strong bread flour,
450ml luke warm water
7g Dried active yeast,
2 tablespoons of salt.

Mix the dry, make a well, add the liquid.

But I had to add more flour for it to be kneedable and now it just 'tears' and rips as I kneed it. It also feels somewhat stiff but I've no idea what is too stiff or not.

I dont want to add more water, as even now, when I kneed it hard and ir rips and tears, it gets sticky again and I have to dust more flour to continue to kneed without it getting stuck to my fingers...



Any advice?

 

[forty_caliber]

Looks like you are missing some kind of fat/shortening to me.

Try out this simple recipe. 100% scientific repeatable results...

.40

French Bread

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
6 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon yeast

INSTRUCTIONS
In stand mixer bowl add yeast, water, and sugar.
Allow yeast to bloom. 5-10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and knead using dough hook until dough ball cleans sides of bowl. Add additional water or flour as needed to reach desired consistency.
Place dough ball in greased bowl and allow to double in size. Punch down and form into loaves. Allow loaves to double in size again.
Place into cold oven and set to 400 degrees. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes.

 

[medtran49]

The liquid amounts are more of a guideline actually. Depending on the humidity your flour has been exposed to, as well as the current humidity, you may need a little more or a little less.

If you want a dinner roll or soft breadstick type bread, you'll get the best results with a slightly sticky dough. You'll want loaf bread dough a bit firmer. For hard breadsticks or crusty bread, you'll want a firmer dough.

And I agree with you missing some kind of fat, but it sounds like you are getting either too much or too little liquid as well.

Keep trying, you'll eventually get it, and you'll get to the point that you'll be able to tell just by the feel of the dough whether you are going to have a great batch of bread or an okay one or if you need to toss it and start over again.

 

[RPCookin]

Bread doesn't require any fat to make a good dough. I've made several with no fat of any kind.

I make ciabatta with the same ingredients that the OP uses. It is a sticky dough, but it's supposed to be. However, I usually start most of my dough with a sponge or poolish to give the yeast more time to ferment and add flavor to the bread. I will let the poolish ferment on the counter overnight, then make the dough and bake the next day.

I also have never kneaded for 30 minutes. At most I knead for about 8 minutes, then the rest is just folding and resting or rising.

I have started using an autolyse before kneading too, which seems to help. For the autolyse, add the remaining flour, water, and yeast to the poolish and mix just until the dough starts to come together, then let it rest for 30 minutes before adding salt. Salt is a yeast inhibitor, so adding it later allows the yeast more freedom to do it's job. Then about 8 minutes more mixing to blend in the salt and bring the dough together, followed by 8 minutes of hand kneading. No more kneading is done after this.

 

[medtran49]

I just looked at the GBBO french bread recipes in case the OP just left the fat out and they do NOT use any type of fat other than for greasing pans. So, it's got to be the liquid the OP is using, either too much or not enough.

If the dough is too wet, knead in a little bit of flour until it gets smooth and silky. Just add a bit at the time though. You don't want to add too much (see below).

If the dough is too hard, flatten it out and sprinkle with a little water and knead to get a smooth, silky dough, this may or may not work, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It's easier just to not add all the flour at once, hold back a good handful. I'd say around 1/3 cup but I don't know what that would be in grams.

 

[medtran49]

The recipes I saw for the GBBO do use a sponge or a sour-dough starter, so I'm wondering exactly which recipe the OP is using, or if he/she is skipping a step. However, one of them did add salt to the sponge mixture, which I would never do, a tiny pinch of sugar maybe but never salt.

 

[MoridinUK]

The GBBO recipe I'm using is from the book "The Great British Bake Off. How to Bake." page 105 "how to make a perfect white loaf".

I didn't know salt acts as a yeast inhibitor. I do know many recipes use fat of some kind, but I believe traditional French Recipes do not.

I was following what I thought was a sure-fire method, as the book bills it as such. However, the loafs came out ok. Just not great. They aren't too tough but the bread is denser than I expected.

