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Baking Bread
Colin4May
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
While I like cooking, I've never baked bread. I've just realised that there is a world of things called "breadmakers".
Things that automatically bake bread.. with lots of features and stuff so that you can do lots of different types of bread. I was looking at this range: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/290123/module/general/compare/productsCategory.html
because it has something called gluten-free bread.. which I think is a good thing, although I'm no food technologist! The reviews on Amazon seem favourable.
I asked a mate, and he said it would be cheating to use a breadmaker, and that you should always do it by hand. But then again he doesn't use a food blender or processer and does everything ny hand. That's madness isn't it?
Anyway, if anyone has any recommendations of experience of breadmakers, let me know? Thanks
Things that automatically bake bread.. with lots of features and stuff so that you can do lots of different types of bread. I was looking at this range: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/290123/module/general/compare/productsCategory.html
because it has something called gluten-free bread.. which I think is a good thing, although I'm no food technologist! The reviews on Amazon seem favourable.
I asked a mate, and he said it would be cheating to use a breadmaker, and that you should always do it by hand. But then again he doesn't use a food blender or processer and does everything ny hand. That's madness isn't it?
Anyway, if anyone has any recommendations of experience of breadmakers, let me know? Thanks
Colin4May on
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If you have the bowls and the time (and a nice bread pan), you can make yummy and cosmetically sound loafs (looks like what you get at the bakery). You need to knead the dough though, which takes forever and can get VERY tiring.
A breadmaker allows you to skip all that, you just dump all the ingredients into it and press "Bread" and in 3 hours you have it. HOWEVER, the bread that comes out will not look like what you would get at the store. The loaf will be cylindrical and also thicker and shorter than a normal loaf. Rest assured, it will taste good, but may not be suitable for sandwiches (unless you want your sandwich slices to be rather large and round). I'm a huge soup person though, so this is what I end up using my loaves for.
Honestly, it depends mostly on effort and the look of the loaf. What is more important is finding a bread recipe that you like, and that may take a few tries to get right.
Gluten is a type of protein, specifically the protein that makes bread dough stretchy, and is nutritionally beneficial to 99% of the population as a source of protein. That other 1% (and possibly more) has what's known as a "Gluten Sensitivity", commonly due to Celiac (Coeliac) Disease. In this case, the ability to create Gluten-Free bread (which utilizes different types of flour, and gluten replacements such as Xanthum Gum) returns a reasonable facsimile of wheat Bread back to their diet.
It means you skip the tedious part but don't get an odd-shaped loaf with a hole in the middle from the kneading tool.
Of course, if you were going to do that you could just get a food processor with dough hooks instead.
Or, you could do the no-knead method which makes freakin' amazing homemade rustic bread that everybody thinks you paid 5 bucks a loaf for from your local bakery. Here's the beginner recipe, and if you try it and like it, the book is here. Ever since I made my first loaf, the bread maker has been sitting underneath the counter, quietly neglected.
I've only played with the basic recipes but they are spot on and hassle free. I literally just have a big container of dough sitting in my fridge that I pull from and make loaves out of. I love it!
It is also much harder to mess up bread the first time you bake it as long as you follow the recipe compared to other forms of cooking.
Good, thick bread for sandwiches... you can choose how thick or thin the slices are. Not to mention that bread goes with damn near everything, and the aroma of fresh bread is goddamned amazing.
Warm, home-made bread fresh out of the oven with a little butter or honey on it is just plain delicious. Besides, once you start learning to make bread, you can start on stuff like home-made cinnamon rolls and home-made sourdough bread, too... once you get the basics down, just go with it.
I do believe Alton Brown had a breadmaking episode of Good Eats...
I can has cheezburger, yes?
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Gluten-free bread sucks and I think that the "health benefits" are a crock of shit. Unless you are celiac (which in my opinion is also largely a crock of shit- far too many people say they are for no good reason), eat normal bread. It's cheaper, tastes better, has better texture, etc, etc. Gluten has nothing to do with the breadmaker and everything to do with the type of flour you use.
