Best bread baking books according to redditors
We found 925 Reddit comments discussing the best bread baking books. We ranked the 189 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 925 Reddit comments discussing the best bread baking books. We ranked the 189 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
![Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mgUbcbXIL.jpg)
![Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gg46QoJXL.jpg)
![The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iKeUfMWIL.jpg)
OP's Book: Deceptive Desserts
Congratulations OP! Thank you for all the outstanding original content!
I'm a big fan of How Baking Works. It's set up like a textbook, and each chapter covers a different aspect of baking science, with review questions and practical exercises at the end of each.
So a few off the top of my head:
Best way to get people to come over, in my experience: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Pizza-Unlocking-Secrets-World-Class/dp/160774838X
Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, from the CIA. Packed full of tons of recipes, from standard plain dough recipes and sauces, to a chapter with full desserts made from the foundational components from other chapters. The recipes are scaled for very large batches though, so you’ll probably have to scale down (some have baker’s % though).
Holy shit thank you, I didn't know about this. It looks pretty cool.
I mean, honestly it's hard to take your question seriously. You very clearly simply haven't looked at what's available, but still wanna come here to laugh at the stupid americans that don't know bread.
You're just wrong. Crusty bread is everywhere in the US.
Walmart sells rye flour: https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=rye%20flour&cat_id=976759&typeahead=rye%20fl and spelt flour: https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=spelt%20flour&cat_id=976759&typeahead=spelt
They also sell baguettes and some other rustic style loafs, though in general for more artisan style bread you'd be better going off going to someplace other than walmart. Walmart is all about cheap and high volume stuff.
This is one of the most popular bread cookbooks in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
I've been to Ken's bakery many times, and can assure you they have nice very crusty bread: https://kensartisan.com/bakery
Here's another regional chain that's popular up here: https://www.instagram.com/grandcentralbakery/
As you can see, plenty of crusty breads of all styles.
You'll be able to find similar bakeries in any city larger than about 50k people, and pretty often even in smaller towns.
Sliced sandwich bread exists for that exact purpose: it's easy to toast, and is a great for making some styles of sandwiches. Crusty rustic loaves are not somehow universally better, that's just *your* preference.
Outro detalhe engraçado é que "pão de campanha" é uma tradução muito metida a besta de "pain de campagne". "Campagne" em francês significa "do campo", no sentido de "do interior" ou "do meio rural". A tradução correta em português seria pão de camponês ou pão rústico.
Se for feito do jeito certo é um pão que tem uma fermentação mais demorada que o pão normal e usa fermentos selvagens e é exposto ao ar para pegar mofos e bactérias, intencionalmente. Conforme os mofos e fermentos usados ele tem um gosto diferente, em geral mais fermentado e com uma textura mais dura que o pão normal. Em inglês é chamado de Sourdough.
Mas chamar de pão rústico iria pegar mal quando você cobra R$ 24.00 por ele.
Edit: Existe gente que leva pão muito a sério:
The only dessert book you'll ever need.
Edit: Well maybe this one too.
Check out this book, it will completely change your mind!
She also put out a book! I assumed that was why she stopped posting, but I'm guessing it's a little of both!
You don't need a bread machine you have an oven. Bread has 4 ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast. The variety of breads you can make by varying the ratios of these ingredients, the length of the ferment, and cook time is staggering.
Highly recoomend: Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook] https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_YlgXDbTMY87DP
Name: Paul
Age: 25
Location: Minneapolis
Pics (of you, pets, whatever etc.,) http://i.imgur.com/yi0rf7P.jpg (It was for grindr and my only recent pic, please don't judge!)
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What are your plans for Valentine's day?
Is there anything you're looking forward to this month?
What TV shows are you looking forward to having come back on for the spring?
What's one good recipe you would like to share?
What are you currently listening to/watching/reading?
In your opinion, what is the superior pet?
What is one subreddit you think everyone should check out?
It's a little daunting at first but there are lots of very helpful resources out there so you can jump right in! I just started my own starter this week and I've been following this guide: here.
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But you don't need a sourdough starter to start with bread. If you have a dutch oven then you can start with straight doughs and learn proper folding and shaping while you wait for your starter to grow!
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There are a few books that are highly recommended by this sub the most popular seems to be Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza (FWSY as you will see it mentioned as here) by Ken Forkish which he shares his own starter recipe and lots of fantastic straight and sourdough breads.
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If you're not ready to take that big of a dive in yet online there is Jim Laheys No Knead Bread recipe which is a straight dough, super simple, and really quite delicious. I did this one and it was my gateway bread which quickly sent me head first into FWSY and starters.
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Most importantly, don't be disheartened if things don't turn out, just share it with us, do some research, make some changes and try again.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SGLZH6
Recipe and techniques taken directly from the ever-popular FWSY by Ken Forkish. This was my first attempt at the Overnight Country Blonde, and I was really happy with how this loaf turned out!
Nice loaf! People are also often referencing the Ken Forkish book called “Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast.” 🍞🥖
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook] https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Hn7IDbF2MEGRN
Edit: it mostly focuses on bread
It looks awesome, not sure why you say it needs work. It looks like the cover of Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt.
Thank you. The bread is from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes/day
Essentially you mix up a large batch of dough (water, yeast, salt, flour), let it rise at room temperature, then put the container in the fridge. When you want bread, you pull of a chunk, shape it, let it rise some more, then bake. The brilliance is that you put in some effort up front, but then the daily labor is literally 5 minutes, although the time between deciding you want bread, and the bread coming out of the oven is several hours. The actual work is just a few minutes and you feel like a pro, like you really got your life dialed in. No special tools, but a pizza peel really helps. The instructions cover about four pages in the book, but once you "get it", you just won't need them. And you don't need to knead the dough at all. The bread is really very very good bread. Amazon has the original version of the book from several used book sellers for under $8 including shipping. Worth every penny because it describes how to make modest adjustments to get substantially different types of bread (ciabatta, flat breads, pizza, peasant loaves, and heartier loaves with varied flours). I would bet the library has a copy, too, so free to borrow.
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I realized I didn't say what the vinegar was for ... it's to make poor girl pickles - just salt, sugar, and vinegar plus whatever chunks of vegetables you have (cucumber, carrots, cabbage), in a jar, in the fridge. Not super exciting unless you add some spices, but you can do things like cut very fine shreds of cabbage or carrots and then do a quick soak in vinegar with sugar and salt, then use it as a small garnish on tacos or in a sandwich to really kick up the flavor for pennies and just a few minutes of effort.
I am fortunate to have a teenage son who will take long walks with me and humor me on meal planning. I've driven all over my state and it has soooo many tiny towns really far from anywhere, and often the only source of food is a convenience store, sometimes a Walgreen's. Prices are obviously a lot higher, but the question became, or the problem to solve became ... if this was your only source for groceries, what would you buy, in what order, and why, and then what do you cook, particularly if you really don't know how and are starting with the bare essentials. Even the worst small gas station stores almost always have limes and bananas, plus dry rice and beans, pasta and sauce, and eggs and cheese in the refrigerated section. Many have a few onions, tortillas, cilantro and jalapenos and maybe a few ratty tomatoes. So that became the beginning of the training/planning, especially since my older daughter says literally NO ONE she knows (except herself) in their 20s can cook, and they are miserable and broke and super stressed out about it. Just really struggling to pull their food together.
i use the Tartine country-loaf recipe. https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YXAYK1048K6F72877BPC
Hooray! I love cookbooks!
I don't know if they're into making ice cream, but it's really easy and fun:
Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, The Perfect Scoop, and Ample Hills are all great.
Followed the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day book.
The cookbook is called "Good and Cheap" - it's available as a free ebook or PDF. The author, Leanne Brown, also has a website with those recipes and more (I see I'm not the only person to link it). There are really good recipes!
My wife and I use them a lot. Last week I made her chana masala recipe for my lunches, cost $6 total for all 5 lunches. I admit it got old by the end of the week, but for the first couple days it was really tasty!
Another good resource is budgetbytes (I see someone else also linked that one).
A couple broader "principles" (you may already know them, though):
But a lot of these depend on how much time you can commit to food prep. If you're limited on time then your strategy will change a bit.
Using the Overnight White recipe from Flour Water salt Yeast.
Flour Water Salt Yeast. I just received my copy this afternoon!
The secret to the stretchy dough is actually two separate things, and as a home baker you can really only (reasonably) address one:
**So to sum up a nice, happy tl;dr:
Both of these factors contribute to the discrepancy you are seeing between your dough, and serious pizza dough. I have had some great success at approximating the good stuff when using bread flour, it simply requires a higher level of hydration for the flour. If you like, I can provide the recipe.
Alternatively, you can (and should if you want to get a better sense of bread-baking) buy pretty much the best bread-baking book I have found for a home-baker, which is where I adapted my pizza recipe from. You will notice a lot of similarities between different recipes: focaccia is very similar to pizza dough, which is very similar to ciabatta, which all end up working out very differently depending on how you handle them. Although it may be that your bread recipe is very similar to pizza dough, the difference is in the fermentation and handling process.
Let me know if you have any further questions, I'm pretty new to this subreddit.
Nu am vreo rețetă, per se, fiecare pâine e diferită, recomand o carte gen: Flour Water Salt Yeast. Dar ca idee:
Faină albă (12% proteine) + făină integrală + secară în diverse proporții, de obicei 20% albă, 70% integrală, 10% secară, dar mereu schimb.
Apă 65%-75% în funcție de făina folosită.
Sare 2%.
Preferment făcut cu 2 zile înainte, între 50%-80% din aluatul total. 65%-100% apă în funcție de faină. 0.02% drojdie uscată. Dospit 12-14 ore.
Aluat făcut cu 1 zi înainte, 0.2% drojdie uscată, dospit ~6 ore. Sare 2%. Îi fac folds la 20 de min în primele 2 ore, din ce în ce mai gentil.
Proofed în frigider pentru încă 12 ore.
245°C+225°C 30min (abur) +25min (uscat).
Alternativ dacă fac pâine într-o singură zi fac o autoliză de 2-3 ore.
Alternativ pot să fermentez în frigider și să proof afară din frigider.
You'll wanna go ahead and buy this book: FWSY
I make my own bread about once or twice a week and then can store the dough in the refrigerator for up to about 2 weeks. Whenever I'm craving some I whip up a batch on the baking stone and its good to go. I will never go back if I can manage not to. All you need is flour, water, yeast (you can culture your own or keep little bags in the fridge), and salt. I generally add olive oil and whatever else I am feeling inquisitive with at the time. Last week I made some with chipotle salsa mixed in. I have a kitchenaid mixer, not cheap but IMO worth it that simplifies the process immensely. I love making my own bread and people would be surprised at how easy it is. If you are interested in the way I learned check out the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
May I suggest a few books then?
The Big Book of Bread has 365 bread recipes.
My Bread by Jim Lahey, which is current favorite technique.
I highly recommend bread-making as a hobby; but I am quickly learning that I have to match that with regular exercise :-/
Cookbooks! I read so many food blogs, but it's never quite as nice as reading a cookbook, even if it's more practical.
Some I enjoyed this year:
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day - My bread-baking bible
Top with Cinnamon - This girl is 18 and is better at cooking/styling/photography/writing than I will ever be
Joy the Baker's Homemade Decadance - Basically the food blog queen
Sunday Suppers - This one is just beautiful
Read the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes. Super easy and really good bread. You can probably google the base recipe and it gets better as the dough sits in your fridge. Makes a bunch of dough at once. Want some bread tonight? Cut a piece off, let it sit on counter, and throw in oven.
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
Sample recipe
Thanks for all the comments! This is basically a beer bread with thyme (so, yes, it is thymey-wimey).
I just made up the recipe on the spot, but here's a rough simulacrum of what I did:
Toss everything in a bowl and knead it all together (make sure to add the salt after the yeast has already been mixed in). You may need to add more water or flour to get the right consistency - you don't want the dough too wet, but you don't want it to be too firm either or it will be difficult to shape. Toss it in an oiled bowl, put oiled plastic wrap over it, and let it rise for about an hour.
After it has risen, take ~1/4-1/3 of the dough and separate it into about 8 chunks for the tentacles. Shape the rest of the dough into an oval, and begin adding the tentacles, working from the bottom to the middle of the oval/face. If you have trouble getting the tentacles to stick, you can moisten the ends with water before sticking them on. Slash the dough to define the sides of the head and forehead creases, and add eyes of some kind (I used two cloves of garlic). Let this rest for 15-30 mins. Finally, put it into a 450 F oven for 10 mins, then turn down the heat to 350 and cook for another hour or so, until the bread reaches ~200 F on the inside (I used a meat thermometer to check). When you go to bake it, you can also toss a handful of ice cubes into the bottom of the oven to add moisture and help give it a crispier crust.
If you're interested in learning more about making bread from scratch, I'd highly recommend checking out the Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It's a little pricey, but it includes tons of great recipes, and (more importantly) explains how and why bread making works, and what does what. It's helped me get comfortable enough that I can now throw bread recipes together and actually have them turn out well!
Hope this helps!
A lot of people here will recommend "Flour Water Salt Yeast" by Ken Forkish:
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
I bought the book and it's helping me change my understanding of time, hydration, temperature, etc. It's taken about a dozen loaves, but mine are starting to look like his loaves he has in his book.
FWSY:
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
Highly recommend the book Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. It's my favorite and I've gotten a ton of compliments on the breads :)
It's from this book. I just got a copy and have only made one recipe so far, but it turned out great. I'd recommend it.
My workout yesterday was pretty damn good. I officially decided to stop taking hormonal birth control, and I'd like to focus on getting down to 170 lbs sooner rather than later so Plan B can be a real option for me should I need it. I was still in the BC induced depressive funk yesterday, but was mostly able to rationalize my way around it. I went for a 20 minute walk in the sweltering heat during lunch. Everything in me was screaming not to run yesterday, but I did so as usual (Hamilton soundtrack was def helpful there). I also tried upping some of my weights just a tad and cutting down on rests between sets. Since I've been focusing on losing weight for almost exactly a year now, I do a program my friend designed me that's low-to-moderate weight, moderate-to-high rep, doable with mostly dumbbells. Did my squats at 40 lbs for 3 sets of 12, supersetting with 40 lb bench press, with almost no rest. It's been a long time since I felt like a I might vomit during a workout, but for some reason it was really satisfying? And I was done with lifting and cardio in a little over an hour which gave me so much time yesterday evening to get other stuff done. A few months ago, it literally took me 2 hours from the time I walked in to the gym to the time I left. Really excited to be getting more efficient.
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Unrelated to fitness, I saw over on r/Breadit today that Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast is on sale for Amazon Kindle (don't have to have a kindle, there's a free app!) for FOUR DOLLARS. I've been wanting to get into bread baking for a long time now, and this book is one of the best and most popular to learn all the things about artisan bread baking (and pizza dough!). It's also usually pretty pricey, so I absolutely jumped all over that sale. I even updated my iPad for the first time in... a few years just to download the Kindle app. I'm going to start reading it on my lunch break in an hour. So, you know, RIP my macros.
I learned using The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. I found it useful in several ways. It has a great section on what materials and tools you'll need and will use, what the quality of your ingredients will need to be in order for the end product to be a certain way and so forth. Also, each recipe has great instructions, and a bit of the history of the recipe. Overall, a great book for the beginning Artisan Bread Baker.
I've also heard that Rose Beranbaum's The Bread Bible is a great resource, but haven't had time to look into it myself.
Hi. I'm Pikul, but this expansion I've been playing Clovenshield because fuck DPS queues. That may change in the near future. (Sorry RoD members who saw the rest of this post in the subreddit).
I run the Raid of Disapproval, coming back after an 8 month hiiatus. We killed Jin'rokh last week, died to Horridon trash, and got trolled by horridon. I'm cautiously optimistic for this week! I'm also a moderator.
This is me and my wife. We have been married for almost 6 years. Although that's not a good picture of me any more since I had LASIK about 2 years ago. This is a better one. I hate most pictures of me since they accentuate both of my chins as seen here
We have a house in Falls Church, VA. If anyone is ever in Washington DC, send me a message and we can grab a beer.
I work here in the Office of Fossil Energy. Not a surprise if you google my name. My office is halfway between the Washington Monument and the Capitol building. I can tell you all about coal plants and EPA Regulations, but don't ask me since I start to ramble on. The only work things worth mentioning are I'm a Six Sigma Black Belt, last year I wrote a paper and presented it at PowerGen International in Cologne Germany, and in 2011, I was on detail over to the Executive Office of the President so I got to say "I work at the White House." Looks good on a resume as well.
My wife works here as a horticulturalist. She maintains the Bishop's garden and it is beautiful.
Graduated from Penn State about 6 years ago as a Mechanical Engineer, and now I'm a grad student at Johns Hopkins , working on a Systems Engineering degree. While at PSU, I went to about 2 football games and have hardly been back since graduating.
