Recipe. I use flour, water, yeast, salt. I use some sugar to get the yeast up to speed, and I put a dollop of honey into a wholegrain recipe as I think the added flavour is a plus.
Strong flour = normal plain flour with nothing removed or added. You can buy white strong flour, which is refined or whole-wheat flour which does not have the roughage material removed. I change the type of bread I make, sometimes white, sometimes whole-wheat, and often mixes of the two. It depends what is on offer as well.
In particular I use these quantities. 1.5 kg flour (i.e. a single bag) , 1.5 litres of water (500 boiling, 1000 cold) ordinary dried yeast, 1.5 teaspoons of salt, and usually a tablespoon of sugar for the yeast starter. The dough goes into a large plastic salad bowl for mixing. The amount of water does change depending on the type of flour you use, and the grain size etc. I always take out a very large mug full of flour out of the mix and use it to fine tune the mixture to get the right amount of moisture content, and flour the board and hands. An electric fan oven is preferred for baking as I can use all the racks with the even heat. I can also put the oven set about 25 - 35 C to let the dough rise in a draught free environment. Current I use a gas oven, I raise the dough sitting on the wooden board placed on top of the cooker near the back vent with the oven set on warm and covered by a cloth. During the bake I swap the racks up and down and back to front halfway though. It is necessary. The mix makes two large loaves and about 12 to 16 rolls. That is enough for a week and the last slice tastes almost as good as the first.
Bread brought here in the UK from the shops often has mould visibly growing on it after two days. Even with all the chemicals they put in it so it stays "fresh". Unbelievable!
I mention this because yesterday was baking day for me. My daughters visited and of course they had to put their spoon in, as seemingly I can never get enough of their advice. I know there are specialists who make really fantastic bread, I have made decent sourdough bread in the past, and yes the bread is fluffier and lighter if you knead it the correct way for the specified time. However the KEY POINT for me is.... do you make your own bread or buy it from the shop? This was the relevant point in my "discussion" with my daughters. I asked them to demonstrate how bread should be properly kneaded, and they did fine, and pronounced the bread far superior to my normal fare, but 1.5 kilograms of flour makes a fair sized ball of dough and it took a lot of work for them. You could certainly cut out the cost of going to the gym if you made the bread for a dozen families.
My main considerations are, the bread tastes too good anyway, so my slightly lazier approach in best imho.
I also make Irish soda bread. That does not get kneaded at all, and really is a fast recipe. You definitely don’t want to knead it much otherwise you will lose the gases being formed by the baking soda. The recipe usually calls to just "gather up" the dough and put it in the baking tin. . The traditional recipe calls for buttermilk (for its acid which is part of the baking soda mix). I just substitute an equal amount of cream of tarter and a couple of tablespoons of straight lemon juice to go with the bicarbonate of soda. It would say my soda bread is equally as popular as my normal bread and none of it stays around for long, it’s all usually gone in a day when visitors arrive, including my daughters.
I found a couple of sites that give some good information should it be of further interest to anyone.
Just found this. I guess the membership of camera must have got bored after beating the UK brewing business into a pulp.
http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/
http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/what_is_real_bread/
It looks good, but I go for practicality rather then being a trendy greenie. Ill be happy to buy the whole wheat flour straight off the 747 from Nigeria once it’s a known good supplier and the price is right -g- I’m not sure about genetically modified crops though. Once big biz starts calling the shots for farm produce, the results usually go down hill.
Irish soda bread just like your grandmother made it.
http://www.sodabread.info/
The reason it was made that way? It is easy and simple. My Irish grandmother bought up 10 children in a house with dirt floors and a simple peat burning open fire to cook with. It was made in the iron pot as indicated and you put some of the burning peat in the special lid to improve the heating uniformity. The Irish wheat was poor quality and didn’t work well with yeast. The solution was the invention of baking soda, and including potatoes, gave us all things Irish in this world. My mother rattles on about how wonderful real Irish soda bread is but I have to wonder why she never taught herself how to make it. The recipe was designed out of simple necessity, not for scoring points at baking shows. It does taste really good though. |
