The Bread Thread

First, I love the title of this thread. Second, unfortunately baking bread has never occured to me, but I'm a little desperate to get my hands on your recipe *mouth waters*

 

I've been thinking about making rye bread or sprouted grain bread recently, not sure when I'll get around to doing so though. My Mom has been on a baking binge lately and one of her main go-to recipes is for banana bread.

 

I've made sourdough bread, which turned out very well. It was a very small loaf, so I ate it all in three days. It's probably one of the cheapest breads to make since you don't need to spend extra money on jars or packets of yeast

 

The last time I tried to make bread, I ended up with a scarily large amount of gloopy quinoa in a tray. The worst part was that it was firm enough not to be dripping, but still mostly a very thick liquid.

I've given up trying to bake. I just buy it.

 

I once tried to bake bread, but it didn't come out right. It was too hard.

 

Ok so I've never made bread but, there is this traditional gypsy bread and OMG it's so good. It's basically gypsy dumplings but baked! So good

 

What an awesome thread idea, Mr. Whale!

In our household, I am the Mistress of Drinks, Soups, Stews, Sauces, and Condiments. My partner is the Yeast Queen. She has done *many* different kinds of bread. Two of my favorites are Mezzalunas (rich half-moon breads to die for) and potato-cheddar bread. Sadly, since we started eating low-carb 10 or so years ago, we don't make or eat much bread...so I've not had either of those in longer than I'd care to put together.

Myself, I can manage biscuits or scones, and certainly cookies or cakes...but I feel those don't qualify as "proper bread".

I'll see if I can get my partner to share those recipes, though.

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Addition: Ooh! Ooh! I just remembered...I *do* make real bread...I do naan and/or roti for Indian dinners. They aren't yeast-breads (and are therefore in my purview rather than hers), but I don't think it's fair to tell an entire culture that they don't do real bread. I can't recall having done pooris, but I would love to try some day. *sigh*

 

I like baking and I like bread. Once I move out I'll probably start making my own. I've done bread a couple of times, it's fun.

 

Funny this comes up...I'm half toying with baking some bread one of these days. Ironically, using a recipe like GW's in post #9.

When I was a child, my father did at least a couple of rounds of baking. One when he was in graduate school, and, IIRC the other when I was in mid/late elementary school, right after my parents got a Farberware convection oven to replace a wall oven that had gone out, and, according to a repairman, could not be repaired or even replaced due to a cutout that was no longer supported. I don't remember back that far, but I do recall a sense that home made bread then taught me that grocery store bread sucks more than all the inventory of the Shop-Vac factory, combined.

But home made bread vanished from the home of BMC77. Apparently, my father got tired of how fast it went. Plus, I suppose, he had lots of things competing for his time.

I started baking myself when I was around 19 or 20. By that point, I'd heard the horror stories of how bad bread baking was from my mother. One night after I started cooking, I thought it would be fun to try a pizza recipe. Later, I talked to my mother, and she told me that pizza bread dough like I'd made was like bread. Her tone suggested "the same huge pain in the rear!" But it wasn't so bad, so I used a pack of the remaining yeast to try making bread. And thus started a round of bread baking that lasted several years. Initially, recipes came from The Nero Wolfe Cookbook (Nero Wolfe was an American mystery series. Nero Wolfe was a gourmet. This was, I think, my first try, and probably never repeated.) For a long time I used a recipe from a Fannie Farmer cookbook (1960s edition). Then I started playing with recipes from Beard on Bread by James Beard.

Then, at some point, I became an on again, off again baker. A big reason is time. It's not hard whipping up dough if you have gadgets to do the hard work, like a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I've heard good things about food processors with dough blades. But bread generally needs time (and occasional attention) during the rising time. Past that, I do think grocery store bread has improved. Not the standard crap, mind you, but stuff baked in store can be passable, and stores in my area often carry bread from some decent baker.

---------- Post added 23rd Nov 2014 at 10:21 PM ----------

I have used a couple of the recipes ("Master Boule" and "100 Percent Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread Recipe") at this link. It appears the authors of my article are the author's of greatwhale's recipe.

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread - Real Food - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

---------- Post added 23rd Nov 2014 at 10:26 PM ----------

For those looking for a shall-lange (my best approximation of Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau), you could try baking French bread using the iin Vol. 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (Julia Child was one author.) That recipe has all sorts of tricks, like using a red-hot brick dropped in a water bath in the oven to generate steam, etc, etc, etc. But I bet the results are good.

---------- Post added 23rd Nov 2014 at 10:35 PM ----------

I also must admit I still like Beard on Bread by James Beard. His recipes were older--the book is 1970s vintage IIRC. So there are few quick and easy no knead recipes, and few recipes involving starters, particularly starters where you start by catching your own yeast. But he had a good variety of recipes from plain white to 100% whole grain, and, I think, did a good job of teaching. The first recipe, a basic white, goes on for pages due to his commentary of what to do.

Fun trivia of the day: apparently James Beard was gay. So that's why he was such a good cook! :lol:

 

I love fresh baked bread! I haven't made it in a while though, so no recipes to share I absolutely love zucchini bread!

 

I think I am in love with that grandmother... you gotta love wise women. :lol:

On topic:

Never tried to make my own bread as in Turkey you can find bakery at ever step and bread is mainstay of every meal I guess buying would be more cost efficent.

 

Yes, I bake bread for my mother. She is intolerant to wheat (not gluten), and it's hard for her to find bread she can eat. I use spelt flour, some oats, and bicarbonate soda. Add a mixture of water and plant milk, and bake.

 

My mother makes bread, and it is the most heavenly food ever. She makes all kinds of insane recipes, like cheese and onion bread for example, and it both smells and tastes delightful. There is no taste better than something homecooked, and a homemade loaf of bread, TO DIE FOR!!!

 

I love baking bread and experimenting too. But I tend to forget what I did, so all my bread experiments, both successful and non-successful, are not recorded any where! A way to save humanity may be!

I'm a big fan of Peter Reinhart, he does a pretty complex set of bread recipes that mostly need more than one day to do, but the results are really interesting, he has a few books out there. Watch his TED talk here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_reinhart_on_bread

His science and cooking approach as well as knowledge of the baking chemistry is impressive.

 

Also a fan of the no knead bread, although a little messy but the result is nice, and easy process, many recipes are online.

 

This is the recipe we use for bread made in small loaves in a breadmaker machine. It makes a very reliable light, soft, yeasty tasting bread using a ~5 hour cycle in the machine, an older Panasonic.

2 cups of unbleached, white, or bread flour, packed into the measuring cup
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons olive or canola oil
1 cup warm water

Put yeast into breadmaker first, then cover with flour and other ingredients. Add warm (not hot) water and mix/knead thoroughly, or just let the machine do its thing, which is to do an initial mix, let it rise, then do another mix/knead, let it rise again, then heat to bake until the top is a medium to dark brown, which takes about 45 minutes in our particular machine at whatever temperature it runs at. Works very reliably. Not sure what temp would be right for conventional or convection oven, but the rectangular loaf it makes is "right" inside when the top turns a solid brown; I would guess that 350 degrees would work fine. Experiment; it's fun, and the smell of fresh bread is wonderful. Makes about six 1" thick slices which are very filling, and a quite edible crust; put some butter and salt on them when they are hot and you will be delighted with the taste.