Grew up here It's a shitty little town that's claim to fame was the highest grossing wal-mart for 2006. Although, they are on top of a large shale gas formation, which has brought tons of economic development to the area. My wife grew up near there too
These are my pets Tavi the Corgi, Gabriel AKA Pinky the Oriental Short Hair, and Sampson the Bengal). The cats are 11 years old, the puppy is 9 weeks old. He is very demanding and a large part of why I stopped playing for 8 months. Pinky does not like the puppy.
Here I am underwater. The Mrs. and I got our advanced scuba certification last summer - deepest I've been is 100 feet. We are totally spoiled by caribbean diving, which is really warm and crystal clear. The Atlantic is cold and murky. I recommend the ABCs for diving - Antigua, Bonaire, and Cozumel. Cosumel especially - we had a wonderful drift dive and saw a massive Eagle Ray. I want to get better at underwater photography.
I'm an internet ordained minster. I officiated the wedding of two of my best friends. Afterwards, we met up with some other friends and went rafting in Colorado on some Class V rapids. That was fun.
This is some beer that I made. I got really into home brewing over the past year and love to share my craft with other people so I get less fat. I also have a blog but it's not very interesting. Mostly some recipes, one photo journal, and a few sundry items. Most recently, I bought some kegs and got all the gear and shit to put it in my minifridge (or "lagering cabinet). That was fun, but I don't have enough people over to drink it. I have been told on two occasions that "this is the best beer I ever had". I entered a brewing competition last year, and got a 28/50 on my Strawberry Wheat beer. I've gotten better, I might try again later.
I have a guitar that I've been meaning to start playing. I will set a new years resolution for both "play my guitar" and "go to the gym", but I fully intend to break both of those. Homebrewing counteracts any gym activities anyways.
I own a bright green Mazda 2 so I never lose it in a parking lot...unless I park next to an SUV. Then I can't even see it because it is a super tiny car.
In the kitchen, I bake bread from scratch and got pretty good at it (simple techniques make amazing bread), roast my own coffee with a popcorn maker, and really love baking desserts. I'm not too great at decorating or presentation, but boy do I love carbs and sweets.
Faust is a real life friend of mine. If he doesn't post pictures, I can put one of his 6 facebook photos up.
Last, here's a bonus video of when we painted our Horde banner. I thought it was cool since we had to paint it from underneath. It prevents large drips/drops of dye and looked really cool from above.
I think that's about it. If someone knows how I should motivate myself to go to the gym let me know.
Ok your turn.
(And Vote for Pikul)
Moorhead has a community education program including an Artisan Bread Class
My advice would be to buy a copy of Flour Water Salt Yeast and make every loaf in the book.
Got myself the book "Flour Water Salt Yeast" the other day. Been making bread when time allows. In his book, Ken Forkish explains how he uses the Finger Dent method to determine when a dough is at its optimal proofing stage.
Check out the video and pick up his book. I highly recommend it.
Happy baking!
Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. A very pretty bread cookbook. :)
Yep! It's really great, and way easier than you'd expect. I don't make my every day bread, but anytime I'm having people over for dinner or making something special I bake bread. And sometimes I do it just because! I'd recommend checking out Flour Water Yeast if you're definitely interested, or check out some of the beginner bread recipes on the King Arthur Flour site. There is probably a bread subreddit too... Actually, not sure why I never looked.
Bonus: bread from scratch is a gateway to making pizza from scratch, so you can't go wrong!
Bread Baking for Beginners
It depends entirely on your needs and your standards. We bought this inexpensive Oster last summer and love it. Our motivation was that our kids are getting older and starting to devour a lot of bread. Going through 3-4 decent loaves of bread each week at $3 a pop adds up. Is the bread machine loaf as good as what I can make by hand? No. But it's still pretty tasty, a basic recipe costs about $1 in ingredients, and I can pop out a simple sandwich loaf with about 10 minutes of hands-on time, including cleanup. You can't touch that hands-on time by hand, even with a stand mixer (which we also own). And if you're willing to test and tweak recipes a bit and willing to manually intervene at times (shaping the final loaf, for example), you can turn out some darn good bread with it.
The big question in buying a bread machine is how big you want your loaves to be. Specifically, 1.5 lb loaves vs 2 lb loaves. Most machines can make 2 lb loaves, but doing it well really requires a two-paddle model, which are larger, significantly more expensive, and more prone to breakage. If you can live with 1.5 lb loaves, you can get a smaller, cheaper, more durable single-paddle model like the one we have. A 1.5 lb loaf is basically a sandwich for all four of us plus a couple end hunks to gnaw on or a couple extra toast slices. So we make 1 or 2 of those loaves a week and supplement them with store-bought loaves. Still a decent cost savings - I suspect we've already paid for the $70 cost of the unit.
If you get a machine of any type or price, I strongly recommend buying this cookbook along with it. There will be recipes included with the machine, but they don't go into much detail and avoid specifying slightly hard-to-find ingredients like SAF yeast or vital wheat gluten that can really help you get better loaves. Just a little bit of knowledge and investment in the ingredients and technique yields much better results.
I recommend The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. Reinhart is passionate about making good bread, and he's good at explaining why things work. The book has a lot of baker's secrets, such as delayed fermentation. That's pretty much his big thing. This book made me excited about making good bread, and it also vastly improved my bread. I've got a few other bread books now, but this is my favorite.
The Bread Bakers Apprentice is a fantastic starting point, with a ton of explanation about yeast, gluten chemistry, etc. I have a few baking books, but this is my goto bible
http://www.amazon.ca/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688
Recipe used was Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'butter dipped dinner rolls' (From this book: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941)
Here is an online source for the recipe, not sure if it has been changed at all, as I'm at work and can't comparel with my copy: http://www.starchefs.com/chefs/RBeranbaum/html/butter_dipped_r_beranbaum.shtml
And this is how to shape them: http://www.finecooking.com/item/35591/how-to-shape-knotted-dinner-rolls
Edit: recipe is the same, but here are some photos of the ingredient lists as they're also listed in grams for better measuring accuracy: http://imgur.com/a/LV9XP
Ahhhh, my condolences, how tragic!
I'm something of a cookbook minimalist, and keep my personal collection pretty concise; I'm quick to give away books if they've been on my shelf too long without much use. I used to be a cookbook hoarder, but I don't have the space for it anymore, lol.
The cookbooks I have on the shelf rn are Season, The Palestinian Table, Arabesque, Afro-Vegan, Donabe, and several Japanese-language cookbooks.
For dessert-related things, I have Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique, SUQAR, and the Flavor Thesaurus.
for starters, you can take any crust recipe and substitute 1/3 of the white flour with whole wheat and be pretty confident that all will be well. beyond that and you need some new technology, such as adding gluten or peter reinhardt's epoxy process (http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Reinharts-Whole-Grain-Breads/dp/1580087590).
I did the "Overnight White Bread" recipe in FWSY. /r/Breadit turned me on to the book, and its worth checking out if you're into longer ferment times. Several great recipes and lots of insight.
The general recipe is:
Bulk fermentation is 12 - 14 hrs, or until nearly tripled. (Fold 2-3 times in the first hour or two.)
Divide in half, shape and proof (about 1hr.)
Preheat oven with dutch ovens to 475F.
When proofed, flip dough into hot dutch ovens and bake with lids on at 475F for 30 mins.
Uncover and continue baking for an additional 15 - 30 mins to desired color.
Turn out onto racks and let cool.
Edit: formatting
The two main books seem to be Tartine and Flour Water Salt Yeast. I have FWSY and think it's a great resource. I still will do other kinds of bread and don't only stick to this.
To get that nice crust you're looking at a dutch oven, just keep your eyes out for a sale on them. Beyond that a scale, a bowl, and an oven.
/u/p3n9uins's video is pretty nice shows everything for free. :D
Modified Ken Forkish's pure sourdough recipe from his book Flour Water Salt Yeast taking inspiration for quantities from this recipe and this recipe. Needs more and smaller choc chips but otherwise I deem this experiment a winner winner chicken dinner!!
"Flour Water Salt Yeast" by Ken Forkish (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_aJ1sybPYAT05H) gets consistently good reports here.
I'd also recommend "Dough" by Richard Bertinet (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1856267628/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_AH1sybKH7YCJG)
and Paul Hollywood's "Bread" (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408840693/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_-F1syb7TKQJWA)
I LOVE Bread Baking for Beginners. From a woman who runs Alchemy Bread in Modesto (if you do Instagram she has an awesome feed and will even respond to DM’s).
Bread Baking for Beginners: The Essential Guide to Baking Kneaded Breads, No-Knead Breads, and Enriched Breads https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641521198/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_IbIxCbWRR6KTA
I had never really baked bread before, I got this for Christmas and now I bake a loaf or two a week!
Its a book, also
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals-ebook/dp/B007SGLZH6
The Bread Baker's Apprentice is a fantastic book.
If you want a good book on the subject, you need "Flour Water Salt Yeast".
Got me making bread I was very proud of in a very short amount of time.
Try some of the recipes on the left sidebar here: http://www.breadtopia.com/ As already suggested, the ATK (cooks illustrated) one is great.
I also got a lot of great recipes to try from the book that I checked out from the library: http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
and I just use regular gold medal or king arthur unbleached flour.
I wouldn't say it's an exaggeration to call it life changing. Has completely ruined me on store bought bread, and it's changed the way I eat, and spend my time, and probably has helped with mental health too (it can be really meditative)
These are the two books that got me going.
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0811870413/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480822865&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=tartine+bread
If you want to learn bread (trust me, you do), Flour Water Salt Yeast is amazing. Very in depth of why each specific reaction occurs, what will happen if you do x instead of y, etc. Also, the ebook is only like $3.
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_H8zKzbEDERZ01
I literally googled it:
So you want to start a pizza shop
Hell, maybe you can start by doing it from your own home.
Or start a mobile pizza shop By the way this link is to an actual magazine devoted to the pizza business (the internet never ceases to amaze me.)
or start out at the farmers market (Holy gazebos! Another link to a site devoted to the pizza business. TIL: a lot of people are in the pizza business).
I assume you already know this as a network engineer, but google is your friend.
Ask it lots and lots of questions. Also depending on the state you are in you might have meet-up groups that you can join (small business/entrepreneur). Also look into your local small business/chamber of commerce organizations. They might have seminars or other resources that you can use (especially on taxes).
This guy sounds like he was in your situation, maybe write directly to people like him and ask them. What sources they would recommend you use to get started. It might be that you write 50 people and 2 respond, but hey, they are experts in the field and might have really good advice. Just make the letter sound personal and not copy and pasted.
As far as inspiring you I would recommend you watch the original kitchen nightmares series that was filmed in the UK (US series is horribly over dramatic) you can still find them on youtube (I think). I really believe Gordon drops some really good nuggets of information on how to run and operate a food business, especially from the chef's perspective.
Get the book "The Elements of Pizza". If you are going to make pizza, make it the best possible.
And finally my only real advice is:
That is it my friend. Good luck and have fun storming the castle!
e: Couldn't resist two Princess Bride quotes in one post.
This Allen Scott book is awesome. It even includes plans. You can also get the digital version in google books. Im planning on building an oven soon, hopefully this summer..Good luck!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bread-Builders-Hearth-Masonry/dp/1890132055
Recipe here. I hate having my computer/books out while i'm baking (flour gets everywhere), so I write my recipes on a chalkboard in my kitchen.
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!
edit: Recipe is courtesy of The Bread Bible
edit 2: Thanks to /u/breadbandito for the temperature/slashing tips!
Start with a textbook, like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Baking-Pastry-Mastering-Art-Craft/dp/0470928654/
Of course, the primarily British products and British-named products won't be listed.
> The tartine method?
Dude who runs a San Francisco bakery wrote a book about high-hydration sourdough baked at home in a dutch oven, came out in 2010 and changed the game.
Read this blog post for one guys perspective: http://www.breadwerx.com/embarrassing-problem-tartine-envy/
Unfortunately, there are few recipes that are actually fool proof, as bread baking is more about technique than ingredients. Understanding the fundamentals of the bread baking process such as mixing, gluten development, and fermentation will really help increase your bread baking proficiency. A lot of people start out with no-knead recipes, but I don't think that helps anybody actually understand bread baking.
Learning how to make a great sourdough starts with knowing the basics. There's seriously a lot of great information in the sidebar, and I would check out the Recommended Reading and FAQs page as a starting point.
Once you get your toes wet, there's some great books out there including the aforementioned Flour, Water, Salt Yeast as well as Jeffry Hamelman's Bread.
I have a lot of bread books, and I will recommend Hamelman's Bread until I die. And then I will be cremated with it.
I've been baking bread professionally for 6 or 7 years and it is, by far, the book I reference the most. Accessible for beginners, but substantial enough for a professional. The levain (sourdough) section is wonderful and informative.
I rarely recommend Tartine for beginners. Chad's high hydration doughs can be really unforgiving for some and will quickly deter the less... determined. That being said, if you find yourself enjoying the pursuit, Chad Robertson is the king of artisan bread in the States, and that book does have a lot to offer. I do love it.
Also, I generally suggest avoiding Peter Reinhart when it comes to learning sourdough.
Baranbaum is always a good resource and this is literally a Baking Bible.
The Baking Bible
I used the recipe in the Bouchon Bakery cookbook by Thomas Keller - best of luck, happy baking!!
Bouchon Bakery
If you want to dive deep into irl breadmaking check out the Tartine recipe book!
So this isn't exactly in line with what you're thinking... but by far my favorite use of my dutch oven has been making bread. Tartine Bread is a fantastic book that teaches how to make some of the best sourdough bread I've ever had and it very much hinges on using a dutch oven.
I'm not sure I would exactly call it a cookbook as it really only tells you how to make one thing... but that one thing is incredible.
If you are really interested in baking bread I would suggest getting the starting Bread book and the cast iron pan it recommends in it. The bread really isn't a ton of work, tastes great and is much better than anything you can make in a bread machine.
https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419978179&sr=8-1&keywords=baking+bible
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Cooking-Cooks-Illustrated-Cookbooks/dp/1933615982/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419978172&sr=8-2&keywords=science+of+baking
I'll echo the suggestions for finding one used. I got an old Breadman off Craigslist for $10. I recently bought a bread machine cookbook (used), and a whole new world has opened up.
I’ve been experimenting with multiple bagel recipes over the last couple of weeks using a myriad of different flours, yeasts, and techniques.
The Serious Eats bagels (left) created a slightly tighter crumb that did not fall so much. Otherwise, I can’t say there was a huge difference in overall chew. Stella Parks uses a Japanese technique called “yukone” that is supposed to aid in preservation and longevity.
I cannot seem to prevent the Chefsteps bagels (right) from losing height in the boiling and baking process. These bagels have a fantastically chewy texture but the crumb is not as tight as I was hoping for. The flavor is very good though.
Edit: I’ve also made bagels according to The Bread Baker’s Apprentice that were perfectly good bagels but not as extraordinary as I’m hoping for. The article describing professional bagel shops did encourage me to buy a special high-protein (14%) flour and Stella Parks made me start questioning the yeast I’ve previously used so I’ve been experimenting with instant dry yeast. I’m planning to try the method produced by ATK using vital wheat gluten but I don’t know if this step becomes moot since I already have a high-gluten flour.
/r/Breadit
As others have said, bread is surprisingly easy. In my opinion, in terms of effort-to-payoff it is probably one of the best things to cook. Loads of fun with lots of room to develop, practice, and perfect too.
I'm a big advocate of The Bread Baker's Apprentice as a beginner's resource for learning the fundamentals of baking, why things are done in certain ways, and so on. It's also full of just about any bread recipe you could want.
My boyfriend's mom loves the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's definitely... thorough. I feel like you Really have to be into bread to follow it. It's not for beginners.
We were given a bread machine so that really takes all of the artistry out of it but it's consistent and easy and fast so I'm a big fan. As I said elsewhere, I'm not a big baker so I don't get the joy of baking bread, it's just a pain in the ass to me.
i've made a lot from http://smittenkitchen.com/recipes/#Bread
a good chunk of them come from peter reinhart's the bread baker's apprentice
the potato rosemary bread is pretty great.
I started by going through the Bread Bakers Apprentice. I don't really use any of the recipes in there anymore but it gave me a good starting point and it's still a good reference for terminology and methods. Like, it got me really into ciabatta bread from that book. I'm still tweaking my recipe to perfect it.
Starter is a whole different beast. I've used the method found in this youtube series to make mine. He's got a series on sourdough bread, but that channel's non-bread content is pretty fantastic as well.
If you don't have one, I'd highly recommend a kitchen scale. Recipes using grams is so much easier/better than using volume. Also, don't buy those little packets of yeast at the grocery store if you're planning on making bread more than twice a year. You can find two pound bags of dry active yeast on amazon for ~$10.
Dave's killer bread, the power seed one in particular. Really good stuff.
You could also make your own. Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor had some really good formulas. You can find some of the formulas on various blogs as well.
Honestly, I think most foreign students will be all right; college campuses are their own unique environment, and in most major cities (which is where I'm sure you'd probably want to study), foreign students are pretty common so there'd be nothing to really worry about. I could see Arab students having some worries, but even then I think it would be a bit of a stretch in most parts of the country.
