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Baking bread doesn't have to be daunting

Jan • August 5, 2020

creating your memories

Doesn't the smell of baking bread evoke memories for you? - It does for me and is always such a welcoming feeling to come home to the smell of baking bread, or better still, waking up to it!  When you break bread together you creating community and friendships, ones that could last a lifetime.

My family often mention how they loved coming home after work and school to the smell of baking bread.  Remember that bread doesn't have to be complex or difficult to make.  It takes only 4 basic ingredients, a good quality bread flour, water, yeast and salt.  The reason you should use a good quality high protein flour is because a higher protein flour contains more gluten which helps give the bread rise and elasticity, the lower the gluten content the denser the bread will be (rye breads are denser as the flour has a lower gluten content.)

Let me stop digressing,  to make the bread all you need to do is measure out your flour, mix in the salt and then mix in the instant yeast.  Don't let the yeast and salt mix together in when you put them in the flour as a blob as the salt can kill the yeast.  I like to add the salt first, mix it into the flour then add the yeast and mix again.
Make a well in the centre and then add the tepid water.  You use tepid water as yeast prefers warmth to being cold, much like me!  It activates faster if it is warmer.  Once you have a shaggy dough cover it with plastic wrap or a tea towel and leave to rest for 10 min, this helps the gluten develop.

Now all you need is elbow grease and a benchtop to do the kneading... this is both the hardest and most theraputic part of the process.

There are a few ways to knead, by folding the dough and pushing it away from you with the palm of your hand, see this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9avZp3xFNU 
or there is another method called slap and fold - this has been my favourite form of kneading, take a look here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbBO4XyL3iM

Now all you have to do is put the dough into a bowl in a warm spot for around 1hr to rise.  Make sure you cover the dough so it doesn't dry out.

Once it has risen all you do is knock it back, don't be too rough though. Then mould into the shape you want.  You can also divide the dough into equal size balls, roll them up and place them tightly packed into a greased baking tin.  
Again leave the dough to rise for around 30min and put it in the oven to bake.  Bread is always cooked at high temps


Yeast

Keep your yeast in the fridge - this way it will stay active for longer. If you have had the yeast open for 3 months or longer test for efficacy by putting 1 tsp of yeast and 1 tsp of sugar in a bowl together with tepid water. Put your timer on for 10 min and if you have a lot of foam activity evident in the glass the yeast is active, if not it is probably past its peak and you won't get the same results from your bread.

GLUTEN

Gluten is a great additive to have on hand at home should you only have plain flour on hand.  Plain flour has a low protein content, which is what the gluten is and therefore you won't get the rise or strength you would get from a bread flour.  To help with this issue you can purchase a bag of our gluten and keep it handy.  You add the gluten in at 1% of the flour weight, so if you are using 750g flour for your loaf, add 7.5g of the gluten ( 750g x 0.01).  You will need to increase your water / liquid by 1% aswell, so if you are using 58% liquid quantity in the original recipe  (435g water) you would be required to add 7.5g extra water.

Calculation below

750g Flour =100%,

58% water = 435g (750 x 0.58), you would need to increase this by 1% so it would become 59% (750gx0.59) = 442.5g water.

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