Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Butch Cassidy posted:

This was the result of a bout of insomnia I tried to battle with gin and then decided I might as well bake a loaf of bread if I couldn't sleep:



Also, don't dump the whey if you make cheese. It is great as liquid in bread dough.

Dat crust.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

FooF
Mar 26, 2010

The Doctor posted:

It's extremely simple!

For two biggish loaves:

:words:

Came to post that I just gave this a whirl and came out with a 9"x5"x8" loaf of white bread that was soft, spongy and delicious. I halved the recipe because I only had 1 Tbsp of yeast (but forgot to halve the sugar) but it looked a lot like Charmmi's picture, sans cat attack.

I just got into baking bread about six months ago and the basic white/wheat loaves I've been making are good but I'd like to branch out into some crustier or maybe some sourdough stuff. I'll give the OP's no-knead bread a try in the near future.

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

FooF posted:

Came to post that I just gave this a whirl and came out with a 9"x5"x8" loaf of white bread that was soft, spongy and delicious. I halved the recipe because I only had 1 Tbsp of yeast (but forgot to halve the sugar) but it looked a lot like Charmmi's picture, sans cat attack.

I just got into baking bread about six months ago and the basic white/wheat loaves I've been making are good but I'd like to branch out into some crustier or maybe some sourdough stuff. I'll give the OP's no-knead bread a try in the near future.

For future reference that would have been fine - yeast will grow and divide, so it just would have taken longer to rise (but not by much since it's going to multiply along a logarithmic scale).

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through
ALso I just noticed the recipe only called for 1Tbsp yeast (which is actually quite a bit) so I have no idea why you halved this recipe unless it was just to make less bread which is a totally fine reason but not the one you stated.


I've got some pâte fermentée fermentéing in the fridge tonight. Gon make some goooood bread tmurr.

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





I joined the first time challah bakers club yesterday. :)



I'm very pleased with how it came out and also with the amazing french toast you can make out of it that I had for breakfast today.

Pookah fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Nov 3, 2012

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

Pookah posted:

I joined the first time challah bakers club yesterday. :)



I'm very pleased with how it came out and also with the amazing french toast you can make out of it that I had for breakfast today.

Wanna eat dat bread. Can you give us/me the recipe? Now I want to try to make it!

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





daggerdragon posted:

Wanna eat dat bread. Can you give us/me the recipe? Now I want to try to make it!

Certainly!

I used this one pretty much exactly as it's written there and it came out perfectly as far as I can tell (I've never eaten challah before so I have no real frame of reference).

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through
I baked some more bread this morning.




daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

Pookah posted:

Certainly!

I used this one pretty much exactly as it's written there and it came out perfectly as far as I can tell (I've never eaten challah before so I have no real frame of reference).

I HAVE ALL OF THESE INGREDIENTS. I WILL BE BACK IN 3-4 HOURS. :catstare:

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





daggerdragon posted:

I HAVE ALL OF THESE INGREDIENTS. I WILL BE BACK IN 3-4 HOURS. :catstare:

Godspeed! Oh I just remembered one minor difference - the loaf in the picture was plaited using the 6 strand method thus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22p3wIHLupc

not the 2 three strand method given in the link. I did one using that method as well but it came out a little bit lopsided.

^^^ That boule (is it?) is very beautiful, seems nearly a shame to cut it ^^^

Pookah fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 3, 2012

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.
Er... is the dough supposed to crumble apart and look like pulled chicken? I'm trying to do the "knead" step and it's just going all over the place. Help?

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





daggerdragon posted:

Er... is the dough supposed to crumble apart and look like pulled chicken? I'm trying to do the "knead" step and it's just going all over the place. Help?

How long did you beat it for? I left mine in for about half a hour in total just getting hammered by the bread hook and adding the second 3.5 cup of flour in by about 2 tablespoonfuls at a time. It sounds to (my total noob to yeast bread) ears that maybe it hasn't been mixed for long enough to get the gluten all stretchy?