----
Favorite cookbooks:
Those are the three I use pretty regularly. I have a few more but I use them for specific dishes or as reference for flavors (Ratio being a fine example of this).
Favorite dishes (I'm restricting this to ones I can cook myself):
Check out this book. You'll need a dutch oven (I've also used a pizza stone and upside down pot), kitchen scale (absolutely necessary for bread making) and some mixing bowls.
The recipes in the book will make two boules each, You can scale to one or three or however many you want. I make two, once they're cool cut each in half and freeze what I won't eat. I find the bread will last about a week on the counter either in a plastic bag or wrapped in a towel. I toast it though so if you're looking for fluffy soft bread maybe this isn't your thing.
/u/buddyguything knows what’s up. My starter did this once and I started a new one simultaneously with only dark rye flour. I slowly blended the two together when the rye starter was about 7 days old because I didn’t want to loose that unique tang my original girl had. It worked far better than I had hoped and she bounced back like crazy. I now use a 50/50 mix of dark rye and unbleached white flour (just for taste preference) with dechlorinated water to feed my girl. I like the flavour the dark rye gives the loaves and because of its lower gluten content I find it’s much easier to mix up. Check out The Perfect Loaf. His method is what I used and he has a great section on how to start and maintain a wicked starter. Or better yet borrow or get yourself a copy of FWSY if you don’t have it already. Combining the methods those two bakers use has really upped my starter and sourdough game. Let us know how it worked out!
I'm definitely no pro, but I make a few loaves every month (and use a ton of the dough I make for pizzas). I swear by This book. Everything I've made from it has been great, and it has good sections on basic techniques.
Otherwise, follow this no-knead recipe.It really doesn't get any easier than that, and the bread that comes out is fantastic.
Because I dislike seeing food w/o a recipe: Crust is from Ken Forkish's FWSY, allowed to age/ferment overnight in the fridge, and sauce is my own version of Serious Eat's New York Style pizza sauce. A little olive oil in the bottom the pan and the crust is perfectly cripsy.
If you have done any lurking on Breadit, you'll notice that the community is a big fan of Flour Water Salt Yeast (FWSY), and the Kindle edition is only 2.99. He does a great job explaining the keeping and care of sourdough starter, as well as different flour combinations that make for a tasty starter. It's also nice because he gives examples of how to play with recipes and starter to really make it your own, as well as explaining (with pictures) about folding, and mixing.
His book is also great because it gives you some a variety of recipes that include all sorts of fermentation, so you can practice with something that is a little easier and work your way up to a full sourdough style bread. I'm also pretty new to sourdough bread and it's been a very helpful piece of literature as I've been experimenting with my bakes.
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0owQi_U44c
I really like Water Flour Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish: http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
It’s a recipes book called Flour Water Salt Yeast. It comes in pretty highly recommended by r/Breadit
Sure! That's the final product. Recipe follows:
I followed the Saturday White Bread in this book.
1000 grams of flour
780 grams of lukewarm water
4 grams of instant yeast
22 grams of sea salt.
Combine the water and flour loosely. Let sit for half an hour.
Then sprinkle the yeast and salt over it. Fold it gently three or four times.
Then let it rise for 5 hours, folding two more times during that time. Just make sure to not fold the last hour.
Then take the dough out. Divide and shape into two loaves. Throw those in proofing baskets. Let them proof for an hour and 15 minutes.
20 mins prior, preheat the oven to 475 with the dutch ovens in.
Once its ready, place the loafs into a dutch oven each. Bake for 30 minutes lid on, then 20 minutes lid off. Done!
EDIT: For those who are thinking of getting the book, be warned: it's not really for beginners. Which I am. So there were a lot of really frustrating loaves before I got the hang of it.
Keep away from the commercial yeast. Your starter is probably not active enough, and your gluten not strong enough.
A lot of people, including myself, had success using the recipes and techniques in Flour Water Salt Yeast. You’ll see many posts talking about “FWSY” — it’s this book. Give it a try!
I posted a few more pictures on my page here. I should have taken more pictures of the dough making itself. You can get the book from Amazon here
or PM me for snap shots of the recipe from the book.Update: okay, I finally got the recipe loaded to imgur.
Vakar baigiau Mąstymas, greitas ir lėtas. Labai rekomenduoju kam įdomu kokiu būdų veikia mūsų pačių mąstymas.
Sekanti eilėje Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza
The Bread Builders by Dan Wing and Alan Scott.
In addition to the process from grain > baking, there is a nice section on how to bake in a wood fired oven, how to build one, how to manage the heat, and there is an interview with a german microbiologist about sourdough starters and their makeup.
Deceptive Desserts?
https://www.amazon.com/Deceptive-Desserts-Ladys-Guide-Baking/dp/194139339X
It's a popular book.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SGLZH6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Welcome to the hobby!
I like this book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's got a bunch of great recipes and goes over the history of bread and a number of traditional techniques, with pictures! Other popular books are Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast and The Tartine Bread book.
A dough scraper, a lame (it's pronounced"lahhm", it's French), a banneton, some decent size mixing bowls with lids, kitchen scale, measuring cups and spoons, pizza stone/s, caste iron Dutch oven (for no Knead bread, super easy place to start), an oven I suppose would help if you don't already have one (extra points if it goes to 550*F).
And to save your arms, a good quality mixer. It'll be expensive up front, but I would recommend splurging on a good quality, reputable brand mixer and it'll last you 30 years if you take care of it. The purists will tell you you HAAAAAVE to knead by hand, and it's definitely a skill you should develop, but it's not absolutely necessary and some recipes would be nearly impossible without one. It'll save you a lot of time, effort and headache.
Anyway, all that should definitely get you started. Not all of it is necessary to start, but you seem pretty interested and serious about it, so I want to set you up for success.
I did the EXACT same thing a year ago.
Now my cupboard is stuffed with bread flour, and fridge is full of yeast, and I'm on the verge of baking sandwich loaves every week instead of buying it.
Recently acquired "the bread baker's apprentice", and it's full of win.
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688
That depends on what kind of bread you'd like to make. Are you interested in poundcake type breads (banana bread/carrot cake), quick breads (biscuits, scones), sandwich type enriched breads (sandwich loaves, cinnamon rolls), artisan bread (glutenous inside, crisp crust, high flavor; ie. French baguettes). There's a lot to aim for.
My personal suggestion would be to pick up Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day. His book covers pretty much all the major areas of breadmaking (except for poundcakes), using simple, proven recipes that are designed to maximize flavor and texture in the home kitchen. I feel it's a great place to start because the recipes are pretty much bulletproof and filled with just enough detail to explain what's going on without being cumbersome. Think of it as a more simple, advanced-beginner oriented, version of The Bread Baker's Apprentice that is one of the handful of gold-standard breadmaking books (the other being Bread by Jeffery Hamelman).
I've also heard great things about The Breadbaker's Apprentice, although I haven't read it yet. I do like your book's idea of mixing/kneading in the morning and letting the dough sit in the fridge all day.
You should read this. Making a good dough is less about Pizza and more about baking bread in general. If you learn those techniques then you pizza will get better.
I make all my own bread. Organic WW bread here costs $5/loaf. I buy 25 kg (55 lb) of local organic WW flour for $32. The recipe I use (from this ) makes 1 loaf/lb (though I make smaller loaves, 4 per 3 lbs), so about 60 cents/loaf for flour. The recipe also calls for ~75 cents more worth of ingredients (milk, oil, sugar, yeast). All told, it's under $1.50/loaf. I make 4 at a time, and freeze 3 to eat during the week.
However, even if quality store-bought bread was a similar price, I would still make my own, because it's fresh and tastes fantastic.
First I will point you to The Fresh Loaf, as I once was, if you aren't already familiar with it. There is a lot of information on there, as well as beautiful breads that are posted daily to serve as inspiration.
As for books, what got me started was Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. I knew not a thing about bread making before buying this book, and I can assure you that it is very user friendly. It is very descriptive and easy to follow, and you will yield amazing results by simply following close instruction.
Once I was comfortable enough to expand my repertoire, I picked up Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. He's regarded as one of the best authors for bread making books and for good reason. You can tell the guy knows what he's talking about as he provides you with an easy breakdown of what and why you will be doing something with simple steps. This one covers a broader range of baked goods (baguettes, cinnamon rolls, crumb cake and more) so you can have fun experimenting.
Happy baking!
My boyfriend is the baker of the house, and his favorite baking books are all by Peter Reinhart -- this is the book he uses every week to make our house bread. But basically everything from this book is delicious.
Reinharts uses weight in his measurements too. :)
> flour, water, salt, yeast
If anybody is interested in trying to make their own
Most breads don't need eggs or butter. Flour, salt, water and yeast is all you need. There's even a cookbook called "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast"
Not OP, but bread in general with a Dutch oven is super easy. All you need is time (8-18 hour to proof) and 4 ingredients—water, salt, yeast and flour. This is my go to easy no knead dutch oven bread recipe. Note, it is not sourdough. I’ve found that water temp at 113.5F seems to work the best and I substitute APF for bread flour at a 1:1 ratio.
You can then get fancy with a proofing bowl like OP used to get the geocentric circles and also start playing around with different starters/flours. You can use whole wheat flour in the above recipe but remember you can’t substitute whole wheat flour 1:1, the max you can do is 50% whole wheat flour so use 1.5 cups whole wheat flour and 1.5 cups APF/bread flour and increase the water to 1 3/4 cups of water. Check your local grocery store, they may have sourdough starters you can buy.
Experiment and have fun with it. I make bread probably 3-4 times per month. The hardest part is just planning out the time to proof the dough. If you really get into it, you’ll probably like this book Flour Water Salt Yeast.
So most of my cookbooks are either text dense reference manuals or obnoxiously difficult like The French Laundry Cookbook, but here's a few that are relatively simple with excellent photography:
La Cocina - Cookbook from an organization in San Francisco that teaches low income people to successfully grow food businesses. Photos are incredible.
-
The Berkeley Bowl Cookbook - Excellent photos with a lot of obscure produce.
-
Ad Hoc at Home - Thomas Keller's family style recipes with wonderful photography.
-
Flour Water Salt Yeast - Focused on baking bread and making pizza, but a lot of step by step photos and some awesome pictures of the final product.
FWSE. Worth every penny.
What is missing with the bread you are making? What makes it not 'sourdough'? Taste? texture? etc? Do you have any pictures that we could work from?
What's your starter feeding schedule? How long do you feed it before you make bread with it. You shouldn't make bread immediately after feeding it, I have found about a day after feeding it is a good time. Also, how old is your starter, older starters have better flavor (no real hard line, I have a 25+year old starter that always delivers)
How long do you let it proof? Good sourdough needs to proof 8+ hours, Going faster and using instant yeast with the starter will make it a more mild flavor.
I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
The levain section covers everything about working with starters.
It is pretty much how flamingbabyjesus said. It is more of a process than a recipe. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/ this is a very good resource. I have Flour Water Salt Yeast wich explains all the steps, and ive heard that Tartine is also a very good book.
p.s A skale is very importaint.
NYT no knead bread - best if you have a Dutch oven (you can get one amazon for like 30 bucks)
Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls - best cinnamon rolls ever, I usually half the recipe. For frosting, hers is a bit too extravagant. I just use powered sugar, melted butter and water/milk til you get the consistency you like
Sourdough Starter Recipe - it cuts out buying yeast and the need to prove it. This will also serve as a catalyst for other types of bread in the future.
FWSY - the Holy Grail of bread cooking books
And as someone already pointed out r/breadit
Also, not sure what country you're in, but try catching the Great British Baking Show on Netflix (streams in US). I've been watching it recently and it's definitely inspired me to bake all sorts of goodies.
Good luck!
salt is critical. Just as important as yeast.
buy and read this book.
baking is a science. You are like god creating a world for your yeast to live in... then you cook their entire world and eat it!
yea i was kidding about faygo. Beer is indeed the best combo for pizza. I prefer newcastle with a double cheese, red pepper, and sausage pizza.
Amazon is probably the cheapest option for all the equipment you need.
Here's a bunch of equipment you'll want to grab:
Winco Winware Stainless Steel Dough Scraper with Wood Handle https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0017HUR9E/
10" Round Banneton Brotform https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01MQA0BMT/
Mercer Culinary Offset Serated Bread Knife https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01F35UGWS
Flour Water Salt Yeast: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/160774273X
You'll also want to grab a clear round plastic storage container for your starter. Amazon doesn't have any good deals on them but it seems like Walmart/Home Depot/Gourmet Warehouse may have some. FWSY has a recommendation on a size, can't remember off the top of my head.
Once Flourist opens up it'll be the place to grab your flour from.
Hey,
My girlfriend and I usually just kind of wing it and approximate the ratios. There's a lot of great recipes online, or you could check out places like r/breadit & this book http://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X
For this bread specifically we replaced the water with half water and half tomato sauce.
Could just be that he made it on Saturday, but might be Ken Forkish's recipe "The Saturday White Bread" from Flour Water Salt Yeast
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish has given us the best pizza we've ever made. The dough is so effing good. Highly, highly recommend this book.
You should get Ken Forkish's (the author of FWSY) book about pizza. Just as good!
The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774838X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_8gqUCbP2BHMRJ
It’s from Alchemy Bread’s book: Bread Baking for Beginners
Bread Baking for Beginners
I'm currently working on bread, learning bread, being confident with yeast and the whole 'judging' things in terms of proofing and the like...basically i'm still on the first recipe, third try this weekend, and I thought i had it right in my head, but instead of letting the water and yeast go for a few minutes, I let it go for 20 (20 minutes is the second step)
I can say if you've ever had 'bread fear' - this book will help you
I got the recipe from Bread Baking for Beginners !
Normally I would share the recipe, but the author is a self-taught baker who runs a bakery in her home. I’ve learned so much from this book and I strongly recommend :)
http://www.amazon.com/Deceptive-Desserts-Ladys-Guide-Baking/dp/194139339X
cook book of sorts
Heh, Artisan Bread Steve! Best old bread making dude in the business. /u/icyblack introduced me to that recipe! I make that no-knead bread all the time. I also make the Serious Eats pizza dough. I've made both over 20 times each.
Not to get too technical about it, but they are different recipes. The hydration is different and the pizza dough uses oil.
Pizza dough requires more time for gluten production and TBH, flavor production.
If you use the bread process (which is SUPER short for any risen dough) you will get dough that will not be spreadable to fill the pan, it will lack gluten production. It will also lack flavor. The pizza dough needs at least 8 hours. I think the 24 hour dough is even better.
TLDR: No, you can't. You need the 8-24 hours for pizza dough. Sorry.
Also, someone else mentioned /r/Breadit which is an excellent resource.
If you want a real technical explanation of gluten production and baker's percentages, read Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast.
Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish was my gateway bread book. Pretty straight forward technique/recipes - good stuff.
Also:
/r/breadit or/and /r/breaddit are amazing.
Good luck!
Here is my photo album with different angles.
bottom
crumb
This is my first try at making something other than no knead bread. I followed the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day recipe here and here pretty closely, but added a bit more water to the poolish because I thought it looked too dry. I baked it at 475F for 25 minutes instead of the instructed 20 minutes to give it more color.
I think it came out alright for my first try. I'm surprised that it tastes pretty good - it has a nice crispy, crackling crust that shatters when I bite into it. It's seasoned well too, the salt brings out a lot of flavor. The crumb is more dense than I hoped for - I think it's because I over kneaded the dough. Obviously, I need to work on the shape.
Honestly, I prefer this drier type of bread compared to all of the no knead bread I've been making - it's not so moist and spongy in the middle.
Tips and critiques welcome!
Check out: http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312813772&sr=8-1 and the related books. They have it all figured out.
You may be interested in this book "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes". Essentially, you make the dough on the weekend, break off a piece here and there, shape it, and throw it in the oven.
http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333294847&sr=8-1
I doubly recommend the digital kitchen scale & Cook's Illustrated cookbooks. I also recommend:
If money is no object, how about a promise to a romantic dinner for 2 at a top rated restaurant like Per Se?
I've heard really good things about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.
The Bread Bible
I run our parish's annual yard sale. The things I can guarantee will be there every year are bread machines and exercise machines (we no longer accept piano's because disposing of those after the sale is too expensive). Obviously there must be people who use them, because they are still being made, but if your wife has a stand mixer, I suspect your gift would be ay my next yard sale. If you want to honor her for baking bread, perhaps The Bread Bible would be a better choice.
If you want the simplest no-knead approach as a foundation for variations, I'd recommend Jim Lahey's My Bread. He's less up-tight about details than Ken Forkish, but the bread is just as great, and there is a lot more variety (e.g. carrot bread, olive bread, cheese bread, coconut-chocolate bread). But it's not a comprehensive recipe book.
If you want a more traditional book of recipes, I'd say check out Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice or Beranbaum's Bread Bible.
