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I'm excited for this thread. I tried to bake bread for for years and could never create anything that wasn't garbage, then I tried again a couple months ago and somehow I can now magically make excellent bread. So I make a couple loaves every week and don't experiment much, it's breakfast toast, for lunches, etc. I use a pretty standard challah recipe: 4 eggs 2 1/2 cups warm water 4 tbsp oil 1 tbsp instant yeast 2 tbsp sugar (I halved the original amount, works fine) a little salt 8 cups whole wheat flour I mess around with it sometimes, this week I switched to 7 cups w.w flour and 1 cup of soy flour to increase the protein content. It was successful but created a slightly more dense loaf, as expected. Sometimes I will add extra gluten, ground flax, whatever interesting might be lying around. Any ideas on how to keep the protein content of bread high without making it too dense? I think I am doing well as it is but I always like to add more protein. I like the idea of making flavoured breads as well, I set aside some of my dough this week and added four crushed garlic cloves and about a tablespoon of rosemary, was delicious and the boyfriend ate basically all of it. I also really need to make a brioche in the near future, I keep meaning to because it sounds so awesome.
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Oct 16, 2012 20:36
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My weekly challah exploded! If you're wondering why that bread looks ripped in half...it's ripped in half. It likes to do that coming out of the pan sometimes. Just when you think you've used too much oil... Any way I added extra salt and this is easily the best bread I've ever made. It's light and airy yet moist. It also has a stretched, stranded quality that probably has some fancy name in the baking world. Basically this is the kind of food that makes people obese.
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Oct 28, 2012 06:05
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Dreadwroth posted:Awesome new bread thread! I've been nerding out over handmade bread as I have no fancy machines being one of the poors. So far, my favorite bread has been a wheat graham bread with honey, brown sugar, barley and cinnamon up in there. Unfortunately it didn't rise much due to my murdering too much of the yeast, poor little guys. I have been just adding the yeast to the flour and then putting the sugar water mix on top and going from there. It seems to work okay, but it could use improvement. I think I need to loaf it up when I get off work. I think I'd like to try Happy Hat's recipe out, it looks really good. Can there be a rule or something where we stop apologetically calling ourselves poor? I don't know man, it's ok to not have money, and you can even be proud that you do everything by hand. I certainly do not use a mixer. As for not killing yeast, the yeast I use is "dry active" and supposedly doesn't need to be proofed, but I will ignore that from now on because I had a significantly better rise when I activated it first in sugar water yesterday, and it definitely bubbled up and ate the sugar, so it's not doing nothing before the flour is added. I think in a lot of ways, once your yeast has dined on glorious sugar, the order of ingredients doesn't particularly matter for a basic loaf, but since using this recipe I combine all of my liquid ingredients first and then add half my flour, mix into a batter, let it hang out on the counter for a while and then add the last of my flour, tip out onto a surface and knead. I've had pretty much complete success thus far.
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Oct 28, 2012 14:33
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Rurutia posted:Do you have a recipe for this? For some reason, I seem incapable of making really really soft, airy, fluffy bread. I even bought wheat gluten, and that didn't help. It's one of my ultimate cooking goals to be able to make bread that I'd be willing to make everyday and eat the entire loaf and get really really fat off of. It's extremely simple! For two biggish loaves: 2 1/2 cups warm water 2 tbsps sugar 1 tbsp dry active yeast 2 eggs (size doesn't much matter, I opt for bigger) 2 tbsps oil 1 tsp salt 8 cups whole wheat flour (I'm sure white works just as well) Dissolve the sugar into the water, add the yeast and proof for like ten minutes or something, it will start to bubble. Add your eggs, oil, and salt to the yeast mixture, incorporate fully. To this, add four cups of your flour, slowly creating a batter, scraping the mix down off the sides of the bowl (I start out using a fork) until you have a kind of lumpy paste. You can let this hang out for a half an hour or so or you can immediately start adding the rest of the flour bit by bit. Once it starts getting firmer you can switch to mixing with your hands or a flat spoon or something. Once all the flour is in the bowl it's usually kind of a pain to keep incorporating it all so I dump the whole thing (loose flour and all) onto the counter and start pressing the flour into it. It tends to be a little wet so I add a little flour here and there but really it's ok if it's a little sticky, as long as it's a dough as opposed to a batter. Then I basically just knead for a few minutes until it's nommed all the loose flour and is a little more elastic. At this point I toss it on top of a disposable plastic grocery bag on the counter and lay another bag on top of it without attempting to wrap it. Leave for an hour or an hour and a half, come back (it should be huge), punch it down, knead it, then shape it however you like, I separate into two loaves so it's not held down by it's own weight (is this a thing? it feels like a thing), add to a well greased pan or greased surface and let it rise for another hour, then pre-heat the oven to 350 and once it's heated, toss it in for 35 minutes (not less!). It's important for the oven to be fully heated because it tends not to rise as much on the second go but it will explode again once it gets into the hot oven. Hope this helps!