Pookah fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Nov 3, 2012

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

Pookah posted:

How long did you beat it for? I left mine in for about half a hour in total just getting hammered by the bread hook and adding the second 4.5 cup of flour in by about 2 tablespoonfuls at a time. It sounds to (my total noob to yeast bread) ears that maybe it hasn't been mixed for long enough to get the gluten all stretchy?

10 minutes, and I added the flour in by cupfuls. I'll throw it back in the bowl and beat it some more.

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat
Machine kneading shouldn't take more than 3 minutes or so. Be careful of over-kneading. When you stretch the dough at the beginning and at the end you should be able to discern the difference and the gluten. I'd add the flour pretty quickly so that it all receives a roughly similar kneading time. Are you using a dough hook?

His Divine Shadow
Aug 7, 2000

I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.
I tried that 80% hydration recipe, except I didn't have time to make a poolish and wait until the next day, so I modified the recipe slightly and reduced it a bit, then I kneaded it for 2 minutes in my kitchen assistant, rested 10 minutes, repeated a fwe times. So a bit of a lazy mans version of the same thing. I ended up doing some manual folding and stretching for all that.

Turned out pretty well I guess for having taken 4-5 hours total, I have always been horrible at shaping baguettes though. I think this time I made some headway but I made the baguettes too large, pretty sure that if I had made smaller ones they would have held their shape better.

The end result don't compare to the ones in the original recipe but they are a personal best for me and my fiance loved them.



daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

therattle posted:

Machine kneading shouldn't take more than 3 minutes or so. Be careful of over-kneading. When you stretch the dough at the beginning and at the end you should be able to discern the difference and the gluten. I'd add the flour pretty quickly so that it all receives a roughly similar kneading time. Are you using a dough hook?

Yes. However, I never got a dough, it just immediately went to pulled-chicken crumbles. Beating it for another half hour juuuust barely let me squish it hardcore into small loaf-shaped lumps that looks like brains. It looks like bread (and brains), it smells like bread, might as well bake it and see what comes out. I'm fully expecting it to just explode and make a mess in the oven, but who knows.

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat

daggerdragon posted:

Yes. However, I never got a dough, it just immediately went to pulled-chicken crumbles. Beating it for another half hour juuuust barely let me squish it hardcore into small loaf-shaped lumps that looks like brains. It looks like bread (and brains), it smells like bread, might as well bake it and see what comes out. I'm fully expecting it to just explode and make a mess in the oven, but who knows.
Hm. I wonder if there wasn't enough liquid to properly bind it all. Let us know how it turns out!

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

therattle posted:

Hm. I wonder if there wasn't enough liquid to properly bind it all. Let us know how it turns out!

I followed the recipe, although I could have screwed up copying it down. I doubt it, though.

Anyway, it's out of the oven and... well, it's edible. Dense as hell and crumbles if you even so much as pick it up wrong, but it's edible with a fork...

I think I'll try easier recipes next time. :/

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





therattle posted:

Hm. I wonder if there wasn't enough liquid to properly bind it all. Let us know how it turns out!

I'm very anal about measurements, as in, I always buy trays of small local free range eggs (40-50g), but also assume that most recipes mean large eggs (standard size = 63 -73g each), so I weight out the equivalent in large eggs in my small eggs (including the shells) So far has worked out well.

So sorry that the challah worked out badly for you, sometimes I think bread making is half the time about luck and the weather as it is about anything else :( .

Pookah fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Nov 3, 2012

FishBulb
Mar 29, 2003

Marge, I'd like to be alone with the sandwich for a moment.

Are you going to eat it?

...yes...
Is Costco bread flour any good? My wife and I got a Costco membership mostly for baby formula but I try to use it for other things when I can. It's like a 50lb bag for 15 bucks, I generally buy 5 lb bags of KA at the store for like 3.79 so it's less than half price. I do like KA a lot though.

fine-tune
Mar 31, 2004

If you want to be a EE, bend over and grab your knees...

daggerdragon posted:

I think I'll try easier recipes next time. :/

Don't get discouraged! I made some pretty crap breads when I was starting out. Then, one day, I had some kind of bread epiphany, mostly due to this: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/02/for-beaming-bewitching-breads/

I've made the light wheat bread and challah recipes on her site, though her braiding directions were confusing to me. The challah, with crappy braiding looked like this:


Right now, I've got two loaves in the oven from The Doctor's recipe that are so very fluffy looking already. It's quite damp/chilly here today, so I did the two rises in my oven with the light on and door shut. It really did the trick, and the dough rose like it would in the summer time.