Jim Lahey's book my bread is fantastic. He uses the basic no-knead recipe but tweaks it in fantastic ways. He also goes into some different styles (ciabatta, baguette, foccacia, etc.) and some great go-withs (like homemade aioli for sandwiches). Highly recommended to advance from where you're at right now.
I talked about this method in another thread. My Bread by Jim Lahey
it's full of easy, hard to screw up, and great tasting bread recipes.
Alright, so the way to get from where you are now to this is to use a cast iron pot and follow Jim Lahey's directions here. Go to the library and get his book, both that one and the new My Pizza are awesome. The cast iron pot traps steam which combined with the high heats lets you get good 'spring' and a nice rich crispy crust. I've done this recipe with lots of diffent flours and they have much less of an effect on the overall outcome than good technique. It can be a bit scary handling a 500 degree cast iron pot but after a few attempts it gets pretty easy. A Lodge cast iron dutch oven like this will work great but I suggest replacing the knob on top with a metal version found here. Good luck!
Textbook croissant.
The CIA baking might be a good place to start. CIA Baking and Pastry
It is the basic country white from Tartine Bread. He uses the recommended cast iron combo cooker and scores it exactly as the recipe describes.
You can read the recipe here or buy the book.
not sure how much I can help...
I've "captured" several starters over the years. I use the pineapple juice and rye flour method described here: https://breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter/ (see the rather long essay linked from that page for a truly in-depth analysis of the process). I really enjoy the result from a whole-grain coarse rye flour I get from a local specialty supplier, but i've had success with normal grocery store rye as well. After about 3 or 4 days of reliable activity, I transition off juice to plain water and a 50/50 white/whole wheat flour "spiked" with a little of the left-over rye.
Once I have a healthy starter, I use the Tartine recipe/process from the Tartine Bread book, but since we don't eat so much bread (only two of us) I usually do a 500g half recipe for a single loaf.
Good luck!!
edit: forgot to mention, i don't really put much stock in the "float" test... I typically just look for lots of bubbles. I also keep my starter in glass or clear plastic which aids in checking for healthy bubbles
http://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
:)
https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Book-Techniques-Recipes/dp/1118132718
He's got a really great comprehensive section on braiding, even weaving, different kinds of dough. I find it really helpful.
If bread is what you want to learn, I highly suggest buying
Crust and Crumb by Peter Reinhart
Or
Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman
And if you like rye breads I highly highly recommend
The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg
Honestly I can't recommend The Rye Baker enough, it quickly became my favorite bread book.
I love my bread machine. I don't even like to eat bread that I didn't make anymore (unless from a legit bakery).
This cookbook has been so fun to go through! And informative for the bread making newbies - The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook: A Master Baker's 300 Favorite Recipes for Perfect-Every-Time Bread-From Every Kind of Machine https://www.amazon.com/dp/155832156X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_fb0SCbS9Z29T2
You think Pinterest stuff is hard https://www.amazon.com/Bouchon-Bakery-Thomas-Keller-Library/dp/1579654355
Just a some that likes cooking alot here. Maybe pick one of these bad boys up and start playing.
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0470421355
http://www.amazon.com/Ad-Hoc-Home-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579653774/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Bouchon-Bakery-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579654355/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-2&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/French-Laundry-Cookbook-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579651267/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-3&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Bouchon-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579652395/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-4&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Under-Pressure-Cooking-Sous-Vide/dp/1579653510/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-6&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Momofuku-David-Chang/dp/030745195X/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373677797&sr=1-9&keywords=thomas+keller+cookbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373678139&sr=8-1&keywords=ratio
I love baking :) I mostly do artisan breads and cookies, and homemade pizza (good pizza starts with good crust!!) but every now and then I'll get on a pie or cupcake kick for a little while.
Ciabatta is probably my favorite bread to
makeEat. I also really love homemade pretzels because not only are they delicious, but I can play around with shaping them and make something that is really pretty as well as tasty.My favorite thing ever is This baking stone It's a lot more expensive than many other stones, but it has been totally worth it. I had 4 others before I finally picked this one up that all ended up cracking in half. This one has lasted me 3 years so far, and I can actually WASH the thing without fear of it exploding next time I use it.
mm... I would also recommend This book to anyone interested in learning to make bread. Its really good and easy to follow, and you can really feel the authors passion for the art.
Recipe is from here although I have seen it on some blogs both here and here
There was a great book on bread that made the blog rounds, but this is my favourite recipe. I've been making it since I was 8, and it's pretty damn foolproof.
Go here. You'll need an accurate oven thermometer, pizza stone and a peel and your parents will soon toss the bread machine in the dumpster.
No. Find yourself a copy of this book on the internet (or just the recipe). Make dough once every few weeks, don't knead, make excellent fresh bread in two seconds. Total cost 15¢.
I use the recipes from this book https://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919 and the technique from this book (sequel to the one above) https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Bread-Five-Minutes-Day/dp/0312545525/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0312545525&pd_rd_r=1ZHJ521YQCR1VCC1EYAJ&pd_rd_w=EqWcS&pd_rd_wg=WcpLj&psc=1&refRID=1ZHJ521YQCR1VCC1EYAJ for no-knead bread. It's mind-boggling fast and easy compared to kneaded bread, and I'm famous in my community for my incredible bread.
The term for the rest in the fridge is usually called "retarding" because the low temperature is slowing down the action of the yeast.
It's a great, and popular way to do home breads. The book Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day is based on this technique (disclaimer - I do this alot but I don't own the book and I don't like some of the terms the authors use like "sourdough-like qualities" which I think is deceiving the reader, but that's just me).
I cannot claim to have made the "perfect" loaf, but I came pretty damn close a couple of times, using no-knead based recipes from this book.
The recipes in here work on the same principal as the Sullivan Street Bakery no-knead bread recipe that's floating around the internet, where you have a long rest and rise period do most of the work. This book is great b/c it has a lot of different recipes in there beyond the basic "master recipe" (Their recipe for a crusty white bread that is similar to a French Boule).
I assume when you're talking about a white loaf, you mean something akin to sandwhich bread. The one that came out closest to this was their Buttermilk white loaf recipe . I've made this twice, and it is probably some of the tastiest sandwhich bread ever to come out of my oven. Theres also a white bread recipe in there that uses shortening or butter, so its supposed to be more like a soft "wonder-bread" consistency, but I never tried it.
I would post the recipe for you to see, but you know ... I don't want to get sued or anything :)
Not at all, this book starts off very easy. It's this book!
Some recipes are fussy with temperatures and time for rising/proofing etc, but this book literally has you throw your water, salt, yeast, and flour into a big container, let it rest at room temp for 2 hours, and then refrigerate for up to like 2 weeks. When you want to make bread, you just cut off a chunk, shape it with a touch more flour, let it rest for 40 minutes, and bake. Super easy!
These look icky. Recipe looks unreliable, too. If you want a good bagel recipe, I suggest you buy this book:
http://www.amazon.ca/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348260951&sr=8-1
...and follow the bagel recipe in here, because it's delicious and much better. Actually, all of their bread recipes are awesome, and super fast to make, and because it's homemade it's definitely budget-friendly. I have this book and their Artisan Pizza and Flatbreads book as well, and I love 'em.
I'm a fan of The Bread Bible
I have made bagels of all sorts and I can tell you that the absolute best I've ever made are found in Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. This of course assumes that you like chewy bagels and not the fluffy things that get sold in stores. I hope you have a good mixer, because the dough is hardcore!
P.S. The recipe calls for some ground black pepper. I know you are going to look at that and think "WTF? I'll just skip that". Don't. It is not for a super powerful taste of pepper but gives an interesting flavor.
Just want to be sure: You are talking about this book? Right?
I love that book. Also I have The Bread Bible
Though it is out on loan, now, to someone I will likely never see again. Argh.
Ok I'm going to start with yeast which from here seems to be the culprit.
First off types of yeast:
Fresh
Also called called cake yeast this is non dried non grain yeast, I've never seen it in stores and only seen it in a few recipes. Most of the time the only people who use this are professional bakeries. Pretty much only here for posterity's sake. If you find a recipe generally you can substitute one of the two bellow adjusting your liquids as needed.
Active Dry
This is pretty standard stuff it has been dried and has fairly large grains. It is best stored in the refrigerator or freezer to keep it fresh, remember yeast is a living organism. Must be proofed before using (more on this later).
Instant
Also available in stores the grains are much smaller than active dry and do not need to be proofed. The smaller grains and possibly the way it is produced mean that it has a greater effect than active dry yeast. You can substitute one for the other. To use instant in the place of active dry reduce the amount by 25% so 1 teaspoon of active dry becomes 3/4 teaspoon instant. You can work the other way too just be sure to use 25% more of active dry when replacing instant.
Now lets look at the physiology of yeast and see what makes it tick. Yeast is a living organism we carefully add it to recipe allow it to grow and multiply to give us the effects we desire. Then we kill it. Cheerful thought.
So first we allow the yeast to grow. Yeast needs a few things to prosper: food, warmth, and a suitable environment. Yeast like everything else needs food to survive, we use sugars and the flour itself. Yeast uses any sugar (honey, cane sugar, malt) you add to a recipe to grow and in return it creates carbon dioxide, the air bubbles in bread which makes dough rise and makes the difference between cooked flour and bread. Yeast also breaks down some of the proteins in flour and converts them to simple sugars. Secondly yeast needs warmth to grow if you keep it in the fridge or freezer you slow the growth and you can prolong the life of the yeast. On the flip side when you want to encourage growth you need to make sure that there is enough heat to be active. So when you want your dough to rise leave it somewhere warm but not hot. Most places recommend something around 70 to 80 degrees if you can manage it. A laundry room is a good option. Just make sure it does not exceed 120 degrees because that is about when yeast will start to die.
This leads us to the second half, killing yeast. Killing yeast can be pretty easy and I suspect it happened inadvertently in a few of your loaves. First as mentioned above if it is too hot your yeast will die, this includes any water you add as a good rule of thumb your body temperature is ~96 degrees so if water feels neutral to you that's about how hot it is. Try to get a digital instant read thermometer. They are pretty cheap and very handy, you can also use it to check the internal temperature of bread to see if it is done. Secondly is the environment, direct contact with salt kills yeast. Most recipes will tell you to add the salt and yeast separately allowing each to mix into the flour so direct contact is not made.
Now to sum this all up into one topic technique, proofing. Proofing is what you do when you take the yeast (generally active dry) and add it yo the water you are going to be using in the recipe and allow it to sit for 10 minutes or so The water allows the yeast to wake up and start being active, you will see bubbles form on the surface, thus prooving that your yeast is alive. Some recipes tell you to add a pinch of sugar to the water, this gives they yeast something to process. Just make sure you don't add all the sugar the recipe calls for. This can cause a period of high activity and then a sudden crash when the yeast over exerts itself. The end result is a longer rise time. Instant yeast doesn't need to be proofed since the smaller grains dissolve instantly on contact with the dough but I do it anyway sometimes just to help get things started.
This is about all I have for yeast, a few other points I have. Salt is very important, it greatly affects the taste of the loaf and helps control the growth of the yeast. Check to see if your recipe was calling for kosher salt or table salt. Table salts grains are much finer and result in a much more concentrated amount per spoonful than kosher. Salt also has the annoying habit of attracting water molecules from the air causing it to swell, this changes the actual amount of salt you get in a spoonful. Try and go by weight if you can. A scale is an enormously useful tool for baking. Flour has a tendency to get packed down when scooped certain ways affecting the total amount you are actually adding to the recipe. Scoop and sweep is a good middle of the road approach that a lot of people use. My last point is that of freshness, see how old your yeast is you may need some new stuff, how long it lasts has a lot to do with how often it gets warm and where its kept. Yeast can last around a year in a freezer.
Finally for an excellent intro to baking try The Bread Bible you have to have a certain amount of conviction to name a book the anything bible but Rose Levy Beranbaum leaves no doubt that her book deserves the title. She carefully explains what you are doing and why in extremely detailed and percise instructions leaving little room for error.
Well that was quite the wall of text :p don't give up on baking yet. Send me a PM if you have any more questions or just want to chat. Good luck!
No real need to buy a book unless you want to this http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393057941/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1420742471&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=51IPIUozm7L&ref=plSrch is a great one.
I would check out www.thefreshloaf.com it's probably my favorite bread site around. A lot of the recipes deal with ratios and weights. That can be a bit confusing, but a quick google search for conversion to volumetric measurements will square you away. If you're serious about finding good recipes this site has them. Don't get scared away by the funky measurements and ratios!
I also love this type of bread. It's a bit tricky because there's a lot of extra chemicals in there that make your yeast so funny things. Probably the most important thing to do is to soak any of the seeds you're using, make sure your yeast is thoroughly proofed and read to ferment, and of course proper fermentation of the dough. In my experiences all but soaking takes some trial and error. The fermentation process has a lot to do (for us home baker types) with texture, touch, and what the dough looks like.
Good luck!
Yes, the no knead bread recipes calls for the bread to be covered for the first half hour of baking. Baking in a pot or dutch oven this way mimics a commercial steam oven. The higher humidity inside the pot is what allows this bread to bake so nicely in your home oven. I imagine that the bread would be quite dry if you didn't bake it in a pot. Here is an excellent, inexpensive dutch oven that would be perfect for the no-knead recipe. If you are seriously interested in this also have a look at this article and this recipe. And this Book is fantastic, but not necessary to get started.
sorry, switched to laptop now so here's the page link without Pinterest
https://www.frugallivingnw.com/amazing-no-knead-bread-step-by-step-recipe/
Basic No-Knead Bread
Slightly adapted from Jim Lahey’s My Bread
Ingredients
6 cups bread flour (recommended) or all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 t. instant or active-dry yeast
2 1/2 t. salt
2 2/3 c. cool water
This was my first attempt at it – and I'm not much of a baker myself. I think it turned out wonderfully though. The blog, linked below, does a great writeup on the process. Highly recommended!
Basic No-Knead Bread from Frugal Living NW
slightly adapted from Jim Lahey’s My Bread
I hands down strongly recommend How Baking Works (for the science behind baking and ingredients used) and Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft (for recipes and methods). These two books will literally cover almost everything you need to know in detail and are awesome reference books for learning methods and recipes. I use them daily.
I would also add The Professional Pastry Chef : Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry as a third book if you are willing to get it, but the first i mentioned are better to start off with.
They might have copies available at your local library, but if they don't you can always go down to Barnes and Noble if you are in the US and find them there for free reading. I think amazon/half.com has the best prices though.
They are a bit expensive new, but used on amazon/half.com or buying older issues is really reasonable in my opinion. You can get the older issue copies without missing out anything important. They really only do minor changes to the new issues. The core of the book doesn't change much. I can't recommend these books enough for people who want to learn baking in depth on their own.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Baking-Works-Exploring-Fundamentals/dp/0470392673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405381058&sr=1-1&keywords=science+behind+baking
http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Pastry-Mastering-Art-Craft/dp/047005591X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405381103&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=cuklinary+instute+of+america+baking
I recently bought myself this and have been enjoying it! But it's more like... why you need to do the things you do than recipes for beginners.
For what it's worth, this is the textbook almost all of my pastry arts courses are using: https://www.amazon.com/Baking-Pastry-Mastering-Art-Craft/dp/0470928654/
I have a cookbook obsession, I have roughly 500 that are somewhat organized so I feel like I can be of great use here. I will break it down by type to make it easier.
Bibles
Bread
Caramels/Candys/Ice Cream
Jack of all trades
Pastry/Pies
Textbooks
I'm sure I am leaving out a bunch of great ones but if I had to suggest just 1 to anyone it would DEFINITELY be The Art of French Pastry. Best for somebody who has done basics already and looking to try a little more. Even as a professional baker I find myself coming back and just reading the little spots like how he burned himself on his caramel. Great, great book!
Is that the Tartine bakery of the Tartine Bread cookbooks? If so -- super cool!
I'm also there with the monkey boots and Indy boot. Monkey boots just seem like high tops to me a lot of the time.
when you say "the book" .. what book are you talking about? (i'm a complete noob here)
edit: this? http://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y/180-9649235-7866248
Tartine Bread has beautiful pictures
Thanks! I followed the Basic Country Bread recipe from the Tartine Bread book. Here are the totals for the ingredients:
The recipe makes two loafs, so for my first time I halved everything to just make the one loaf.
I haven't baked it yet (just jumping into sourdough), but Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson has a walnut sourdough loaf that you could add some cranberries to.
https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
This book was my gospel when I first got into baking sourdough. After going through months of online research I thought I had a decent idea how to go about it all. This book has all of that info. Watch any video with Chad Robertson on YouTube also.
Has an incredible bakery in San Fran and went about figuring out how a home baker could make bakery quality breads. Use a Dutch oven.
Feel free to message me for more tips.
https://www.amazon.ca/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
I suggest making bread from this book
I'd also rec the tartine bread book for an accessible breakdown of artisan bread making.
https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413&ved=2ahUKEwiy5bCjvdnlAhWLTt8KHakwBOwQFjAYegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw1-z1rbDRgeDoyD_80ryUCg&cshid=1573177113215
There's a simpler take on techniques used by Chad Robertson in his book, Tartine Bread.