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Oct 29, 2012 01:43
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Charmmi posted:I am going to make that right now.  Let us know how it turns out!
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Oct 29, 2012 18:42
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Charmmi posted:The fluffiest softest bread I've ever laid eyes on. It poofed up almost double the height of the pan. This recipe is a keeper. Woohoo! Yes, I love this recipe and it magically goes into the oven looking normal and then proceeds to explode. I think the eggs are a big help.
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Oct 30, 2012 13:35
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Rurutia posted:Ahhh, that's amazing! I'm so sad now that I have to wait til Christmas to have access to my baking tools. Just a couple questions: No, I don't have it in weight. It's my own adaptation of a recipe I found a while ago and I don't use a kitchen scale. I also wouldn't have any idea about hydration %. I'm sure the folding technique would be fine as well, but punching it down and then shaping has been very successful.
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Oct 30, 2012 18:42
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toplitzin posted:Doctor, whenever I've made challah, my recipe is pretty close to yours, except I use honey instead of sugar. I will do this at some point in the near future, for sure.
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Oct 31, 2012 03:57
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Charmmi posted:I snapped a quick pick of the innards of the challah I made with The Doctor's recipe. So fluffy!!! Awesome! That's basically what my bread always looks like, except whole wheat. I can't believe your cat ate your bread... 
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Oct 31, 2012 13:44
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mediaphage posted:For what it's worth, I'm not sure how challah-y that challah is. Traditionally, challah is way more eggy - like enough yolk to turn it golden. It's a bit stiffer, too. Indeed, it is just an all-purpose loaf that happens to contain eggs.
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Oct 31, 2012 18:59
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axolotl farmer posted:Modern dry yeast really doesn't need proofing, just mix it with the flour. I have never had a dough made with dry yeast fail to rise, and I always just add it in the mix without proofing. I also often just toss it in, but the last couple times I have proofed it I have had an improved rise.
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Nov 1, 2012 20:09
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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 |
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Nov 3, 2012 23:49
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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.
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Nov 5, 2012 00:02
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geetee posted:Is that dough sitting on a plastic grocery bag?  poo poo yeah it is and that's how it's done.e: It's an easy surface to let the dough rise on and then shift, doesn't require more dirty dishes, etc.
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Nov 20, 2012 15:50
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geetee posted:Seems a little unsanitary to me. Who knows what's on them? I'll be honest. I don't care. I truly don't. I won't even pretend I know what may or may not be on them. It's a bag that I put some dough on, then I bake the dough. My standards aren't that high.
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Nov 20, 2012 22:51
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I made 80% hydration baguettes again (I bought a digital kitchen scale) and they came out vastly better than last time. The one problem I continue to have is that I use a heavy whole wheat flour and it's just not the same as that super fine light white bread stuff and it just doesn't get as airy. It was much airier than my normal recipes and it got a great crust though, the taste of the pre-fermented biga/poolish is also really noticeable and is really tasty. I will say it tastes very salty to me though, I usually use maybe half the salt this recipe calls for and double or 2.5x the flour.