I suspect that I needed a little more water, (or less flour) but when I watch videos I get confused as people handle these doughs without it leaving a mess on their hands. Silky and smooth is a difficult description to aim for when you haven't felt what that means!

I kneaded for much longer than the recipe asked me too because the dough was not, to my mind, elastic, it would tear and rip as I tried to stretch it, but perhaps I was trying to stretch too far!?

My stand mixer is broken at the moment so it is all by hand at the moment for me!

Part of me wants to hunt out a totally by weight recipe, as professional bakeries weigh the liquids rather than measure them by volume, but that may be going a bit too far?

What is a poolish? (goes to google)

Thanks for the advice and once I have an Idea I'll defo try that recipe at the top...

 

[tenspeed]

I read Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish. I thought it gives pretty good explanations for the home bread baker, and I think will answer a lot of your questions.

After reading it, I decided that a lot of breads are way more work than I'm willing to put in, and am sticking with fairly simple dutch oven breads. We have an excellent, reasonably priced bakery a few miles away, next door to a produce market that I like. I might try a ciabatta again, though.

 

[Andy M.]

I'm surprised at the amount of salt in the recipe. Two tablespoons seems like a lot.

 

[forty_caliber]

I'm surprised at the amount of salt in the recipe. Two tablespoons seems like a lot.

I noticed that too. Could have been adapted from an old sea-going hardtack recipe. arrrrrgggghhh

.40

 

[GotGarlic]

All that kneading is completely unnecessary. Read this article, follow the instructions in the linked recipe, and you'll be thrilled with the outcome: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/06/the-food-lab-the-science-of-no-knead-dough.html

 

[Rocklobster]

I think you would be better off with a sticky dough than a dry hard one so if this is what you have after you make a recipe just make sure to keep your hands and surface well floured when working with it. This flour will also be incorporated into the dough as you knead and you will gradually arrive at the state you want to be in. The harder the dough, the less it will rise so keeping it as soft as you can while still being able to handle it is what you are going for...

I think bread recipes are just basic guides, because there are so many things that can change the results.. It all boils down to you finding what works best for you. Unfortunately, you will have a few failures before you get there...

 

[GotGarlic]

I kneaded for much longer than the recipe asked me too because the dough was not, to my mind, elastic, it would tear and rip as I tried to stretch it, but perhaps I was trying to stretch too far!?

If it's tearing when you knead it, you need to cover it and let it rest for at least 10 minutes. Better yet, use the no-knead method

 

[Addie]

The GBBO recipe I'm using is from the book "The Great British Bake Off. How to Bake." page 105 "how to make a perfect white loaf".

I didn't know salt acts as a yeast inhibitor. I do know many recipes use fat of some kind, but I believe traditional French Recipes do not.

I was following what I thought was a sure-fire method, as the book bills it as such. However, the loafs came out ok. Just not great. They aren't too tough but the bread is denser than I expected.

I suspect that I needed a little more water, (or less flour) but when I watch videos I get confused as people handle these doughs without it leaving a mess on their hands. Silky and smooth is a difficult description to aim for when you haven't felt what that means!

I kneaded for much longer than the recipe asked me too because the dough was not, to my mind, elastic, it would tear and rip as I tried to stretch it, but perhaps I was trying to stretch too far!?

My stand mixer is broken at the moment so it is all by hand at the moment for me!

Part of me wants to hunt out a totally by weight recipe, as professional bakeries weigh the liquids rather than measure them by volume, but that may be going a bit too far?

What is a poolish? (goes to google)

Thanks for the advice and once I have an Idea I'll try that recipe at the top...

A polish is your yeast starter.

Instead of adding more flour to your recipe, KEEP your hands well floured along with your surface. And every so often give your dough a rest when you are kneading or handling it. Add the salt to your dry ingredients, not your starter. Remember, rainy days are the worst days to make bread. The humidity alone affects your flour. And making bread by weights instead is not a bad idea at all. Because each days' weather affects how the flour is going to acts and weigh. Some days the same weight will be less flour and some days more. And remember, the chefs on YouTube do not always do it straight through without editing or stopping the camera every so often. So you are missing a lot. Who wants to watch them kneading for ten or more minutes.