Two great books about baking bread are The Bread Baker's Apprentice and Tartine Bread. Both will teach you how bread baking works, as well as giving you recipes for many great breads. I much prefer baking bread like this, rather than using a bread maker. Hope that helps.
Hey there! Sorry, I thought the Tartine reference was a clue. Got the recipe from various websites that reference this book: https://amzn.com/0811870413 It's the Country Bread recipe.
I've never purchased nor used a commercial starter but I know that Bertinet sells one which you can find here.
Personally I would put the money towards a decent book such as this one. The only reason for this being that a decent book will and teach you so much more about the whole process and help your bread baking massively in the long run. At the end of the day a starter only needs 3 ingredients. Flour, water and time.
Here
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Book-Techniques-Recipes/dp/1118132718/
Check it out here at Amazon UK - it has a "Look Inside" feature so you can get a bit of a sense what you'll find.
If you still need to save a few pence, you could also look for a used (or new) copy of this, or even the first edition. The new, second edition has a few more recipes and some updates in the "techniques" section, but the original one is still chock full of great info.
My family is going to have a really financially tight Christmas this year, and I want to make everyone bread and lots of goodies. Especially my cousins, they are going through more rough stuff than they should have to. Last Thanksgiving their mom (who I am not directly related to) sent them to their dad's house, for what was supposed to be the weekend, but told them not to come back because she didn't want them anymore. How messed up is that?? Anyway, their dad has 2 prior convictions on his record and is having a hard time finding work, so the extended family has helped a lot keeping the boys clothed and fed and all that good stuff.
So, even though my money is tight, I want to make the boys holidays as awesome as possible, and one of the ways I can think of to do that is bake. So I would really like The Baking Bible.
Jeff Hertzberg. Here’s the link to The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
OO Is this the Boule recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day?
Edit: fixed book link
This book is great: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Lovers-Machine-Cookbook-Perfect-Every-Time/dp/155832156X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343517142&sr=8-1&keywords=bread+machine+book
Any of the Thomas Keller books, French Laundry, Ad Hoc at Home, Bouchon, and Bouchon Bakery. The only one you'd probably want to avoid is Under Pressure.
Also, Heston at Home and In Search of Perfection are great books.
If you're into southern food, check out Sean Brock's Heritage and Ed Lee's Smoke & Pickles.
Finally, I'd suggest Modernist Cuisine at Home if you're up for splurging.
So first things first, no baker whose work I respect uses measuring cups. Volume measurement is an anachronistic method of measurement. The reason is that baking is based on ratios of the mass of products to each other, and something like flour can vary by about 50% if you're going by volume. I.e. a cup can weigh between 4 and 6 ounces. What that means is that you need a scale. The good news is that scales are fairly cheap. It's like 30 bucks to get a good one. I like oxo 5 pound scale with the pull out display.
The next thing is that I tend to stay away from all of the cookbooks written by people who don't work in the industry. Chefs have had to stand up to years of criticism and constant learning to get to a place where they can even begin to think about putting out a cookbook. The two pastry cook books that I like the most are Thomas Keller's book, Bouchon bakery, and Christina Tosi's book, milk bar.
Bouchon bakery is a super French book (as is the bakery), so I would recommend getting it if your son is interested in making things like bread, croissants, eclairs, Madelines, macarons, cakes, etc. Things that you would think of coming out of a traditional patisserie. The book is fabulously written and gorgeous. It is incredibly approachable and in my opinion, doesn't require any outside knowledge of baking, although being a good baker certainly helps. If I were to go solely based on what I thought was the best book, I wouldn't go any further than this one
That being said, I love Christina Tosi's milk bar. Her style is more of a traditional American style, so lots of cookies, cupcakes, pies, etc. Her book isn't as well written, not as pretty, and requires a bit more knowledge of baking (but certainly not a ton). It is, however so warm and inviting and reflects her personality so much that you can't help but smile add you read her expositions about some of her recipes and past. Her cookies are so crazy awesome and delicious, that the single method alone is worth the price of admission.
The one caveat I would say is that both books will STRONGLY suggest you get a stand mixer. While neither book requires it, there are some recipes that will be very daunting without one; I sure as hell wouldn't want to do Tosi's creaming method (for making the aforementioned cookies) by hand, that's for sure. That being said, though, people baked for millennia without one, so if you don't have one, you certainly don't have to buy one before making most if not all of the recipes in either book.
NINJA EDIT:
Links to the books
Bouchon Bakery
Milk bar
I'll do that. Ultimately, I'd like to dedicate enough of my yard to cut my flour purchases in half. I currently use 5-7 pounds a week baking sandwich loaves, the occasional pizza, and the occasional loaf of of something nicer from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
Thanks for sharing the story about your grandfather. My grandfather and great-grandfather were both well respected in their community for the quality of goods that from their farms. Although I'm only a backyard, suburban gardener, I can only hope to achieve the same one day.
I highly recommend Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". He's really easy to read and the pictures are beautiful. He teaches about bakers percentages, 12 steps to baking artisan bread at home, and each recipe is in volume and weight. Also, check out The Fresh Loaf. It's a forum for bakers.
Source: I taught a bread class using this book and the students seemed to like it a lot. I also have owned a bakery for the last 3+ years, baking 5-6 nights per week.
The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread is by far my favourite cookbook though it is very niche. I don't have any favourtes in terms of cooking in general and tend to just use google and r/food for ideas.
Ratio
And
The Bread Bakers Apprentice
Are the two I"m always pulling down off my shelf to look at besides the Flavor Bible.
I'm Just Here for the Food. Between that and The Bread Baker's Apprentice I can pretend to be a pretty decent cook.
Thanks to /u/compto35 for the link!
Married + learned a few years ago how to make great dough^1
So I'll take the cheap ETH
_____
Edit - Seriously, if you haven't tried making bread, it's way easier than you think, and the results are almost always beyond your expectations
I've been making bread for a couple of years now. It's a mixture of trial and error, improvising and measuring. It's part art and part science. The Bread Bakers Apprentice is a good starting book as well as Flour Water Salt Yeast.
Since I have a sourdough starter, I'm always looking for bread recipes that use natural leavening instead of commercial yeast. I found this adaptation of Peter Reinhart's recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (if you like to make bread, and you don't have this book...get it) and decided to make them. Needless to say, they turned out amazing (nooks and crannies and all). I don't think I'll be buying them from the store anymore, it's the first time I've ever had homemade English muffins, and it's a world of difference.
If you don't have a sourdough starter, here's the original recipe. If you've never had homemade English muffins, I highly recommend them.
Edit: A note about the cooking temperature with these, the first batch I made, I went with the recommended medium heat, and it was a bit too high. I prefer to cook these on low heat, maybe 2-3, so the insides cook a bit more, because the middle of my first batch was not fully cooked, even after finishing them in the oven per the instructions. I'd rather just get them browned nice on the skillet, and then finish in the oven until the internal temperature is 190-200 F.
Check out Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Bakers Apprentice" for the science and an in depth breakdown.
Check here for a shorter version.
Suffice to say that longer, cold fermentation favours the types of bacteria that break down starches and create more complex flavours (nutty, toasty to me). When you're only using three ingredients in a bread, it is your job to illicit as much flavour from those as possible.
Typical bread yeast is engineered to be fast acting, produce tons of carbon dioxide very quickly, and tends to not spit out much in the way of flavours. Hence the need for other ingredients like milk, butter, eggs, sugars, dough conditioners, etc. Great for a tangzhong milk bread, challah, or similar fluffy american white sandwich bread, but not so much for a complexly flavoured sourdough.
Both have their place in a bakers arsenal of flavour control.
Edit: A longer countertop rise would lead the bacteria & yeast to chew through all the available starches too quickly, resulting in a flatter loaf with a more liquid consistency before baking. This is really good if you're making focaccia or cibatta breads but your salt content needs to be much higher to offset and slow the fermentation down.
Get a copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice, read it. The first half of the book is a pretty in depth explanation of how bread works, and all the stages of making it. The second half is a bunch of great recipes that will be pretty easy to make once you've read the book and come out great. Though, do note that most of them take at least 2 days to make.
Ohh, great contest! My Favorite Book! I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to one... I would have to go with "A Child Called It" by Dave Pelzer. It's the true story of the childhood that the author had to live through, a really heartbreaking first-person look at abuse. He went on to write two more books about his life, they're all amazing but had me crying the entire way through... He went on to do great things, in the later books, but had to overcome so much.
On a lighter note, I would love The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
Also, make fresh bread if you have the time. You don't even need a bread-maker if you don't want to pay up for the machine (I don't use one), although obviously that means more kneading time and work. But really, once you make the dough, the "work" primarily consists of letting it sit. Our family makes bread from this book : http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688
And it is fantastic. I am living on my own for the summer and have already made some. Obviously if you're super busy, it's probably not worth the time, but if you have some weekend time or something, fresh bread is the best. And the satisfaction of knowing you created the loaf from start to finish is totally worth it.
If you are interested in more bread recipes, I recommend Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day or Bread Baker's Apprentice. These two are great for starting out with bread. They show many techniques, shaping, rolling, baking styles etc. Ive made croissants from 'Artisan' many times, each time more amazing than the last.
Hmm, I'm not so sure about this. I've made bagels many times and read many adaptations, and from what I know, you put non-diastatic malt powder (ideally) or malt syrup IN the dough for flavor.
The baking soda (or, ideally, lye) in the water raises the pH, which accelerates browning on the outside of the bagel as you boil it. It's the same effect as when making pretzels.
So, I think you might be mixing some parts of the process up here.
(Check out Bread Baker's Apprentice for some additional info about bagel chemistry)
Take a look at the following books which your local library may possibly have. All deal with whole grain breads and breads made using non-standard flours.
Tartine Book No.3: It's the Tartine round loaf in a million whole grain variations, while also including some interesting pan loaves.
Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: Recipes for pretty much every type of whole grain bread. Uses a lot of specialized ingredients, and complex multi-stage recipes, and contains a ton of information.
Peter Reinhart's Bread Revolution: Not familiar with this book but it looks neat, probably advanced if you're just learning about using alternative grains to white flour but still interesting.
Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry: This is a personal favorite book, and the vast majority of the recipes use whole grains. Everything I've made out of this has been excellent, although some recipes are lacking in how-to type details that might not be obvious to a novice baker.
Yes, I believe you should knead it more.
The main purpose of kneading a bread dough is to develop the gluten which works like a web to trap the gas bubbles that the yeast produce to give it a rise. If you don't knead enough, there will not be enough gluten to trap the gas bubbles and it won't rise properly. Make sure your dough passes the windowpane test (image) before you are done kneading. It is unlikely that you will over-knead a bread dough.
High protein content in your dough is very important for making bread. If you are able to determine that, you should be able to figure out if you need to add any vital wheat gluten to your dough.
Also, you say you are using whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour contains bran which is sharp and actually cuts the gluten, making it more difficult to make whole wheat bread than white bread. Peter Reinhart has a book that I would highly recommend if you are interested in making whole grain breads.
Good luck!
It's the San Francisco Sourdough recipe from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Everyday. http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Reinharts-Artisan-Breads-Every/dp/1580089984
Though I did substitute like 50g of bread flower for some rye flour.
Consider buying the book Artisan Bread Everyday.
The basic premise is that you mix up a batch of bread dough, stick it in the fridge, and grab a fist full or two every time you want bread. You let it rise, and bake fresh bread whenever you want it.
Of course, this can dramatically INCREASE your carb intake because the knowledge of always being 45 minutes away from fresh hot bread...
I started with Peter Reinhart books, namely Artisan Breads Every Day. They have great primers on mixing and kneading technique, and I'm still getting better at it. Try the Ciabatta for a really fluffy loaf. And I highly recommend Saf yeast, a digital scale, a dough whisk, and patience!
I suspect that it might be exposure to air as you open & close the jar.
I buy my yeast in a bulk package at Costco. The current one I have is a 454 gm (1 lb.) aluminium foil package of Fleishman's Active Dry Yeast and I've had it over a year or more now. I also store it in the fridge but use a bag clip to remove as much air as possible.
There's still at least a quarter of the bag left and it's still working very well. I used it the other day to make the sourdough rye sandwich bread from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. If anything, it was too active! :-)
I used to buy instant yeast in the small jars, stored in the fridge and I noticed the same issue you are having. I frequently threw out jars that were still half-full, which pissed me off. So I was somewhat apprehensive when I bought my first 454 g bag of yeast from Costco (I'm on at least my third one now). But keeping it away from air as much as feasibly possible works a treat for me. Since the bag is aluminium foil, the yeast is also shielded from light.
If I were you, I'd think about emptying the next jar you buy into a ZipLoc bag and squeezing out as much air as possible, wrap the bag in aluminium foil or put it in an empty coffee can with a lid then storing it in the fridge.
The sourdough rye bread is a winner, BTW.
I'd recommend (if you're a cookbook fan) Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish. The bread in here takes some time (the shortest takes all day, but a lot of that time is sitting around and waiting). The link is here, and I cannot get enough of this bread =)
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
absolutely. try this one
i use a variation of it that is an overnight bulk ferment, but the results are still good using the same day recipe. your results will vary depending on your pizza stone/steel, how your oven/broiler behaves, and of course a ton of other things, but it's a good place to start!
if you're really keen on going further, i HIGHLY recommend buying the book Flour Water Salt Yeast. its my bread and pizza bible.
Flour Water Salt Yeast
For bread/yeasty stuff specifically, Flour Yeast Salt Water. It gives some informative advice for making things like bread and pizza dough, and has recipes to go with it.
Husband and I made Pizza dough straight from this book and the resulting pizza was delicious.
I've been following a bunch of instructions and recipes in this book to no avail. :(
Maybe should try more olive oil...
bread flavor is mostly a function of time and temperature, at least for yeasted breads. as yeasts ferment in dough and consume sugars, they produce a variety of flavor compounds.
this is a good book if you want to explore the topic.
edit: here is an infographic from a yeast manufacturer. note "fermentation" has the strongest effect on flavor.
Yeah that's pretty normal I think, a lot of recipes say to punch the dough down and then form it into a ball, then let it rise for a second time just before baking. I'm still somewhat of a novice, I just started using FSWY (http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X) has been a very interesting read for me and would probably be good for you if you want a really in depth explanation. ^^^I ^^^can ^^^also ^^^share ^^^an ^^^ebook ^^^version ^^^if ^^^you ^^^can't ^^^afford ^^^it ^^^right ^^^now
I'm about to check out this: Flour Water Salt Yeast
I'm hoping it will be like the Jim Lahey, Sullivan St Bakery recipe which I've made many times. It's time consuming but is the best bread recipe, hands down!
I'd ignore that ding-dong and mix-up what you want. It's people like them that hamper home baking. They read FWSY and think they know everything about bread.
You might benefit from the direct, thought over style of a book then. I found Ken Forkish' [FWSY](http://www.Flour.com/ Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_5E6ZAb6E7J4NC) to be a much better use of my time and energy than trying to piece together the knowledge from a bunch of different sources on the internet.
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Forkish
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517714847&sr=8-1&keywords=flour+water+salt+yeast
It is super interesting to read parts of it as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
This book by Ken Forkish, a local Portland bread legend does a great job of laying it all out.
Awesome! Sourdough is a tough thing that can be really fun. I'm a chef on the savory side of things--thiugh running the whole restaurant I so have to do my fair share of pastry stuff. I have in the last year or so gotten really in to homemade breads. Check out this book, if you like making bread it'll change your life!
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_JqVZBbZZ5XZDZ
Hi! I also recently started baking as a new hobby. I’m very much still a novice and still find it quite intimidating, but I’ve found quite a few decent vids and books that have helped me to get started...
Bake with Jack - really excellent channel filled with 4 min videos talking about terminology, equipment and technique:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTVR5DSxWPpAVI8TzaaXRqQ
Richard Bertinet’s Waitrose video. A bit basic but I find Bertinet’s mannerisms inspiring and the instructions are very useful. Different kneading technique too:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTVR5DSxWPpAVI8TzaaXRqQ
BBC Good Food basic bread recipe. There is probably a better basic recipe, such as the King Arthur one, but this is the first one I used. I halved the salt on this and it’s given me really nice bread every time:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2060/easy-white-bread
Brilliant Bread by James Morton. Only just digging into this book but it really is great. Lots of recipes and kneading advice etc. I’d recommend it to anyone:
https://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Bread-James-Morton/dp/0091955602
Flour Water Salt Yeast. I’ve not really delved into this much yet as I’m still getting used to the basics, but everyone on here seems to love it and it seems very well written (note:you’ll need a Dutch oven for this):
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
If you’re going no-knead/Dutch oven, I’d say it’s worth giving this a watch too, but I’d check the comments as well as a lot of people seem to be tweaking the recipe. A seemingly infamous video/recipe from NY Times:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread
Dough by Richard Bertinet. Another ace book filled with simple easy to follow recipes. Also comes with a short DVD, although I don’t know what’s on it as I’m yet to watch:
https://www.amazon.com/Dough-Simple-Contemporary-Richard-Bertinet/dp/1909487538
River Cottage basic white bread. Not the best instructions but I still found it a useful watch when very first starting out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTVWuw_SBSo
Not sure if these are 100% the best places to start but they’ve definitely helped me. I tend to google pretty much everything, which will lead you to a lot of useful sites too.