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Dec 2, 2012 21:42
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I will have to buy that book. Just in case anyone wondered what my whole wheat results were:  
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Dec 3, 2012 20:35
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It was very good! Like I said before, my only complaint was that it was on the salty side for my taste, would half next time. E: also I'm stubborn and I bought some finer white bread flour to try it again. The Doctor fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 23:32
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Xarb posted:That looks amazing. Ironically, this loaf is actually much less airy than it should be because of the heavy flour, it's this airy because it's high hydration, and I believe using a pre-ferment might have something to do with it? Basically you make half the recipe the night before and it ferments and gets very bubbly in the fridge. It also doesn't get kneaded because it's so wet, it borders on being a batter and simply gets stretched and folded. http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/recipe-for-80-hydration-baguette/ Have a look at the air holes in the cross section on this page!
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Dec 4, 2012 02:39
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Leper Residue posted:Bleh. Yeah I was using the packet stuff. The difference in price is like a dollar for three packets vs. 8 for a little jar. Guess I get what I pay for. You can get yeast much more cheaply than this...those little jars are overpriced. Try looking for the biggish vacuum-sealed packs they usually sell to restaurants. There's a restaurant supply store near where I work and I got a pack for around $5.00, I've been using it for months and I bake bread every week. Also I tried 80% hydration baguettes again, this time with white bread flour. I made a lot of errors but they were a big success any way. I accidentally halfed the yeast for my poolish and the dough stuck to my parchment and fell before going into the oven, but it puffed up like it should have any way and has a crumb very similar to the one on the site, pics soon.
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Dec 7, 2012 01:22
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WhoIsYou posted:Anyone who plans to make bread regularly without using a sourdough starter would do well to pick up a bag of SAF-Instant Red. You can mix it right in to the dry ingredients, and you don't have to use as much as the packets or jar. This is the brand I use and I don't think it's hard to find. The place I get it from is essentially just a grocery store that also sells restaurant supplies. It is invaluable to me because it's a huge amount of yeast for vastly less cost and I can walk there from work in minutes. I can see how it might not be viable for someone who had to travel far out of their way but even then you could just get a few and you'd have yeast for...a long time.
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Dec 7, 2012 03:10
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The Doctor posted:I will have to buy that book. And here are the results for the white:  It came out very well but not as well as it could have. Some changes/errors I made: 1. I accidentally halved the yeast in the poolish so I increased counter time from one hour to two to compensate before refrigerating for 17 hours. I don't know what, if any, difference this made. 2. I was pressed for time on the day-of so I reduced my resting periods from 45 minutes to 30 minutes. 3. It stuck to my parchment so it fell badly before it went into the oven. In the future I would just shift the parchment from the cutting board to the pizza stone and not attempt to remove it, or flour the parchment heavily ahead of time. Despite falling, it still became huge. 4. I halved the salt. It was way too salty the first time, the recipe calls for 12g, I used 6g or 7g. It tasted much better to me. 5. I buttered the crust after baking. I would not do this in the future. I did it because I thought I might have overcooked it (I didn't) and I didn't want it to be impossible to eat. It gave the outside a much softer, chewier texture whereas it could have been a really good bite like a baguette should have. Overall, this bread is delicious. The inside is very airy (but could be even moreso), with a chewy texture and a sweet taste.
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Dec 7, 2012 22:02
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DOUBLE POST. I'm addicted to these 80% hydration baguettes. Well, my boyfriend is addicted to eating them and I am addicted to making them. I am about to shape another attempt in a few minutes, this time I followed the recipe exactly (including all timing) except for the salt content.
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Dec 10, 2012 00:06
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Doh004 posted:Hey, I just looked through your history in this thread but I couldn't find the recipe for your 80% baguettes. Aside from googling, could you post your method/recipe or point me in the right direction? http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/recipe-for-80-hydration-baguette/ Right here! They have other recipes too, I'm going to look into their sourdough after this batch of baguettes.
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Dec 10, 2012 00:29
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Another 80% attempt!  It's worth noting that one baked separately from the others and having it's own space made a biiig difference in the final product. The others that were closer together had much softer, less browned exteriors and did not become as airy as this. Evidently what happens in the oven is as important as what happens on the counter (and in the fridge).
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Dec 10, 2012 03:50
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Angstronaut posted:That 80% looks absolutely delicious. Yeah these look amazing. Great job, I would not be allowed to have something like this in my house, it would be devoured in moments. Sokani, that looks awesome! Nice braiding, it's so puffy and pretty.