The Doctor
Jul 8, 2007

:toot: :toot: :toot:
Fallen Rib
Making 80% hydration baguettes tonight by converting weight to heathen volume measurements.

e: Baguettes trip report. Ok so here are my observations.

Following instructions is hard
This dough is really sticky
I don't have anything long enough to bake these baguettes on
My baguettes are kind of circle shaped
I forgot to score my baguettes
I hope my crumb looks just like the crumb in the picture and not just like sandwich bread

They will be done in 35 minutes and I want them to be awesome but given my transgressions in the making of this bread (especially the part where I didn't put it in the fridge for 17 hours) makes me think I deserve any sub-par results I get...

e2:

My bread is done and as expected does not look remotely anything like the bread in the image, undoubtedly due to my many failings and having nothing to do with the recipe at all. I mean, it rose, it tastes ok, but it's just bread. Long bread.

The Doctor fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Nov 4, 2012

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

daggerdragon posted:

Yes. However, I never got a dough, it just immediately went to pulled-chicken crumbles. Beating it for another half hour juuuust barely let me squish it hardcore into small loaf-shaped lumps that looks like brains. It looks like bread (and brains), it smells like bread, might as well bake it and see what comes out. I'm fully expecting it to just explode and make a mess in the oven, but who knows.
You almost certainly didn't have enough water. Is important to remember that unless you weigh everything (and sometimes even then), you can't be certain how much flour you have in a cup, or how wet that flour is. How much water you need can vary between flours and between locations.

PainBreak
Jun 9, 2001

mediaphage posted:

You almost certainly didn't have enough water. Is important to remember that unless you weigh everything (and sometimes even then), you can't be certain how much flour you have in a cup, or how wet that flour is. How much water you need can vary between flours and between locations.

In the same vein, I always wondered how accurate measuring flour by weight really is. I would think the weight of something as hygroscopic as flour would vary greatly based upon moisture content.

I'm positive it's more accurate than by volume, but it's a question that goes through my head every time I tare out my scale.

NightConqueror
Oct 5, 2006
im in ur base killin ur mans
So I just made my first loaf of bread using info from this thread. It came out a little lumpy, but crusty and delicious. Why the gently caress didn't anyone tell me it was this easy?!

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.

mediaphage posted:

You almost certainly didn't have enough water. Is important to remember that unless you weigh everything (and sometimes even then), you can't be certain how much flour you have in a cup, or how wet that flour is. How much water you need can vary between flours and between locations.

So... most recipes are given in cups, not by weight. How do you convert?

Rurutia
Jun 11, 2009

daggerdragon posted:

So... most recipes are given in cups, not by weight. How do you convert?

fl oz is a volume measurement. But note that it is exactly the volume of 1 oz of water at SATP. (actually just looked it up, oddly its 16 degrees C, not 25)

But really, get a scale if you're making bread. And use a recipe that gives weights or ratios. If you really really have to use a volume recipe, use scoop and level. Scoop the flour, level with the back of a knife, don't compress or shake or do anything. Julia Childs says that's usually accurate.

Rurutia fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Nov 4, 2012

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



daggerdragon posted:

So... most recipes are given in cups, not by weight. How do you convert?
If you can't find a recipe in grams, prepare the recipe using cups, but weigh (and write down!) everything for the next time. At least that's how I do it.

If your scales have an auto off feature that's just a bit too quick, you might have to weigh the empty cup and do the maths to find out how much was in there later.