I hope these help, even if only a little. Im sure others will make some good suggestions here.
Happy baking!
As some people mentioned, the sourdough that Pollan makes in the show is pretty difficult (in my opinion). I would suggest trying some store bought yeast bread first so you get a sense of the different steps and processes required to make bread. Once you have that down, you can start growing your sourdough starter.
Nonetheless, if you want to go ahead and start with sourdough, as people said, its not really as straight forward as just putting water in flour. You'll need a scale and be sure to weight out all your bread making ingredients, including what you're feeding the starter. Different bakers have different opinions on the ratio of flour to water, what type of flour, what temperature the water is, etc. Changes in these parameters will also change the taste of your sourdough (or even if it grows or not!).
What helped me the most actually was buying a book and reading through it. I think information on the internet is a little too scattered and tend to contradict one another, and it never turns out very well when I mix and match ideas from different websites. I recommend what a lot of people on this subreddit read: Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.
Another good resource is the King Arthur site.
Once again though, I think it helped me a lot to make a lot of store-bought yeast bread first before trying sourdough. I've found making sourdough extremely fickle and prone to failure, and I can't imagine trying it without having had some experience making my earlier loaves. You're experience might be different than mine though! Good luck!
Honestly, its worth the money to just buy FWSY. It has a lot of bread recipes and gives very detailed instructions on how to do everything. (You will need a dutch oven though)
Get a copy of FWSE. Read the entire thing. Pick a recipe you feel comfortable with. I suggest diving right in there and making one of the overnight with poolish recipes. Maybe start with pizza dough.
It's actually from the book Flour Water Salt Yeast. The methods the author uses makes it really easy to bake loaves like the one those slices came from.
This book helped me tremendously with my bread baking. The best advice I got out of it was to bake the bread really dark to get more nutty flavors out of the crust and hydration.
http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1381862858&sr=8-5&keywords=bread+book
Dough senses fear. Keep trying! I did, and now my bread is 50% better than it once was. Onward!
Also this book is awesome:
http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
Excuse the basil! I put it below the meats on the second pizza. Used the same day pizza dough recipe from Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast and pizza sauce recipe from Serious Eats.
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
Making bread is ridiculously easy when you get the right recipe.
Check out Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.
Well it will depend on the recipe and type of crust you’re going for, but the salt and yeast amounts are going to be much smaller, in the single percentiles and even into tenths of a percentage with the yeast sometimes.
As for type of yeast, everything’s gravy — meaning you’ll find people using each and any kind. I think the easiest to start out with are the ones using instant yeast.
I first scratched my pizza itch the same way many around here probably did, with Kenji’s Foolproof Pan Pizza
It’s a great place to start and is still my favorite kind of “home pizza” so far tbh. I also like to start new projects with a book if possible, and while we can debate their techniques up, down, and sideways, I think Forkish’s Elements of Pizza would still be my go-to for just starting out. Beddia’s Pizza Camp is also a strong contender, but personally I think his ideas play in better after you’ve tried a few others first.
And don’t be fooled! I’m by no means any kind of master and would still consider myself “in training,” but I am a good researcher, so I sound like I know what I’m talking about.
Edit: a word
I knew this picture reminded me of something when I saw it!
Bread Baking for Beginners: The Essential Guide to Baking Kneaded Breads, No-Knead Breads, and Enriched Breads https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641521198/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JOiBCbJYNVCPB
The idea of using a bread machine rustles my jimmies; I use the no-knead method (google it, it's everywhere) for sandwich bread that we eat every day, and then sometimes on weekends I'll make a rustic loaf to go with meals that I make in the more traditional method.
Looking for a bread 'recipe' is somewhat of a fallacy. Most people who take bread even a little seriously use the baker's percentage (once again, google that shit) and weighing ingredients instead of measuring by volume.
The baker's percentage gives you a template of proportions that yield certain results. By manipulating those proportions of flour/grains/water/yeast/salt you get different breads. A french loaf is still a french loaf if you make it with whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour, as long as you understand how the change in protein and such will affect the bread, and adjust your other ingredients and methods accordingly.
The only accurate way to adjust those ratios is by using a reasonably accurate scale instead of measuring cups. A good scale (not even a mediocre one) can be had from Amazon for about $20. This is the one that I use, and it's paid for itself several times over since I started making bread about two years ago.
These two concepts, which go hand-in-hand, elevated my bread making from dicking around in the kitchen to a near science.
After about six months of making bread every week, you should check out The Bread Builders. When I originally bought it I didn't understand enough about bread to get much out of it, but now I find it to be a huge resource for adjusting my methods and techniques. There's a lot of esoteric stuff in there about microbiology and gluten strings, which is cool, but essentially useless unless you have some kind of context. There's also the whole second half of the book, which is almost entirely about building and using wood fired brick ovens to bake bread; something that I hope to have the funds to build one day.
You can check out /r/breaddit if you want, but I find it to be a bit of a circlejerk on seeing how much cheese/nutella/olives/onions people can cram in a recipe before it starts to look like a casserole instead of bread. Also, they have a hard on for sourdoughs. Sourdoughs are cool, but at this point I think they could use their own subreddit.
Good luck, I guess.
Good luck
As others are saying here, I think you should keep your current trees. By cleaning them up a bit, I think you could get them to look really nice.
If you're looking for plans to build your own brick oven, check out The Bread Builders. It's by far the best resource out there.
If you're looking to buy your oven, I'd suggest Chicago Brick Oven. They have a slightly higher dome than Forno Bravo, which gives a better heating profile, and they're lower dome than some of the terra cotta ones, which have a massive cool spot in the top.
I have a strange amount of experience with pizza ovens, and I've used quite a few, so feel free to pm with questions.
https://www.amazon.com/Deceptive-Desserts-Ladys-Guide-Baking/dp/194139339X
Very much her style, and some Halloween treats
Please take pictures!
direct link, just in case
I am not sure of what you already have or what you would need, I am listing a few things on top of my head:
I love baking bread, omg. I don't even eat it any more but I love to bake it. I bought the book Flour Water Salt Yeast and it is AWESOME and has really great recipes. It's awesome and I love it and I can't suggest it enough.
The best pizza recipe I've had has come from this book.
Bread Bakers Apprentice
That book in general has great recipes. The bagel recipe and the pizza recipe typically impress people.
Thanks for the amazing opportunity!
Lets start off with these amazing badass running pants, perfect for everything from working out to lounging about! I chose this because I'm in serious need of new workout pants! I've been wearing my old highschool sweatpants to brave the icy cold weather and they are starting to tear in multiple places and i don't know how long they will survive >.< These not only coming in a VARIETY of styles, they have almost 1000 positive reviews and look extremely comfy!
I am HUGE into cooking/food and have been trying to improve by bread baking skill recently and believe that the Bread Baker's Apprentice would vastly improve my ability to do so! it not only breaks down why a specific bread recipe needs a specific ingredient, but how it compares both chemically and physically to other types of breads and how to do everything from proper kneading techniques and processes!
This Galaxy infused wallet of ultimate beauty would be an amazing replacement for my also dying wallet that I got about 12 years ago! Being able to go about and NOT have my change and important cards falling out would be quite helpful <3 PLUS. I am huge fan of everything and all things space/galaxy/cosmic and all!
Never made one of these before, but wife's been making soup a bunch lately and figured we needed a baguette to go with it!
Dough before bake
Another exterior photo
Interior of Dough
Recipe from the The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
https://i.imgur.com/ulR5CD2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8a1rrtq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RqIDq0Z.jpg
The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart is my number one recommendation for bread. Im also a big fan of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson. His first book, Tartine is also great btw. I would skip out on Tartine Book No.3 though which seems to have too many errors for my liking. Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish is also one of the better bread baking books out there.
For general baking, im a big fan of Bouchon Bakery. And one book that will surely help you improve as a baker and I highly recommend you cook through is The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer. Its like a pastry arts class in a book. I am actually cooking my way through this. If you have a serious sweet tooth, Momofoku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi will probably be what you're looking for. And as someone else recommended, the Baked books are all great.
For cakes, it has to be The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Bernanbaum. This is probably the best cake book of all time. I would supplement this with Toba Garrett's Professional Cake Decorating book.
For pies, my favorites are Four and Twenty Blackbirds and Hoosier Mama. One that I haven't tried but am planning to buy is First Prize Pies. If the book lives up to their reputation, it should be an excellent book.
For plated, more ambitious desserts, I like Payard Desserts. I refer to this when I want to impress company.
oooooh. that's a tricky one. Maybe get them a kit with a book and/or a pizza peel as well?
This book is what prompted me to get a stone.
breadit is nice, but it's mostly photos of baked loaves. Sometimes there are recipes, and if you have recipe questions or goals in mind, it's a response desert.
I, too, recommend baking bread by hand instead of using a bread maker. I also recommend this book. Great recipes, wide variety of recipe styles and options, and it'll give anyone the necessary information to make amazing bread with ease.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688
The bread does not go in the pot. The pot goes on top of the bread. Baking bread in a container that constricts its expansion will ruin the crust and destroy the texture of the crumb. Only short breads (muffins, cakes, ect) and soft pullman loaves (no crumb or crust) get bakes in containers.
Looks like you got a DIY version of a cloche baking pot. The cloche simulates a stone oven cooking the bread with infra-red heat (radiation). Whereas a standard home oven cooks using only hot air (conduction).
To use your DIY cloche, you need a baking stone or terra-cotta tiles. Preheat the baking stone and pot to 500F. When they are good and hot, place your bread dough (shaped into a boule) on the stone and cover it with the pot. Bake as per recipe.
Since you are just starting out I am going to recommend against using this technique, because judging the oven temperature and transferring the dough into the hot baking stones can be a bit tricky.
Instead you should buy a cast iron dutch oven and use Jim Lahey's No Knead technique. His method is practically foolproof and produces great bread with less than 20 minutes of time invested per loaf.
The cloche will give you better results for a wider range of dough formulas provided you take the time to learn about bread. I would recommend you read The Bread Bakers Apprentice if you are interested in going this route.
I'm currently reading Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. He is advocating a dual-method to get great flavor:
You soak about half of your flour and grain overnight, covered. This allows the enzymes to go to work and break down the flour. (called the "Soaker")
You also use a starter: either a Biga (Commercial yeast based starter) or sourdough.
On bake day, you cut the soaker & starter into golf-ball sized pieces, throw them in the mixer with instant yeast, and then mix it to your final dough.
You get the long-rise flavor from the Starter, but get the final rise "push" from the instant yeast working on the sugars from the soaker.
Agreed. If you must only own one, go for Bread Baker's Apprentice. If you want an intro to whole-grain baking (the reason I started making my own bread a few years ago), go for Reinhart's other book Whole Grain Breads.
I like his Artisan Breads Every Day book for beginners/home bakers. Very approachable. And a damn fine pizza dough recipe. My stand mixer gets a lot of action out of that book.
as someone that tried (and mostly failed) making sourdough boule bred, I'd say the recipe is only a start... Start with this: https://www.amazon.com/Peter-Reinharts-Artisan-Breads-Every/dp/1580089984
This is how I make pretzels at home and they come out really well. I use the recipe from Artisan Bread Everyday.
Well we go through at least a loaf per week, and I most often make 2 loaves at once (a lot of recipes are designed this way). After they have cooled, we slice them up (this takes a lot of practice too!) and wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer, so no stale bread. by wrapping them very well, you stave off a lot of the harm of the freezer. Good for at least a week.
In most instances, not a lot of active time is required. If you check out some of Peter Reinhart's methods, really nice bread can be a challenging but time flexible pursuit. Also, look out for many "no knead" recipes that offer some time flexibility, and are very easy to achieve great results.
Also, if you are looking for more conventional sandwich stuff, check out the Joy of Cooking. This was the book I first had success with. Sandwich breads are much easier to achieve good results with than "artisan" stuff, which is a little more picky about technique, but something to build up to! The Joy may be kind of "vanilla" but the recipes are reliable, so they are great to practice with.
I do not really ever have an excess bread, in part because we freeze it so any excess is stored. Also I only have time to produce a batch per week or so. I often also augment it by making pitas/flat breads (These are easy and so cheap compared to the store!), bagels, and pizza dough (also frozen).
The whole idea was to get off store-bought bread completely, and for nearly a year, we've been successful (with the very rare exception of buying fancy stuff from a bakery).
I have never sold bread, but I have given it to people as a gift, or brought it as part of a potluck contribution (talk about frugal and cool!).
Pizza is extremely easy to cook at home dude. I've just been buying random cook books over the last year or so. General use ones, a few Italian speciality ones and BBQ ones, because that's what I love :D
> So they don't add any other toppings? Like pepperoni or anything? Isn't the crust done similar to Nyc style pizza?
Not in a Margherita in Italy, no. They're very traditional when it comes to your pizza in Italy. You can get things like Salami or Pepperoni, but they're not like the ones we get here. I've been to Rome three times and I've only found pizzas that have very thin crusts and are pretty crispy with a bit of chew. I have to say, the taste is amazing. It's not just the ingredients though, it's the oven. They use traditional ,wood fired ovens that can burn up to about 500 degrees centigrade. I'm thinking about building one out in my garden :D With pizza, you cook it as hot as you can. A traditional wood fired pizza oven will cook a pizza in about 90 seconds, at most.
> It just seems like they would have some special sauce or does the basil really help it stand out?
There's a specific type of tomatoes that everyone seems to use called San Marzano tomatoes, but you don't have to be that picky. You can use whatever you like. I rarely use anything other than BBQ sauce because I love the taste of it. When I make pizzas at home, some of my family like regular bolognese sauce from a jar and some even like ketchup mixed with a bit of bolognese sauce.
> I'd love to start cooking from scratch but I'm still learning so much in regards to just Regular cooking that I feel like I'd be biting off more than I could chew.
Don't be intimidated by it. Treat it as fun, not a chore. Break your expectations down into smaller chunks. What's your favourite type of cooking? What's a recipe you want to learn how to do first? Baking bread and pizza are a good start, because you can literally just make the pizza dough recipe I posted and cook it as a loaf instead of stretching it out to be a pizza dough.
If you have a bit of money, I found these books great:
Canning stuff would be more about pickling and brining. I've never done it, but I did go so far as to buy fresh jalapenos and some jars because I wanted to. Next port of call haha.
Let me know if you've any other questions. Feel free to message me too if you ever need a hand with anything :D
Ayep: http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Reinharts-Artisan-Breads-Every/dp/1580089984/
I'm sorry dear Baker but you cannot swap out white flour for a different grain without disappointing yourself with the results. You are going to need a recipe designed for whichever grain(s) you would like to use.
There are a ton of resources mentioned on /r/Breadit.
Highly noted are: Peter Reinharts Artisan Breads Everyday.
and The Bread Bible. When I searched Amazon for that title I received results of at least 3 different books with that name. Perhaps someone can refresh me and inform you which one of them is the 'popular' one. If there is only one otherwise take your pick.
So basically it comes down to finding a new recipe my dear.
My single tip I have for white bread is add 1tbsp of a high end Balsamic vinegar to the liquid. It adds a nice complex flavour to the finished bread.
Good luck.
I've spent the last year focusing primarily on learning to make really, really good bread. It is hard to do. It takes a long time to master even the basics, but that isn't to say that you can't still crank out some good bread. Start with Peter Reinhart's 'Artisan Breads Every Day'. It's a really great book designed with the home baker in mind. Covers pretty much everything you would need to know to make great bread.
As for cultivating yeast, yes I have my own starter. I maintain it by simply keeping it in the fridge. Before using it in a recipe it receives a few feedings over a couple days and is then used to make dough. I made a nearly perfect batch of sourdough boules today with it. Best sourdough I've ever had in my life, not to toot my own horn.
I'm going through this. I just did Focaccia today, and yum yum
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580089984/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
Totally related! The best advice I have is to start simple. This book by Bonnie Ohara is a really great primer that walks you through bread science and gaining bread confidence. I wish I had it when I started baking!
I also love this book by Ken Forkish. It’s very specifically for those crusty artisan breads that are trendy right now.
Other than that, start out with good recipes. The King Arthur Flour No Knead is a fantastic simple starting point. Whenever you make a new kind of bread, start with a recipe that’s gone through rigorous testing instead of one on some random blog. Good spots to look are Cook’s Illustrated, Bon Appetit, and King Arthur. There’s a bigger chance of success that way. Once you’ve gotten a little more of a feel for what dough should be like for specific breads at certain stages, you can start experimenting and coming up with your own recipes and ratios! There are also a lot of really awesome bakers at r/breadit, r/baking, and r/sourdough who also love to help troubleshoot.