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Dec 11, 2012 16:09
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you ate my cat posted:I was so excited--I got a new oven, because my last one held a temperature so poorly that everything got messed up. I spent a couple hours making some challah, braiding it, caring for it. I set the timer on the oven for an hour for the final rise. It beeps, I stop it, I put the bread in, and I set it for 20 mins to go check it. So...your bread is huge? Don't worry about it, just turn the heat back on and bake it until it's browned as usual.
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Dec 12, 2012 03:15
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Black Baby Goku posted:This might be a silly question, but is there anything such as a carb-free bread? My friend Trevor told me about something about a carb-free bread and since I'm on a 0 carb diet (ketosis ftw) I can't actually enjoy bread as much as I want. This is not the place to ask for carb-free bread. Go to YLLS, there's a keto thread and a questions thread.
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Dec 18, 2012 02:01
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therattle posted:Good luck shaping that! 80% hydration spit roasted baguettes.
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Jan 21, 2013 16:28
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Glad everyone seems to like the recipe! I have switched my weekly bread recipe up lately, I'm not sure what to call this kind of loaf but I like it a lot, mainly because of the additional fats and protein. This is a very airy, tall loaf. 4 large eggs 2 cups warm whole milk 1/2 cup warm water 1 tbsp yeast 1 tbsp brown sugar 1 tbsp oil or butter (optional) 1 tsp salt 8 cups whole wheat flour OR 7 cups flour and 1 cup gluten I proof the yeast in the 1/2 cup water and brown sugar mixture. While it's waking up, I mix together the eggs, milk, salt, and oil. I add the yeast mixture to that and add 4 cups of flour, then mix until I have a batter. Once I have a batter I slowly add the last four cups of flour until I have shaggy mixture and then switch to kneading until I have a smooth dough, adding a little flour here and there as necessary. I do a one hour rise and then punch it down, shape it, and rise again for an hour. Once it's fully risen I throw it into an oven preheated to 350 for 35 minutes.
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Jan 28, 2013 20:39
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Kenning posted:It can also be fun to do a no stress, no expectation bread where you just mix it all together without measuring. Get the dough to a consistency you like, knead it for a bit, rest, then bake it for a bit. It might not produce the greatest bread anyone's ever tasted, but it'll do wonders for your confidence. I would actually advise against doing this since it can also be a recipe for complete failure. Following the most basic guidelines will increase your chances of success by a lot. This is just based on my own experiences though since for years I would try "throw it all together, it's just bread!!" and ended up with a brick every time.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:37
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The point is that a beginner does not have the process down.
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Feb 20, 2013 16:32
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I'm experimenting with adding even more eggs to my bread tonight. Basically I'm making cake. Delicious, yeasty cake.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:19
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 eight cups whole wheat flour six large eggs 2 cups warm whole milk 1/2 cup warm water 2 tbsp oil 1 tbsp yeast 1 tbsp brown sugar The part you don't see is the part where I forgot the salt. 
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Feb 24, 2013 06:13
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I made bagels
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Mar 1, 2013 04:40
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I made my first sourdough bread yesterday, it was a success on many fronts but ultimately a failure. I made the miche from the weekend bakery, and if I have any advice for you, it's that you should do what the weekend bakery tells you to do at all times. My culture was only three or four days old and I hesitated to use it but the time from starter to oven was many hours so that undoubtedly helped it develop. I really gave up on it while it was in the oven. I don't know why I thought a 70 minute cooking time was absurd given the size of the loaf, but I guess something that long was just new territory for me and I hummed and hawed over it and ended up opening the oven a couple times to peek, which I should never have done. It came out undercooked. It wasn't raw, it had just retained moisture that an extra five minutes or so probably would have eradicated. The crust is also virtually impenetrable, undoubtedly because I didn't use a steam source. Steam is really invaluable in making this loaf viable. Even if the inside turns out great, if the crust is impossible to get through, it makes it a lot of trouble and takes away from the end result. The major success (and a huge surprise for me) was how airy this loaf came out. I used no commercial yeast whatsoever and got this result:  It was also a success in flavour. It had a strong sourdough smell coming out of the oven and I can't describe the taste other than strong. I haven't eaten sourdough since I was a kid so it was a bit of a shock to me, I expected a light sour note, not the full tangy flavour of this stuff, but I really like it. Despite being undercooked, my boyfriend insists on eating it so I will just toast it in the mornings and feed it to him for breakfast. I notice I'm not the only person posting undercooked bread. It's really important to give a loaf it's full cooking time and not open the oven. No matter how great the other aspects of your bread are, if it isn't cooked, I think you really have to acknowledge it as a failure and try again. Hoyt, your bread looks good but how long did you bake it for? It looks like your oven wasn't hot enough or you pulled it early. The Doctor fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 6, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 16:18
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I have undertaken three baking projects to start the week with. I had the day off work so yesterday night I did my loaf bread for the week and froze half, got my sourdough starter ready and put together a croissant dough as well. The sourdough is ready to go in the oven in about 50 minutes and I've finished all the folding stages of the croissant dough, it is in the fridge until day 3 tomorrow. I'll post pictures of the sourdough (miche) tonight, here's hoping it is better cooked than last time. I'm going to give it the full 70 minutes without "checking up" on it this time and I'll also be doing a steam bath to soften the crust.