If you do decide to make some bread and use a breadmaker, I strongly, strongly suggest baking it in the oven instead of the breadmaker. Breadmakers bake a shitty loaf. Just take it out after it's been kneaded and let it rise in a bowl, then punch it down, make a loaf or put it into a pan, let it rise again and bake. That part takes no effort compared to actually kneading (which really isn't that much work either).
Whatever you decide, if you want to get into making bread, get "The Village Baker" by Joe Ortiz (http://www.amazon.com/Village-Baker-Classic-Regional-America/dp/0898159164). Best bread book you can buy.
This one million times.
If anyone tells you it takes a lot of work to bake bread, they are well right. But you can also do it with about 20 minutes of intial up front time and then after that you can crack out a loaf in just forty minutes.
Bread makers make reasonable bread, but they crust is never that good (at least in my opinion) and you are buying a uni-use piece of equipment that costs a reasonable amount of money.
I am saying this as someone who took months to decide to buy an icecream maker.
Satans..... hints.....
Thats not even counting all the other shit it can do, it's like the crockpot of the mixing world.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
I had a bread maker a number of years ago in college, but after I started making bread in a mixer the thing went in the closet and never got used again. Doing it in the mixer and then baking yourself gives you a lot more control over the finished product.
No-knead recipes are incredibly simple and take around 15 minutes of effort, and are responsible for some of the best bread you will ever eat. The idea behind no-knead breads is an extended fermentation/rise period, of about 12 - 24 hours. Using a very small amount of yeast, and a bit of salt, you allow all kinds of flavorful bacterias to give your bread a flavor you can't get otherwise by delaying the rising process. Think of it as aging your dough like a fine wine. Kneading bread, which is what most people complain about as a ton of work, starts to activate the gluten molecules earlier, significantly speeding up the process, and otherwise doesn't allow this process to happen to the same extent.
I bake about two loaves a week - often more - with a dutch oven inside my oven. I also make fantastic pizzas, which is the most natural evolution once one becomes comfortable making dough and loaves.
If you want the no-knead recepie that I use, I'd be happy to share it. Shoot me a PM. If you really want to make bread, bake it yourself. There are a few subtleties to learn through trial and error, but it will be the best bread you've ever eaten. Bread from bread makers will never compare. It really is quite simple.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/11/04/homemade-bread-cheap-delicious-healthy-and-easier-than-you-think/
and changed slightly to suit my own tastes
that recipe takes only 10 minutes of kneading, and is extremely simple and excellent
breadmakers are good if you just want to set it and forget it, but it won't look as good as hand-kneaded
Well post your recipe! I've heard of these no knead breads, and I am intrigued.
Can you make it into babka? No? Then you are useless to me.
Babka isn't normally made with slow-rise dough. The slow-rise doughs have larger "gluten holes" than your typical quick-rise, kneaded bread. However, I could make some traditional-style German sweet bread with my no-knead recipe and let you know how it turns out if you are curious.
[edit]Actually, if I just add more yeast, less salt, and some sugar to feed the yeast, I could get a faster rising but still no-knead dough in less than three hours. This would have a more typical texture for your Babka. So yes, no-knead Babka is possible.
Mix the following in a large bowl:
- 1/4 teaspon instant dry yeast (not the quick-rise kind; I use Red Star, I think it is called)
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt (if using sea salt, which I prefer, add a bit more; doesn't have to be ground)
- 1 1/3 cup (300g) water (cool, 55-60 degrees)
Mixing:
The temperature of your ambient environment, altitude, etc will have an effect on this stage. Try 18 hours for your first run.
End of First Rise, Start of Second Rise:
Getting close:
Oven Time:
Baking Details:
And taste ludicrously yeasty and sweet. I mean, sometimes people want that, but there are a lot of breads that you just can't do with a no-knead recipe.
There's quite a few good gluten-free breads available now, but on the whole aren't all that similar to 'bread'