The only other advice I have is to invest in a kitchen scale, a dutch oven, and a bunch of bench scrapers!
Yeah! It's from Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. Great book, highly recommend. http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
It's from this book. Check it out it's fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1462929725&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=flour+water+salt+yeast
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X/ref=sr_1_1
Basically gonna echo most of the answers already posted, but just to pile on:
Cookbooks
Nothing inspires cooking like a good cookbook collection. The great news about cookbooks is that they're often bought as gifts or souvenirs and they make their way onto the used market cheap and in great condition. Here are my suggestions for a great starter shelf:
Flour Water Salt Yeast is a baking book by Ken Forkish.
Flour Water Salt Yeast on Amazon
Portland has some unbelievable pizza, My two favorites are Ken's Artisan Pizza (304 SE 28th Ave) and Apizza Scholls (4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd).
Take a look at the pizza map in the sidebar for more locations -- but as far as I'm concerned, these are the best.
Ken Forkish is a dough legend and the author of Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza.
Using the /r/pizza subreddit got my pizza making to stellar levels. I only get pizza out when I am lazy. Here is what I learned.
Dough: Get this book http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X and follow the technique sections to the letter. Get rid of the sugar and rise for longer, like 12 hours longer, the dough is much better without it.
Sauce: Get a can of CENTO san marzano whole peeled tomatos, put in strainer and rise all the "tomato water" off. Put in blender for 20 seconds dump in large frying pan, add salt and pepper, heat for 10 mins. That's it.
Cheese: Always grate your own, period. I prefer whole milk, low mosture.
Pan: If you don't have a stone or steel I like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Oneida-Commercial-Inch-Pizza-Pan/dp/B000P9TQEM/ref=sr_1_32?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1459369211&amp;sr=8-32&amp;keywords=pizza+pan
Temperature: I use 500 degrees for 13 minutes and it works like a champ.
That's it. Go be a pizza God!
No you don't. I just started learning to bake using this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X
All you need is flour, water, salt, and yeast.
here you go
You should buy this book then, it's fantastic. I'm working my way through it, they have a huge chapter on just sourdoughs.
I never tried baking bread before I bought Flour Water Salt Yeast and now I've managed to make some pretty delicious loaves. If you take your time and read the technique sections, you'll start to get a good understanding of bread baking.
I recommend Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish and Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson. Both books have good info into bread science and have good (but large) recipes.
I love baking bread and to be honest some of the /r/breadit suggestions are spot on, even for British bakers.
The one I love the most is Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish. The measurements are all in metric, as most bread recipes are even stateside. I was initially a bit skeptical about no-knead but I'm a complete convert now.
If you want a specifically British book, and one that starts off with more basic recipes, try Brilliant Bread by James Morton. He was on GBBO a few years ago.
Flour Water Salt Yeast, by Ken Forkish. Very popular on here and one of the best starter books on baking good bread at home. His overnight white and wheat doughs are very approachable and teach you a lot about the process. I dig them because of the usage of store bought yeast, it’s just easier and less hassle for me. I’ve tried the sourdough starter thing too many times!
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook] https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-QIRDbE23VF14
Or you could join /r/breadit and learn to bake your own bread at home. You just need flour, water, salt, yeast.
Reading: Pratchett's Witches Abroad and Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets
Watching: Nothing but the odd Youtube video here and there. I've recently discovered Murdoch Murdoch.
Doing: Getting shit fixed around the house.
Cooking: No time for that really, just whatever's easy. But I've recently started making a killer homemade pizza, dough, sauce and all (OK well I don't make my own cheese). Fingers crossed I'll get Flour Water Salt Yeast for Christmas.
Playing: I aven't played any new video games since Minecraft. Every once in a while I'll bust out the old Final Fantasy games and play 1 through 6 in a marathon.
It's a book: Flour Water Salt Yeast. I haven't read it, don't know what the dough they suggest would be.
I would think using a biga would help improve chewiness as it tends to strengthen the gluten.
Sorry, yes. I should have been more clear. Thank you.
Here is the Amazon link for those interested. It seems it's currently 45% off:
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza https://www.amazon.com/dp/160774273X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4AtYzbWA2Q3G2
Crumb pic here! - for some reason IMGUR tagged this pic as erotic/NSFW. I agree.
Followed the FWSY Saturday White Bread recipe - book here! (not an affiliate or anything)
r/sourdough has resources in their FAQ about culturing a starter. Also this book helped me get the basics down. King Arthur has a break down on their website as well as the option to just purchase an already cultured starter that they will mail to you and then you can start feeding and using it right away.
Baking is a learning process. I’ve selected a list of a good references:
Getting started
https://www.instructables.com/class/Bread-Class/
My favorite books
https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Bread-Lessons-Master-Baker/dp/031620062X
https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=D3W0A522YN0Z49Y37CR2
https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/dp/160774273X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2/132-2200314-5814741?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=160774273X&amp;pd_rd_r=d2b81337-6b5d-11e9-9f49-5707d913d0fd&amp;pd_rd_w=aXXDJ&amp;pd_rd_wg=GprXQ&amp;pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&amp;pf_rd_r=AKFEA35FM58RZV98V93X&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=AKFEA35FM58RZV98V93X
Good and reliable websites
https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/
Enjoy!
Technique: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/01/30/sicilian-pizza-bread-loaf-perfect-game-day-nosh/
I used the overnight pizza dough recipe from Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish
Here is the mobile version of your link
For those reading this, you actually want his second book, The Elements of Pizza. In this one he talks about how he went to talk to the best pizza makers (Naples, etc) and realized he was wrong, because he had been treating pizza dough the same as bread dough.
I suggest you guys buy the book "The Elements of Pizza" by Ken Forkish, and check out some of his recipes.
He explains the how and why for every recipe, and you get really delicious results. I was amazed at what I was able to make, being generally pretty terrible at baking.
I made my own sauce because I quite like that one. It's essentially a marinara sauce. I just used some good canned tomatoes, but I crushed them in a colander to get rid of some of the liquid, because I wanted a less runny marinara, to help ensure the pizza dough didn't get soggy.
I topped it with whatever I wanted that day. As I recall, I went with black olive, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella slices, grated parmeggiano reggiano, and I seem to recall some shallot sliced in thin rings.
One of the best pizzas I ever had, honestly.
recently bought this book: The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Pizza-Unlocking-Secrets-World-Class/dp/160774838X/ref=asc_df_160774838X/?tag=hyprod-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=247543540793&amp;hvpos=1o3&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=17729693536674990723&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=9032144&amp;hvtargid=aud-466346205544:pla-433791154243&amp;psc=1
. the author goes over the history of pizza and various recipes. deep dish is in his book
. from Wiki: The bottom of the pizza, called the 'crust', may vary widely according to style; thin as in a typical hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza, or thick as in a deep-dish Chicago-style.
Recipe was from Ken Forkish’s Elements of Pizza and the “I slept in but I want pizza tonight dough”
Makes 3-5 pizzas
Water 350g at 100f
Salt 10 g
Instant dried yeast 0.5 g
Flour (00 if possible) 500 g
Hydrate yeast in salt water mixture.
Mix in flour and wait 20 mins. Knead and place dough ball in oiled container. Wait 1.5 hrs
Divide and shape, place on floured pan for rise. Wait 4-6 hrs. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Pull it out an hour before cooking.
I got the Elements of Pizza by Forkish for Christmas and its taken my pizzas to the next level. He keeps referencing Salt, Water, Flour, Yeast and it might be time to up my bread game.
This was my first time making bread all by myself and I chose to make chocolate babka. I’m so happy with the way it turned out! I used Bonnie Ohara’s recipe from her book “Bread Baking for Beginners ”!
> It’s in Bonnie Oharas book “bread making for beginners”! On IG as @alchemybread
Just a head's up, I think you may have meant Bread Baking for Beginners by Bonnie Ohara
The recipe is from Bonnie Ohara’s book Bread Baking for Beginners
Thank you so much!!! I would highly encourage you to try making it! 💗
I was just looking for that ratio. I know I've seen it before, but googleing 'pizza oven height ratio' didn't lead me to it... got a source you'd share? I have, The Bread Builders but it is in storage.
I have helped my Dad build his! We used instructions from a book called The Bread Builders. The oven that we made was really big. Like the size of a small shed. And we had to dig footers, lay cinder block(we actually had to employ the help of our mason neighbor) and all that jazz. We ended up using about 2 tons of cement by the end of it. Here is a link for the few work in progress picture I have. However, in the end it turned out supper nice! We both like using it a lot. I does take some practice to be able to fire it right, but when you do, the results are so much better than a conventional oven. It also slow cooks meat really well!
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.php?content=starterprimer
Basically, by continually feeding with fresh flour and water, you're creating an optimal environment for yeast, allowing them to outcompete other organisms that might try to colonize rotting/spoiling food on your counter, like mold or bacteria.
I'm also not so certain that local yeast cultures would eventually push out foreign cultures – the idea is to keep the population of the starter culture so overwhelmingly composed of the strains you want (first by inoculating, or catching from wild, then by tuning the environment and food), other organisms, local yeasts included, can't establish a foothold. This is why starters have a much higher chance of going bad in the beginning, before any strains have become firmly established. I have no scientific evidence either way, though.
Also, The Bread Builders has lots of theory and abstract techniques, if you're interested, but no recipes.
She has written a cook book - but I don't know wether those are the recipes she is using or not, as I haven't checked it out yet.
Try r/breadit for your bread baking questions.
It's not clear what you are trying to short-cut in doing this - if you want to salvage a sourdough culture, then most store bought bread won't work because it's made using yeast only. Much of the quality in breadmaking is in the process for making it - mixing, kneading, proofing, shaping, baking. Excellent quality breads can come from simple flours, water, and salt because the baker's technique is good.
Thanks!, its the glorious Flour Water Salt Yeast book by Ken Forkish: https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals-ebook/dp/B007SGLZH6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1523906966&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=FSWY
https://www.amazon.ca/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals-ebook/dp/B007SGLZH6
4 ingredients, no bread machine.
Does she have this book? http://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals-ebook/dp/B007SGLZH6
If you like artisan breads with good crusty exteriors and soft squishy insides, this book is for you. It's very easy to make bread with these techniques.
https://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485499180&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=book+artisan+bread+in+5+minutes+a+day
Awesome, thanks. i will look into that.
Here's an Amazon Link for anyone else needing it.
For bread, I use the ratio (or a fraction thereof) from this book:
> 6 cups water
> 3 tablespoons yeast
> 3 tablespoons salt
> 13 cups flour
It just so happens that a regular sized bag of flour is just about 13 cups, plus enough for a healthy gluten cloak.
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day is a really great bread book and has lots of wonderful recipes. The bagel recipe alone is worth the price.
I usually make classic pizza with homemade dough and olive oil rather than sauce. Top with tomato and mozzarella cheese and some oregano. According to a book I have on baking bread, it's the classic italian way to do it. It tastes amazing. The book refers to it as pizza margherita but it isn't anything like what you get from stores.
edit: For anyone curious, this is the book. Amazing book, can't recommend it enough. Just be sure you have a stand mixer and dough hook or your life is going to get difficult.
As a newbie baker, I swear by Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I've taught at least 3 non-baker friends the boule recipe and they all love it.
A perfect excuse to break out my newest cook book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I tried out one recipe from it that had been copied online, and it came out great, so I'm looking forward to trying some others!
I'm currently exploring this bread with my new (to me) pizza stone and peel.....my apartment smells amazing.
The last couple of weeks I've been going with this one: Spent grain bread
Also, this book is a pretty good one for low active-time bread making.
This sourdough is awesome, but it's getting more varsity level and greater time commitment.
Making a passable loaf of bread is pretty easy, though. Start off with 3/4 cup or so of warm water, and dissolve one packet of yeast in it. Wait 15 minutes (yeast will have gone all bubbly in this time). Add a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of honey (or molasses, or sugar, or none at all), a splash of oil, and a couple of cups of flour (I use a mixture of whole wheat and bread flour) - I can't tell you how much exactly, because I normally do it by feel. What you want is for it to not be liquidy, but still a little bit sticky (just a little) when you've mixed it all together in the bowl.
Now you sprinkle a bit of flour on the counter and flop that glob of dough on there, and knead it for 10 mintues or so, until it's all homogenous and elastic (some folks use a mixer attachment for this, but I think it's the best part, so I do it by hand). Then pour some oil in the bowl, coat the dough in oil, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a tea towel. Let that sucker sit somewhere warmish for about 1 to 1.5 hours, until the dough had doubled in size. Gently press the air out of it and lay it out again on the lightly-floured counter, pressing it into a rectangle a couple of inches thick. Roll it sort of like a swiss cake roll, folding the ends under and making the whole thing more-or-less loaf shaped. Oil a loaf pan, and plop that dough in there, cover again, and let it rise until doubled. It will take less time to rise this time around, more like 30-40 minutes.
In the meantime, heat up the oven to 450F, and add a pan of water at the bottom. The steam gives you a wonderful crust. When the oven is hot and the dough risen, pop it in there. After 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 375F, and let it bake another 40 or so minutes. Minimize the times you spent opening the oven, especially during the beginning. Every time you let heat and steam out you're compromising that poor bread in there. After the loaf is all browned and making your house smell too good to bear, take the steam pan and bread out of the oven. I like to pop the loaf out of the pan and bake it another 5-10 minutes alone to crisp up the crust that was in the pan. Then let it cool and dig in!
It will take a bit of practice, and you might want to start with recipes, but eventually you just run with it and throw in extras (I like flax, sesame and poppy seeds in mine, and the occasional handful of rolled oats, some herbs, etc - it's pretty forgiving). Good luck!
> bread is a really tedious process that would take a couple of hours (at least) to do it right.
Nope. 10 minutes the day before, 5 minutes the day of. And 5 minutes the next day for the other half of the dough. The mixing bowl half-full of dough in the fridge will add credibility as well - "I cook all day - when I get home I like to do things quickly in the kitchen."
Bread geeks will look down their nose a bit, but it makes a very competent crusty loaf. I particularly like the peasant bread. And the pizza dough comes out almost exactly like good cheap NYC pizza.
I think OP's lack of knife skills are going to be his undoing, though. Can't cram for knife skills.
Occasionally I'll make oatmeal bread (which is delicious and easy) from the More with Less cookbook, but I get most of my recipes from the bread bible. It has a lot of great recipes and general information on how to bake. You may be able to find it at your local library, and if it's not there then they should be able to get it from another library.
Recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book, "The Bread Bible".
So the bible is at best 2% commandment (assuming we're including Leviticus, which nobody follows anymore, but i digress). Let's use The Bread Bible for contrast, as I'm most familiar with that compared to any other "bible" instruction manual. The Bread Bible teaches you everything you need to know about baking bread, and is mostly instructional (read commandment).
Now what I'm assuming happened is that somewhere along the line, some book publisher/marketer thought it a good idea to call something "the ____ bible" because it sounded catchy to them, and they felt the bible was some sort of guide book to life. Having been surrounded by christians my whole life, I can say there are quite a few people who consider the real bible to be such a guide book, but the text was never intended to be read this way. Granted, someparts are guidebooks (e.g. the commandments, the beattidues, parables, etc), but the lion's share of the book isn't. It's a collection of letters, poems and stories.
/rant
It's one of those 'personal preference' issues, really.
I've read a lot of the books that others have mentioned, but I haven't bought my own copies, mostly because I'm satisfied with Rose Levy Beranbaum's books, and have stuck with those. She's a good teacher who seems to understand the specific challenges of baking at home with the ingredients I can find. (Lots of other cookbooks seem to be focused on professional type baking situations, and on artisanal baking. Not what I need or want to use.)
Her recipes have been consistently reliable, approachable and the end results have been very tasty.
Some projects are apparently more than I want to manage, so I haven't baked EVERYTHING in her books, but I do own them all, if that tells you anything.
I learned a lot from her Bread bible.
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941
Her newest, The Baking Bible also looks great (just got it, haven't yet worked my way completely through it.
http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y
There are a lot of different approaches to this kind of project. Along the way in my experiments, I learned that I'm not really all that fascinated with rustic artisanal breads, and that most professional cookbooks just aren't what I'm looking for in the way of specific advice on projects I can manage at home. For one thing, living where I do, finding top quality flours is a problem (i.e., online only).
Editing to add: I think it's probably best to buy a cookbook produced in your own country, whatever that might be. For example, ingredients can be hard to source, and wording can be a confusing issue. (British cookbooks have given me a lot of great ideas, but living in the US, I find I need to double check my understanding of the instructions and the ingredients. Metric measurements are a godsend, though, they simplify a lot. Other measuring standards can be more confusing.)
It's from this book but I add an extra egg: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393057941
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941 Page 46.
You're likely not kneading enough; that's how my breads used to turn out. Like what Protheanunicorn said, if there's not enough gluten development, you'll just have a fine crumb rather than delicious chewiness. If you're serious about bread baking, invest in a stand mixer that comes with a dough hook, to ease the strain on your hands.