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Mar 12, 2013 20:05
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yoshesque posted:Not sure if this should go here, but it's a yeasted bread thing. Seasonally appropriate hot cross buns:  I keep meaning to post my croissant pics so I can get someone to tell me where I went wrong. They were so flaky but just...too dense. I bought a 20kg bag of whole wheat flour at a bulk place for $20. I don't know what anyone else is paying but I've been paying $10-11 for 5kg so this is going to save me a lot of money.
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Mar 25, 2013 15:36
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You can get a very light and fluffy bread by adding eggs because they help to rise the bread. Eggs are really not necessary but they can help If you can't get your bread to rise and be very light and fluffy there's probably a simple answer. - You didn't proof it long enough or warm enough, or it was too warm. The ideal temp. to rise your dough is 24 degrees celsius, much cooler or warmer than this and you will have problems with your rise. So when it says to put your dough somewhere warm, actually put it somewhere warm. And cover it. I always double rise my bread. I mix my dough, give it an hour in which it generally doubles in size and then punch it down, shape it, and rise it again for another hour. - You put it in a cold oven. You should always put your uncooked dough into an oven that has been fully heated. If you put it in a cold oven you risk letting it sink instead of giving it a chance to spring up even more when it hits the hot air. Do not open your oven during baking. Resist the urge. - Your dough is too dry. You will know if your dough is dry because kneading it will suck. It will really, really resist you and you may get sore hands or wrist from trying to force it into a dough. It's ok for your dough to be a little wet and sticky. High hydration doughs are often practically batters. - Your ingredients are cold. Kneading dough is really sucky when you use cold water, cold milk, cold eggs, etc. I make my dough with milk and eggs so I heat the milk on the stove top and slowly stir it into my eggs, so when I'm ready to knead, everything goes much smoother. If your ingredients are right out of the fridge, it also takes longer to rise. - You didn't use enough yeast/your yeast is dead/you hindered your yeast by mixing it with salt (this is not very likely)
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Apr 1, 2013 16:05
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Meant to post these ages ago, here are the pics of my sadly failed croissants. I made them based on theweekendbakery recipe, not really sure where I went wrong. My theory is that I didn't roll the pastry out thin enough, it didn't rise enough, or I used the wrong kind of flour. I didn't have french 55 so I just used regular pastry flour. It was good, layered, flaky pastry but...it was just pastry. Not really croissant.  Likewise this is my hilarious miche. I made this by the exact same method as my last one and it just became utterly huge. There is no commercial yeast in this, only my own sourdough starter. The problem I had with it was that it didn't have the elastic texture of the last loaf, it was just normal bread, and instead of getting large air bubbles it just rose by about three times the size. The taste also suffered, it had a very light sour note but not at all the beery taste of the last one. Same starter and method for both loaves, who knows. I think I should have known it was going to blow up after I left the sourdough starter ball to double in 12 hours, the first time it actually doubled, the second time instead of doubling it blew up and filled the entire container.  
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Apr 6, 2013 22:35
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