Do you have a bench scraper? It is great for turning over the dough while it is still sticky and difficult to handle.

You have the GBBO, we have ATK. Neither one is infallible.

 

[MoridinUK]

It was rainy today!!

As for the video edits, I know what you mean, and yes while I doubt it would be popular I would actually watch a full-length video to get some idea of what it actually looks at each stage!

My loaves were fine, though a little dense, and shrank slightly in the over, which I'm confused by, I thought that was a result of over kneading in a mixer?

I think I should have rested it...

I did have my 5 year old helping which doesn't help when it comes to doing nothing for a few mins!

Thanks all for the great advice, it didn't taste very salty but next time I think (if there is time) I will start with a poolish!

 

[Addie]

It was rainy today!!

As for the video edits, I know what you mean, and yes while I doubt it would be popular I would actually watch a full-length video to get some idea of what it actually looks at each stage!

My loaves were fine, though a little dense, and shrank slightly in the over, which I'm confused by, I thought that was a result of over kneading in a mixer?

I think I should have rested it...

I did have my 5 year old helping which doesn't help when it comes to doing nothing for a few mins!

Thanks all for the great advice, it didn't taste very salty but next time I think (if there is time) I will start with a poolish!

One more piece of advice. Give your starter a good healthy start. Feed it a few grains of sugar every ten minutes or so. And a few when you first start it in warm water. Yeast is a living organism and like the rest of life, needs to be fed every so often.

Having your five year old helping is more of a memory building than the most perfect loaf of bread will ever give you.

 

[rodentraiser]

My experience has been that the really sticky doughs are used to make baguettes and breads like that. Baguettes are supposed to have those large holes in the bread and from what I understand, the best way to get them is to have a sticky dough. I was trying to make an 80% hydration baguette once, which is really sticky dough. I failed.

Here's an example I found on Google of a baguette with the holes. However, I don't think you want your regular bread to be that holey, so your dough may not need to be that sticky. I usually mix the flour and whatnot until I have a "shaggy mess", then turn it out on the counter and knead until it feels smooth and silky (sounds like a hair commercial). I don't think I've ever kneaded more than 7 or 8 minutes.

Another option I heard of for kneading sticky doughs is to oil your hands, probably with vegetable oil or olive oil. I haven't tried that yet, but given my wildly unsuccessful attempts to work with a sticky dough, I may do that in the future.

I have done no-knead recipes before, but I enjoy kneading, so that's what I do when I make bread. For my baguettes, though, I fold and rest. Not that it seems to make any difference in my case.

A poolish is where you would mix flour, water, and yeast together and then let it stand at room temp for maybe an hour and then fridge overnight for up to 18 hours. That's just one method. Then when you go to make your bread, you just add the rest of the flour, water, salt, etc. One thing the poolish does is give the bread some good flavor - the longer it stands in the fridge, the more flavor. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I heard that San Francisco's sourdough is let to stand for 36 hours before adding the other ingredients and making the bread.

 

[cinisajoy]

Oh one thing I have learned over the years, if you and a recipe are not getting along, try a different recipe.
Also best bet is don't put all the flour in at once. Make sure your board or whatever surface you are using and your hands are well floured.

Also do not try to make candy in humid weather.

 

[MoridinUK]

Oh one thing I have learned over the years, if you and a recipe are not getting along, try a different recipe.
Also best bet is don't put all the flour in at once. Make sure your board or whatever surface you are using and your hands are well floured.

Also do not try to make candy in humid weather.

Oh the fun I've had with chocolate blooming... grrrr...

Humidity is the hardest thing to control, it's either dry as... (in the fridge) or whatever the multiple personality disordered British climate chooses to give me!

That holey baguette looks amazing!

I'm playing with idea of a 12 hour recipe I want to make it all up, leave it over night and bake it first thing!

 

[GotGarlic]

Actually, to me, that particular baguette does not look especially appetizing. I want to eat bread, not air!