A reliable trick I learned from Alton Brown to figure out if the dough is kneaded enough is to pull off a small piece of dough, hold it with the middle pinched between your thumb and index knuckle, and stretch it; you should be able to stretch it to the point where you can see light through it but it doesn't break. It should stretch pretty thinly, too. Here's a helpful video (at 3:30ish). You could also watch the full episode at the link for a lot of tips of the basics of bread making.
Also, find reliable recipes; easy recipes on generic websites tend to yield loaves of lesser quality. I can think of The Bread Bible, Cook's Illustrated, and King Arthur Flour's recipes.
I got the recipe out of The Bread Bible. I just bought it a week or two ago, its great.
This book is amazing and great for beginners. I just started making breads recently and have come to swear by it.
I'm not sure but I think you may have been attempting to make bread. If so, please buy this book and read it. It explains everything.
http://smile.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941
> Okay, I think our disagreement, such as it is, is mainly semantic. My point is that talking about morality in terms other than human welfare doesn't make any sense, and that thus the only sensible way I can see to have a discussion about what people 'should' do is to discuss the effects of actions on human welfare.
Indeed, but I think you're making an unnecessary error that will bite you in the ass, when you subsequently use the language of morality. It's something I see all the time. Ok, fine, we've done away with god, but what if god is the universe? Or energy? That sort of thing.
It's really questionable and seems to serve only rhetorical purposes - Christians accuse atheists of having either no morality or of having one they refuse to acknowledge, and people scamper off to their corners to think about how we can refute that. Or my favorite, "god" now means the thing you value most, so your god is human welfare.
Admit it, you're not really an atheist.
If you mean this is a good way to live to ensure welfare, then you're talking about the same thing the city planner is talking about, not the priest. It unnecessarily lends credence to their entire enterprise when you adopt their vocabulary.
If human welfare is something you value and you think there's a way to live life so that you can contribute to it... what needs to be more complicated than that? Why dip your toe even once in a well full of ghosts? Because it too purports to give you rules for getting what you want out of life? So does this, but nobody would call that a moral code. It's just a way to get what you want.
(As an aside, I haven't read it, but I'm assuming it at least tries to tell you how to get laid. If not, substitute this, which tells you how to get good bread. Is there now a morality of bread-baking because using one yeast over another gives you that better thump you want?)
> What do you mean by "better off"? Can something that doesn't exist be better off or worse off than something that does exist? Is it some hedonic calculus that concludes that lives with a sufficiently bad suffering to pleasure ratio were not worth living?
Indeed. If a person reports to me that he'd have preferred not living, that's enough for me. I'm quite certain that if a person's fear of death were switched off and they were given some time in which to contemplate never having existed, most would prefer this.
If we struggle with the idea of comparisons with something that never existed, then let them be snuffed out in the wombs. Certainly a fetus/baby has a measurable welfare - I'm saying most would choose not to go beyond that stage if they weren't terrified into existence by their evolutionary heritage.
The Bread Bible will tell you EVERYTHING there is to know about the art of making bread.
You might want to check out Jim Lahey's book, if you haven't already. He suggests using a much smaller quantity of yeast, and a longer room temperature rise of 10-12 hours. No kneading, just a few folds, rest for an hour and bake. I've had great results with this method for years. The book is here: https://www.amazon.ca/My-Bread-Revolutionary-No-work-No-knead/dp/0393066304
It's Jim Lahey's No Knead. He wrote a book about it: http://www.amazon.com/My-Bread-Revolutionary-No-Work-No-Knead/dp/0393066304
Here is the original recipe, along with a step by step demo by a food blogger.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Baking-Works-Exploring-Fundamentals/dp/0470392673/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1473095030&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+science+of+baking
How Baking Works - this book is basically a textbook and it will take you through everything you need to know. It even includes experiments you can do to really explore how different ratios, temperatures, ingredients, etc. can impact your baking.
A really good I would recommend in the book How Baking Works. It gives you the explanation you need without feeling like a textbook. I have an AOS degree in baking and I had this as one of my school books. It's not too expensive either. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470392673
I have found (so far) the answer to half of your question:
*"Second, wheat flour, if mixed with water and kneaded, becomes very elastic. The flour-and-water mixture in bread becomes stretchy like a balloon because of a protein in wheat known as gluten. Gluten gives bread dough the ability to capture the carbon dioxide produced by yeast in tiny flour balloons." From How Bread/Stuff Works
Also if you are deeply interested in this information there is a book called How Baking Works that I would suggest investigating
Best of luck.
How Baking Works is a good one.
This is a good book about the science of baking
https://www.amazon.com/How-Baking-Works-Exploring-Fundamentals/dp/0470392673
And this infographic explains things if you are more of a visual person http://imgur.com/FE4N4iT
There's a new edition out this year: Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft
It's by the Culinary Institute of America and has a lot of photos!
the real BIFL answer: http://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
I use the bread dough recipe from Chad Robertson's Tartine
Get the book!
I bake my own bread, sometimes using stuff out of this book.
Wild yeast, stone-milled whole-wheat, etc. It's worth it if you have the time.
The one from tartine book 1
Tartine Bread https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0811870413/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_WuP8ybM7QCX15
For the dough? I used the method in Tartine Bread which produces about a 75% hydration dough, although I increased it to closer to 80%.
http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Claytons-Complete-Book-Breads/dp/0743287096/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418611234&amp;sr=1-20&amp;keywords=Bread
http://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418611228&amp;sr=1-8&amp;keywords=Bread
There's a really simple sourdough bread recipe. It's by no means the best, but it's really simple.
300 grams flour
200 grams water
100 grams sourdough starter
12 grams salt
Mix, then knead until it passes a windowpane test (look it up on youtube for a good description of this. In short: Take a small piece of the dough, and gently stretch it. The dough is done when it forms a windowpane that's translucent without tearing.)
Put the dough in a covered bowl in a warmish place, come back in 60-90 minutes and knead the dough for 30-60 seconds. A lot of recipe's say "deflate" the dough, but the idea shouldn't be to degas the dough but rather redistribute the yeast in the dough. Put it back in the bowl, covered, and back in the warmer area. After another 60-90 minutes take the dough out of the bowl and shape it. Let it proof for 90 minutes, then bake at 500 for 15 minutes, then another 25 at 425.
This is just about the simplest recipe I've used. At higher hydration you stop kneading and start with stretch and folds. If you're really interested in more on baking stop by /r/breadit, or check out Peter Reinhard's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" ( AMAZON) or Chad Robinson's "Tartine Bread" ( AMAZON)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
http://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/0811870413
If you're interested you should check out the first Tartine Bread book. That's where I learned how to do this. All of his books are tops!
Made Asian pork belly according to the recipe here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/006223238X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_awdo_WSRKwb1W675QH
Made the Bahn Mi sandwich using the recipe from Tartine Bread:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811870413/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_awdo_HVRKwb1SNPR4R
It was out of this world. So good, that we're doing a repeat of the braise today but with beef brisket instead of pork belly.
I've been baking bread semi-regularly for about a year now with just my sourdough starter or yeast, flour, water, & salt. It does take several steps over 24-36 hours, but it's really super simple once you get it down, only uses one large bowl & then a small bit of counter space to actually form the loaf. The method I mostly follow now is from the Tartine Bread book, which really helps you make amazing bread.
At first, I don't think it sounds that simple to most people, but just throwing it out there as a suggestion because it's totally worth it to me to plan bread baking in my schedule, it's cheap, & could easily be done in a college suite.
I got the recipe from Bread by Hamelman. Here's a pic https://imgur.com/gallery/D5EwT
The book is probably my favorite cook book and full of incredible bread recipes. Here's a link
Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118132718/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fS0tzbN0J0JG7
In Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread he identifies that commercial yeasts are bred for rigor so they will overpower local varieties.
I really enjoy Bread by Jeffery Hamelman for an in-depth look at the whole process, recipes and instructions are great too. http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Book-Techniques-Recipes/dp/1118132718
Here is the mobile version of your link
Bread
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118132718?selectObb=new
Martha Stewart, Dorie Greenspan, and Rose Levy Berenbaum are my go-to's for classic recipes with none of the low fat/no sugar/no gluten stuff.
Any classic French basic pastry recipes like for pastry cream, choux, croissants, etc, are always going to be chock-full of butter and sugar and the good stuff, too. Check out Eugenie Kitchen on YouTube for some very easy, classic French recipes (by a very sweet Korean woman).
Here are my favorite baking cookbooks:
Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Baking Bible
Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Cake Bible
Dorie Greenspan - Baking: From My Home To Yours
Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share
Smitten Kitchen is also great for desserts that are a bit fancier, but still classically rich/traditional ingredients.
I LOVE BAKING.
With these baking skills you going to be staying a girlfriend. May i recommend? https://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=baking+book&qid=1570313851&sr=8-1
I like to bake them fresh loaves of bread. It's extremely cheap, everyone loves fresh bread, and then you also know how to bake bread.
That linked book's master recipe makes 4 loaves a batch and is idiot proof, no kneading or guesswork. They look exactly like the picture on the cover and are delicious. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions.
This is my go to recipe. It's based on the 5 Minute Artisan Bread recipe. It's a stupid simple recipe that always makes amazing bread.
I don't know if it's heresy, but have you considered a bread machine? I have a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme (2 lb), and use it 75% of the time for mixing doughs. I make about 5 loaves/doughs a week in it.
It's super since you can program in your knead times/cycles/types (settings for white/wheat, for example), and mine has an automatic 'punch down' action built around its rising times. On mine I believe I can program up to 3 different rise cycles, each up to 24 hours? The enclosed machine works well for proofing between kneads (don't need to worry about drying out etc.), and I've started to plan meals around the timer function so I can have fresh dough ready for me @ 3pm for dinner that day, setting it up in the mornings alongside coffee & breakfast.
I've read many good things about the longevity of Zo's, and in my experience (several month ownership, making ~5 loaves and/or doughs a week) it's solid and reliable. I even like the loaves baked in it for sandwiches/sweet breads (Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook has LOTS of options).
I know it is missing all of the stand mixer pluses, but for me I'm not a baker of sweets/cakes and already own a pasta machine/assorted grinders and Amazon regularly puts it on sale for $200 free ship/no tax for most, sometimes down to $180 (create a pricewatch with camelcamelcamel for the best deal). There are also other machines with different options (timed yeast introduction, french bread cycles, etc.) but I don't know them, just that they're out there.
Good luck in your search! :)
Beth Hensperger's Bread Machine Cookbook
If you're looking for variety in your bread machine baking I recommend
The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/155832156X
Tons of interesting recipes and I don't recall any that didn't come out as intended.
At some point I got bored with the bread machine because of its limitations but I'll still use some of the variations from this cookbook when I bake sourdough now.
Yes, definitely mass. You can get even more than from your cast iron buy placing a sheet pan at the bottom with bricks (as mentioned above) or, as in Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery, rocks and chains on it. Not that you may want to do this, but they also use a stream machine (water gun) to shoot water onto the preheated tray (at a safe distance) in order to get a ton of steam in the oven right at the start of bread baking.
Pretty sure Bouchon Bakery has a croissant recipe too, it's a great book. I feel like I should make croissants from scratch sometime just to say I have, but I really don't want to..
Link to cookbook on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1579654355?pc_redir=1396133599&amp;robot_redir=1
A quick Google search also found a blog post with the recipe:
http://the-cooking-of-joy.blogspot.com/2013/01/traditional-croissants.html?m=1
This is a very time consuming recipe - it took me an entire day to make these. The time and patience is totally worth it, especially if you love croissants!
Side note, I did not use European butter nor did I use the diastatic malt powder and they still came out great!
Hope you guys try it!
Anadama bread came from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and the wheat berry whole wheat loaves are from Bread Alone.
(Etiquette Q: Should I post the whole formulas here? I'm at work right now and edit them in later.)
For the Anadama bread, I find that following the formula gives me pancake batter. I had to add a significant amount of extra flour to get the dough just to come to a ball (well over a cup), then a lot more during kneading to get the "definitely not sticky" consistency called for. I had to add more salt to compensate (tasted the dough as I worked). I haven't checked the hydration percentages as written to see if there's a typo, but I'll do that when I have the books in front of me.
For the whole wheat bread, I went off the formula a bit. I mixed the dough fairly wet, then did three stretch-and-folds at 30 minute intervals instead of the 15-minute knead called for in the recipe. Since there is a high percentage of wheat, I wanted the best chance for an open, chewy crumb, and I think I nailed it. The texture and flavor of the whole wheat berries in there with the lovely chewy crumb is just delightful.
Polenta, wheat berries and sifted whole wheat flour came from my trip up to Maine Grains in Skowhegan, ME, when I was up for the Kneading Conference this year.
White flour was plain old Gold Medal AP flour.
It's from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. All the recipes I've tried from here have been phenomenal. Definitely worth the money for me.
this this this
This book is the best education on bread aside form hands on experience that you can get.
Already on it. Using the BBA method. On day 2 right now. I'm in Bakersfield so not much difference in climate than you I think. Gotten some pretty decent flavor out of the old one. Not quite commercial, but still pretty good.
edit***I accidentally a word.
Some how my text got lost so here it is again:
This is my second time making brioche and it came out really good this time. The recipe made a lot of dough so I made it into little brioche rolls, to plated loaves (one big, one small) and I even turned the left over dough into a tart crust. I got the recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Cutting-edge/dp/1580082688) and it was super easy to make.
Recipe:
Ingredients
(For the sponge)
(For the dough)
Method
Buy The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I, too, struggled to bake decent bread until I read this book.
You know to know how it works, science wise, and the different types per region?
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688/
A good mixer, lots of time. Oh and a brick oven with steam, or a dutch oven. Oven spring has saved me many a time.
I used costco breadflour. I also learned much of what i know from Peter Rheinharts books this one got me started.
Also, use more sourdough starter than necessary. I used 5 gallon buckets to raise my dough. I would retard overnight in a refrigerator.
best one I have read was the Bread Baker's Apprentice.
https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688
Right now I'm reading Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. In fact I haven't checked, I'm sure there are some recipes I could substitute hemp in.
Add 1 Tbs vital wheat gluten per cup of flour, esp. if you are using whole wheat. Let the dough rise longer. Check your oven temperature with a thermometer. Bread needs high temperatures because it's primarily the steam which expands the dough, explaining why bread expands so rapidly in the oven but so slowly on the counter.
If you really want to learn bread, The Bread Bible is a great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941
yeah, it's higher hydration alright. basically I'm using recipes from this book. the levain acts like the mature starter and also helps to inhibit the sour flavors since yeast grows much faster than the other bacterias present.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1580082688?pc_redir=1395348064&amp;robot_redir=1
I AMA Peter Reinhart evangelist as I now bake good bread thanks to him...
Wow. You're super insecure about this, aren't you? I can't think of any other reason you would be so condescending when someone disagrees with you.
Of course there are many different types of bread, but to say that bread usually has dairy in it is just factually incorrect. Bread cooked with just flour, water, salt and yeast is absolutely delicious. It is the epitome of European bread (or, as we in the west self-centredly call it, bread). Maybe you enjoy it more with extra ingredients, and I'm not going to say you're wrong for doing so. I'm not going to call your bread "taste-less".
What you're doing is pretending that the culinary history of bread doesn't exist, because you're trying to prove someone wrong. Acting as if the bread you learned to cook is the only way that professionals cook is, frankly, astonishing.
Here's a book written by a professional: Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. I'm sure you can guess why it's called that.
Here's a book by the French Culinary Institute: The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread Baking. Here's one of the reviews that they list under praise:
> "To make a perfect loaf of bread, the baker needs just five essential ingredients: flour, water, salt, yeast—and this indispensable book!”
>—Iacopo Falai, Owner of Falai, Caffe Falai, and Falai Panetteria"
Of course, these people must be amateurs compared to your experience of:
> hundreds of loaves of bread
http://www.amazon.com/Deceptive-Desserts-Ladys-Guide-Baking/dp/194139339X
She also sells herself as "Internet Star" and "Viral Sensation".
Everything she had professionally photographed for 'the front page' is in her book too.
The recipe is a ~30 page explanation of the techniques in the book Tartine Bread. It would be pretty lengthly to type up. This bread takes about 24 hours to make, more if you ferment in the fridge. If you want the ingredients though, I can type that up for you.
I call out shit when I see it. This sub seems to be all about gold stars and telling everyone they did a good job. It's ok to tell someone they failed and they need to try again. The mediocrity in this sub is too much.
You obviously needs to improve. You need to start with the basics: watch videos and read books. I'd recommend two good starting places:
I'd recommend starting with bread pans. You can focus more on technique and take shaping out of the equation for now. Also, don't start with sourdough; start instead with store bought yeast. The concepts are the same, but you need to understand the basics before you add to it.
Your first recipe should use a bread pan, package of yeast, white flour, and salt. Don't try anything fancy. You need a digital scale and oven thermometer. Multiple flours, shaping, and starters come later.