I've been making bread with this recipe lately:
333g of white flour
250g of warm-ish water
1g of sugar
1g of salt
11g of instant yeast (which is one baggie from the brand I buy, supposedly good for 500g of flour)

Put the water, salt, sugar and yeast in a cup and stir. Make sure the cup isn't more than half full. Cover with plastic wrap and put somewhere warm (30°C) for 15 minutes until it has a nice collar of foam.

Then put it on top of the flour and mix. Knead intensively for 15-20 minutes (pinch, squeeze and fold). Add a little bit of flour whenver the dough sticks on your hands, but not so much the douch won't stick to itself anymore.
Shape, cover and put somewhere warm (30°-40°C) for 45 minutes. Then bake for, say, 12-16 minutes at 170°C. I usually don't bother to preheat the oven.

This originally was pizza dough, but it makes a nice neutral tasting bread. I usually find other bread too salty (or sometimes too fatty). It's good for dipping in soups and complements several spreads nicely without overpowering.

This is the result of a lot of uneducated experimentation, I'm sure there's still a lot I can improve now I'm reading up about proper techniques. It was a bit dense the first time I made it, but I'm noticing a lot of improvement since I picked up some kneading techniques from seeing people do it on TV.

I'm wondering about getting a nice crust. Is this a matter of baking time and temperature only, or is there more to it?

Happy Hat
Aug 11, 2008

He just wants someone to shake his corks, is that too much to ask??
Depends on your definition of 'nice'.

For a really neat and nice crust you need steam at the start, then going to dry and high heat!

colonp
Apr 21, 2007
Hi!
...

colonp fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Mar 8, 2014

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Happy Hat posted:

Depends on your definition of 'nice'.

For a really neat and nice crust you need steam at the start, then going to dry and high heat!
Sometimes I end up with somewhat leatherish instead of crispy, if that means something to you.

I guess I'm looking for confirmation that I should be baking at a higher temperature at least part of the time. Or whether it makes more sense to bake for a longer time at the same temperature.

I don't know if that's a question that is answerable over the internet in the first place.

The reason I haven't experimented myself yet, is because most of the times I'm baking is because it's three in the morning and there's no other food in the house :) Burning a loaf would be a :airquote: disaster.

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat

Flipperwaldt posted:

Sometimes I end up with somewhat leatherish instead of crispy, if that means something to you.

I guess I'm looking for confirmation that I should be baking at a higher temperature at least part of the time. Or whether it makes more sense to bake for a longer time at the same temperature.

I don't know if that's a question that is answerable over the internet in the first place.

The reason I haven't experimented myself yet, is because most of the times I'm baking is because it's three in the morning and there's no other food in the house :) Burning a loaf would be a :airquote: disaster.
I normally bake at 230C for 40 mins. It can take a high temp. It's not that easy to burn bread, unless there's a high sugar content.

Some fine-lookin' breads ITT.

therattle fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Nov 4, 2012

Pookah
Aug 21, 2008

🪶Caw🪶





Ooh, I just remembered, i have a fun historic baking story. My grandfather was a baker (sadly he died before I was born so I do not remember him at all). Anyway, he and his bakery collegues provided all the bread in their little village back in the 1930's -1960's.

But they had a secret, a secret that made their loaves all glazed and beautiful and appealing to the average bread eater. They staunchly refused to share this secret with bakers from nearby towns with ugly bread so shady tactics were implemented.

Bribery was used. A junior baker was plied with drink until he spilled the beans. Except he lied, even though he was pie-eyed. He tipsily told them that the secret of the glossy loaves was brushed beaten egg - which was an expensive extra for a small bakery in Ireland back then.

I can now reveal the true secret, hidden for more than 60 years. If you whisk flour and water together in (I think) a 1/3 to 2/3 mixture and then brush the resulting fluid onto bread straight after it comes out of the oven, it forms a lovely glaze.

Use this mysery well, it cost one man his, erm well he got a load of free pints for lying about it, but it was also a real point of contention among several townlands for at least 20 years.

Pookah fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Nov 5, 2012

The Doctor
Jul 8, 2007

:toot: :toot: :toot:
Fallen Rib
Are there any baguette experts who can give me a simpler recipe for a baguette similar to the one in the 80% hydration recipe? Honestly I think it is just too complex for me starting out, too many places where I may have gone wrong for me to pin point what the major failing was.

I want to make a chewy baguette like the one pictured, which is as airy or almost as airy.

I have some questions about getting that quality of crumb. Is the poolish what creates those deep hollows in the final product? When using a french fold, exactly how much pressure are you exerting? I wasn't actively kneading the dough but I wasn't being light-handed either, should I be avoiding compressing the dough as much as possible?

The baguette that I baked tasted fine, it rose fine, it was just completely standard bread.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



therattle posted:

I normally bake at 230C for 40 mins. It can take a high temp. It's not that easy to burn bread, unless there's a high sugar content.
I guess I'll have to adjust that a bit for a smallish loaf and for working with a freaking halogen lamp toaster oven that will burn your poo poo because the heating element's so close.

But I didn't try with this almost sugar free recipe, so, yeah, good point there. Thanks. I think I just needed someone to pull me over that line to try it.

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Flipperwaldt posted:

I guess I'll have to adjust that a bit for a smallish loaf and for working with a freaking halogen lamp toaster oven that will burn your poo poo because the heating element's so close.

But I didn't try with this almost sugar free recipe, so, yeah, good point there. Thanks. I think I just needed someone to pull me over that line to try it.

For what it's worth, you should look into getting an oven probe. After you've been baking a bit, shove the probe in and cook until it hits around 200F depending on the type of bread. Sandwich bread might only get to 190. It is a fantastic way of judging dough doneness that takes out the guesswork.

Butch Cassidy
Jul 28, 2010

I have two loaves of King Arthur's hearth bread with wheat flour in my oven and am curious to see how they turn out. The kids helped do the bulk of the prep-work and I decided to try running the dough fairly wet/sticky and let them knead in the KitchenAid. It was mostly through the first rise when I realized that we had gotten distracted and forgotten the second kneading.

I used a pale ale bock that needed using and honey in place of sugar, so it should at least taste good...

:buddy:And it just started snowing steadily, outside!:neckbeard:

E:


Tastes great and I want to make croque monsieurs with it for lunch, tomorrow.

Butch Cassidy fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Nov 5, 2012

Devoyniche
Dec 21, 2008

daggerdragon posted:

Yes. However, I never got a dough, it just immediately went to pulled-chicken crumbles. Beating it for another half hour juuuust barely let me squish it hardcore into small loaf-shaped lumps that looks like brains. It looks like bread (and brains), it smells like bread, might as well bake it and see what comes out. I'm fully expecting it to just explode and make a mess in the oven, but who knows.

Yeah it definitely seems like it doesn't have enough liquid, if it isn't actually forming a cohesive mass. I've found that some people have a few rules like holding back 50 g of flour (between 1/3 and 1/2 cup if you don't have a scale - I would just hold back a 1/2 cup and add it gradually, plus, if you need it, whatever the recipe will specify for "dusting/kneading"), or adding in flour a cup at a time and mixing until it is fully incorporated before adding more, the idea being that it is better to have a wetter dough and add flour while kneading rather than trying to incorporate water into a dough that has already sort of come together.

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat
I too done made a bread (my usual no-knead method with about 200g wholemeal and 350g white flour)





Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Devoyniche posted:

Yeah it definitely seems like it doesn't have enough liquid, if it isn't actually forming a cohesive mass. I've found that some people have a few rules like holding back 50 g of flour (between 1/3 and 1/2 cup if you don't have a scale - I would just hold back a 1/2 cup and add it gradually, plus, if you need it, whatever the recipe will specify for "dusting/kneading"), or adding in flour a cup at a time and mixing until it is fully incorporated before adding more, the idea being that it is better to have a wetter dough and add flour while kneading rather than trying to incorporate water into a dough that has already sort of come together.

I guess it works, but that seems awfully backwards to me. Usually you use 100% of the called-for flour, and add sufficient water to make a dough. Not 100% of the water and add sufficient flour.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply