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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Recipe Exchange: Let’s Talk Bread

Recipe Exchange: Let’s Talk Bread

by TaMara|  February 29, 20209:05 pm| 74 Comments

This post is in: Food & Recipes, Recipes, yes, I know your recipe is always better than mine

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Recipe Exchange: Let's Talk Bread

Since Watergirl brought it up and it beats talking politics tonight. Let’s talk bread.  I have a favorite, fool-proof recipe (click here) that I make often. You can do it as a regular rise or do it as a slow-rise overnight in the refrigerator.

I used to use a single-sourced flour (grown and milled locally) but they enriched their flour. I switched to King Arthur’s unenriched flours a while ago. Their unbleached and bread flour work very well.

Recipe Exchange: Let's Talk Bread 1

JeffreyW introduced me to the King Arther bun recipe and it is probably the best hamburger roll recipe I’ve ever used, and again, close to fool-proof. I made some changes to the recipe and you can see that here.  Mostly I reduced the sugar content – by a  lot.

sour dough breads

And finally, a friend gave me some sourdough starter and a really good recipe (click here). It’s a bit more labor-intensive, but if you love sourdough, it’s a good recipe.

I had pretty much given up on bread baking at high-altitude until I bought my KitchenAid – it has changed the game for me. It does a perfect knead and my bread no longer comes out like a rock. ETA: Along with weighing my flour and water.

I know many of you have favorite bread recipes and techniques – so I thought it would be fun to share here.

To anyone who wants to begin making their own bread, go with simple and easy recipes to begin. Trust me there are tons of videos on YouTube telling you how to do it “perfectly.” Don’t let that intimidate you. Start simple…work your way up to competition level later.

Now, let’s talk about bread, baby…

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74Comments

  1. 1.

    Sarah

    February 29, 2020 at 9:15 pm

    I only bake sourdough, but I don’t use yeast. I like to use mostly whole grain flour, sometimes seeds or nuts or fruit. My basic recipe is here – https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-sourdough-bread-224367 . Once you get the technique down, it’s endlessly variable. And delicious.

  2. 2.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    February 29, 2020 at 9:17 pm

    Sort of on topic, I want to thank whoever it was who mentioned that Amazon Prime now has the very first season of Julia Child’s “The French Chef.” I cheered myself up today by watching the first three episodes.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    February 29, 2020 at 9:18 pm

    G is the baker in our family but he hates to knead things, so I’m trying to convince him to try this recipe from King Arthur Flour. No stand mixer needed, but it does need to bake inside a covered casserole:

    https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/absolutely-no-knead-crusty-chewy-bread-recipe

  4. 4.

    M31

    February 29, 2020 at 9:20 pm

    for beginners that want excellent results, the No-Knead recipe from Jim Lahey is great:

    https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread

    (you need a big heavy ovenproof pot like a dutch oven)

    In the original video with Lahey he said ‘this bread is so easy a 6-year-old could make it’ and as I had a convenient 6-year-old at the time I proved that this was, in fact, true–the only thing I did was actually put the bread in the super hot pot in the oven hahahahaha

  5. 5.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 9:21 pm

    I used to make homemade kneaded on a floury board a lot. I loved it. There is nothing like fresh baked yeast bread.

    When I got to middle age I had to stop. Adding a pound a year weight eventually adds up. I do miss that bread.
    I finally got a Kitchenaid about 15 years ago. It’s amazing. No kneading on the flouring board. And it does a good job with the dough hook. Even biscuits, which can be a sticky mess.
    Everything doughy on with the Kitchenaid ends up wrapped around the dough hook. Cleanup is so easy. No giant breadboard plus bowl plus the dough embedded under my fingernails to wash. Just the mixer’s bowl and the breadhook.
    I do miss the actual kneading. I always found it relaxing, but that is probably just me.

    ETA Proofread BEFORE you push the post comment button.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    February 29, 2020 at 9:22 pm

    .

  7. 7.

    TaMara (HFG)

    February 29, 2020 at 9:23 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Love Julia. But you made me think of  Graham Kerr, my childhood cooking crush.

    https://youtu.be/czrj4yJm6z0

  8. 8.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 29, 2020 at 9:23 pm

    My eldest sister is an excellent bread-baker, I’m not and wish I were.

    This guy likes making bread.

    Michael Pollan’s Netflix series on food included a wonderful segment on bread.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    February 29, 2020 at 9:24 pm

    @M31:

    You beat me by seconds! It is supposed to be awesome. I’ve never made bread, but I’ve been thinking about trying this.

  10. 10.

    Keith P

    February 29, 2020 at 9:24 pm

    The best bread recipe I’ve ever used is the no-knead bread recipe – the loaves look professionally-made (the steam makes all the difference in the world)  The best video I’ve ever seen is King Arthur’s series on baguettes…way more informative than any other video I’ve seen

  11. 11.

    M31

    February 29, 2020 at 9:26 pm

    I’ve been baking seriously for years and the thing that caused the most improvement in my results was getting a good kitchen scale.

    I like the book “Bread” by Jeffrey Hamelman, which while aimed at pro bakers has good scaled-down recipes for normal humans.

    A nice Pullman loaf just came out of the oven and I’ll start the ciabatta sponge tonight!

  12. 12.

    TaMara (HFG)

    February 29, 2020 at 9:27 pm

    You guys are funny…I love that you all mention this recipe. Here’s the video:

    p;

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    February 29, 2020 at 9:29 pm

    @Sarah: Same here. It’s somewhat slower, but that’s mostly waiting for longer rise times so the actual effort is pretty much the same. My standard recipe is from Nancy Silverman’s “Breads from the La Brea Bakery”. Takes a bit over a day (assuming you already have a mature starter) and makes two loaves of very good bread.

    It’s a “once a month” sort of thing; I’ll quarter and freeze the loaves and defrost them one chunk at a time.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 9:31 pm

    @M31: Yes, my daughter uses that NYT recipe  I bought her a dutch oven and she gets good results.   I tend to use more traditional recipes and use the cuisinart for kneading.  But mostly I make pizza dough rather than bread when I do that

    Here in the Portland metro area we have so many good artisanal bakeries there is so much choice and it is so easy to find good bread compared to when we lived in TX.  The bread at the local groceries is actually pretty excellent.  I often buy bread at the local New Seasons Market (Portland version of Whole Foods) or at a smaller local grocery called Chucks Produce here in Vancouver rather than going through the trouble of baking.

  15. 15.

    NeenerNeener

    February 29, 2020 at 9:31 pm

    King Arthur broke my heart when they discontinued their oatmeal barley scone mix. That stuff was to die for. I’ve been trying to approximate their mix; the closest I can get is using Odlum’s coarse Irish flour.

  16. 16.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 9:32 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: OT bread but not Julia Child. A while back I read a food column in our local paper. The writer had a culinary background and had done the food prep for Julia Child’s show. One week she had a schedule conflict and had a culinary grad friend substitute.

    The  next week she asked Julia Child how it went. Child’s response was sub was terrible. Couldn’t even chop an onion correctly.

    So it turns out that you are supposed to slice your onion vertically, unless you need actual onion slices. If you slice horizontally, that breaks through all the onion cell walls and releases the crying inducing chemicals. Do all the vertical chopping first, and then the horrizontal stuff as the very last.

    I haven’t been reduced to tears by an onion since I read this.

    Julia Child knew a lot.

  17. 17.

    M31

    February 29, 2020 at 9:33 pm

    Oh, and another great bread book that is also a travelogue is “Flatbreads and Flavors” by Alford and Duguid, they travel the world and give recipes for all kinds of flatbreads, and it’s really great (with great photography). You can tell it’s from decades ago, as they visit all kinds of areas that I’m sure are too dangerous to visit now. They get old Kurdish men to tell them of flatbreads made of bulgher and onions (I’ve made that one, it’s great) and Afghani naan, and Georgian yeasted rounds, oh man now I’m hungry

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    February 29, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    Tip if you’re doing the no-knead: The bread will often stick to the bottom of your Dutch oven or whatever, making it a PITA to get it out of the pot after baking. To prevent this, put a piece of parchment paper at the bottom of the pot before putting in the dough. Then, even if the paper sticks to the dough, peeling it off at the end is easy.

    If you have the right sort of pot, the various no-knead recipes are pretty straightforward and can produce great loaves.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    February 29, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    I really wish I could bake bread! My problem is not the kneading or the time.

    It’s the yeast. Yeast hates  me. Like even if I get the water temperature just right and it’s a fresh packet…nothing happens. It’s a big deficit in my cooking repertoire and it drives me batshit. Give me all your tips please!

  20. 20.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    I sometimes make homeade pita bread with my girls.  It’s really fun to make and you can get about 100x better results than the bagged stale stuff you find on the grocery shelf.   I use the pita bread recipe from this book:

    The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Rosen

    https://www.amazon.com/New-Book-Middle-Eastern-Food/dp/0375405062/

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    February 29, 2020 at 9:39 pm

    @Yutsano: What about the temperature of the room? The water temperature sets the starting point for the yeast ferment, but if the room is too cold it will slow down a lot and too warm will overshoot. Most recipes assume around 70-72 F for ambient.

  22. 22.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    February 29, 2020 at 9:39 pm

    @TaMara (HFG): Oh that’s fun. How did we go from him and Julia to Gordon Ramsey?

     

    @Sab: The second episode she ever filmed was French onion soup, so she showed how to chop onions.  I’m still not sure I could do it like she does. That knife is awfully close to her fingers.

  23. 23.

    Barbara

    February 29, 2020 at 9:39 pm

    I used the minimalist recipe for no-knead bread, which came out okay most of the time, but the dough is so wet that cooking times vary a lot.  I have found that you can actually get a comparable crust by brushing the top of the dough with water when you put it in the oven, and then placing a shallow pan of boiling water on the rack underneath the one that the bread is cooking on.  You open the door after 15 minutes to let the steam escape.  You don’t use a Dutch oven with that technique.

    In general, I find that breads that take longer to rise, with less yeast, yield better flavor.  That’s why bread machines usually disappoint once the bread cools off.

    I also like cooking with spelt flour, and I have a spelt/flax seed recipe that is usually a hit with my kids.  I am also a pizza crust maker, and all I can say is, nothing beats “00” flour for that purpose.  I now have at least five different flours in my cabinet.  But I almost never use whole wheat!  I did used to do sour dough starter, and then I lapsed.  Maybe I will start again.  It’s not hard, it just takes time.

  24. 24.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 29, 2020 at 9:40 pm

    @Kent:

    Chef John at Food Wishes does a good pita.

  25. 25.

    TaMara (HFG)

    February 29, 2020 at 9:42 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: This is awesome. It’s impossible to get good pita here. I was so spoiled in Boston.

  26. 26.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 9:43 pm

    @TaMara (HFG): Pita is really easy to make at home and hard to mess up.  A pizza stone and hot oven is perfect for making pita but you can use regular baking sheets too.

  27. 27.

    JaySinWA

    February 29, 2020 at 9:45 pm

    I never felt comfortable with the Lahey method, finding the pot handling hazardous and the drop into the pot hit or miss. And I don’t get the crusty bread passion that people have.

    Steve Gamelin has been recommended here before and has the technique down to very simple steps.

    https://www.youtube.com/user/artisanbreadwithstev/videos

    His no knead recipes can be done overnight or in less than 4 hours.

  28. 28.

    Zanamu

    February 29, 2020 at 9:47 pm

    The first cookbook I bought was Beard on Bread, and I have used the stuffings out of that book over the past 35 years because Sunday night is Bread Night. However, in the past few years I have become a huge believer in the NYT “slow bread” recipe. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread I make this variety about half the year – stir it up Saturday night, and by the time supper is ready on Sunday, so is the bread. No kneading, keeps well, nice sponge. My husband is from the Middle East, so naan and lavosh are his comfort foods, but he loves all bread. Also, do not dismiss good old fashioned drop biscuits, which are quick and satisfying in their own way. We like bread night but we aren’t snooty about its form.

  29. 29.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 9:47 pm

    Do you guys have Bob’s Red Mill flours in your area?  It’s a local Portland OR mill so I don’t know how much reach they have to other parts of the country.  But they have a lot of fairly unique and artisanal flours for baking:  https://www.bobsredmill.com/  I have a cousin who is one of their marketing or sales people so I’m always getting their stuff.

  30. 30.

    JanieM

    February 29, 2020 at 9:50 pm

    @Kent: Bob’s Red Mill products are available on the regular grocery store shelves here in Maine, have been for years.

  31. 31.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 9:50 pm

    Anyone remember the Tassajara Bread Book?  I think that was the 1960s baking bible.  It was still around when I was in the Peace Corps in the mid 1980s and we baked bread in a home made wood-fired oven in Guatemala using that cookbook.  But I think it must have gone out of style these days.

  32. 32.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 29, 2020 at 9:51 pm

    @Kent:

    The Co-op has that on the shelf, I recognize that label.

  33. 33.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    February 29, 2020 at 9:55 pm

    One thing I’ve heard said, several times.

    Beginning bread student (so the legend goes) are *amazed* at how *wet* bread dough should be. (Not ALL beginning bread students, I’m sure.)

    Obviously, that varies a great deal depending on the type of bread; free form must be stiffer than pan-baked. However, if I’d known that when I started trying to bake bread, it would have saved me a huge amount of frustration. I kept trying to add just a bit more flour, because my hands always got gummy and coated with dough-stickiness.  It always ended up far too stiff, and impossible to get the creases out (so the bread would puff up and split at all the creases).

    (Curious if anyone can explain – was that gummy coating normal – your hands are playing with fortified flour-water paste, after all! – or a sign of a problem?)

    I stopped trying to knead, because I have chronic fatigue syndrome (and, frankly, because I sucked at it), and bought a bread machine for the dough cycle. I had tried a Kitchen Aid, but, remember how stiff my bread dough was? Time was, a Kitchen Aid could handle that, back when they were made of metal, not plastic[1]. So, hopefully pointless hint: if you smell burning plastic while your Kitchen Aid kneads your bread, it’s too damn stiff.

    (My mind is now trying to shut down naughty jokes about stiffness and how you might need some good hand-working and a bit of liquid, to remove the stiffness.)

    Sourdough is great – really fun, and really flavorful but you do need to get it, and keep it, active. If your sourdough isn’t oozing some alcohol (not much, low percentage, and probably tasting terrible!!!) each day, when you’re actively using it, it’s probably not quite strong enough. Don’t be shy about adding a hint of plain yeast if your sourdough isn’t up to the task – sometimes a quarter teaspoon of yeast turns a would-be failed sourdough loaf into a slightly-too-dense, but very flavorful, loaf. (I’ve actually gone up to a full teaspoon – just about a half of a standard yeast packet – when I needed fast rising, or when my sourdough seemed particularly dicey.)

    Um. I’m babbling again. It must be a day ending in Y.

    [1] Obviously, the *internals* are what matter – I think Kitchen Aid still has a metal *exterior*.)

  34. 34.

    JaySinWA

    February 29, 2020 at 9:56 pm

    @Yutsano: You can go old school and add the yeast to warm water and let it sit until it bubbles. Add a little sugar if the recipe calls for it. Proves the yeast is alive and water isn’t a problem. Tap water needs to have the chlorine removed either by filtering , sitting or warming to the correct temperature. Then use as directed otherwise.

  35. 35.

    karensky

    February 29, 2020 at 9:56 pm

    @Kent:  I am gonna try making pita.  Thanks

  36. 36.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 9:58 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Just do it more slowly. I am a klutz. My mother was also. Family tradition is to keep the bandaid box in the knife drawer because that is where it is needed. So go slow.

  37. 37.

    Barbara

    February 29, 2020 at 9:58 pm

    @Kent: Bob’s is available in every supermarket in my area, though the range of products varies.  Arrowhead is another flour company that makes artisanal flours.

  38. 38.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    February 29, 2020 at 10:00 pm

    @Kent: Pizza stones are fine, but, for durability, I love my baking steel – https://www.bakingsteel.com/.

    I’ve had multiple stones break on me, though probably due to my own carelessness (like, knocking them over when they’re leaning up against something – not like, “washing them and expecting I can throw them right into the oven”).

    Adding to my general curiosity: has anyone tried both?

  39. 39.

    CarolPW

    February 29, 2020 at 10:01 pm

    @Kent: I have it on my cookbook shelf still! When I was in college many decades ago I got it to learn to make bread. At the time I had two male roommates, and I would make 2 loaves of whole wheat and two loaves of oatmeal/molasses bread most weekends, and two of the loaves would be pretty much gone by bedtime. The oatmeal/molasses was spectacular for egg salad sandwiches. It sounds like a disgusting pairing, but it was perfect!

  40. 40.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 10:03 pm

    @Kent: I still have mine and love it!

    It does have an eternal bagel recipe. We would make bagels madly, and the dough would keep rising, so more bagels. So we gave up and evetually froze the remainind dough. Then a couple of weeks later we thawed it and started the whole process all over again.

    ETA Best pictures ever for how to braid challah. Drawings not photos.

  41. 41.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    February 29, 2020 at 10:03 pm

    @Barbara: Yes – some recipes call for a “poolish”- where you let the yeast ferment in flour and water overnight. A lot of the flavor of bread comes from this fermentation, and it’s one of the reasons sourdough can be so tasty.

  42. 42.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 29, 2020 at 10:04 pm

    @Barbara:

    I have their all-purpose flour in the cupboard.

  43. 43.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 10:08 pm

    @Yutsano: Yeast needs a bit of sugar to rise.

  44. 44.

    Kent

    February 29, 2020 at 10:10 pm

    @Sab: I never tried their bagel recipe.  But then I worked as a baker at a bagel bakery between college and the Peace Corps and never felt motivated to make bagels after that.  It’s still around 30 years later:  http://www.kornblattsdelipdx.com/

    I was going to steal/borrow some of the recipes when I was there but couldn’t figure out how to translate them into normal quantities and ingredients.  They used things like grape syrup for sweetening and the measurements were by 50lb sacks of flour into giant floor mixers.

  45. 45.

    JanieM

    February 29, 2020 at 10:20 pm

    I too still have my copy of the Tassajara Bread Book — two, in fact. I got my sourdough starter going by using it as a guide in 2017, when I started eating bread again after a long gap.

    Speaking of 50 lb sacks….I lived for quite a few years in households of young adults — we made our own bread and our own yogurt and bought wh wh flour, brown rice, and milk powder in 50-pound bags. (Our yogurt was from Adele Davis’s recipe and used milk powder instead of milk per se.)

    Those were the days……the best was when we had eight people, six of whom liked to cook. We had house dinners six nights a week, and the two who didn’t like to cook took extra turns washing dishes. No house dinners on Sundays. Those days ended when we splintered into a couple of smaller groups…then people had kids….and it gets a lot harder to do the shared cooking thing when the adults are all scattered around in different houses and come equipped with two or three extra mouths to feed. And then there’s basketball practice, and piano lessons, and … so it goes.

  46. 46.

    CapnMubbers

    February 29, 2020 at 10:50 pm

    I had the Tassajara bread book, and the Flatbreads and Flavors, among others. I will probably never replace my well-used cookbooks that went up with the house in Paradise, or the rhythms and routines of that life.

  47. 47.

    Tim Wayne

    February 29, 2020 at 11:19 pm

    There’s an America’s Test Kitchen sour dough method and recipe here. Their stuff isn’t incredibly creative but it’s foolproof.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    February 29, 2020 at 11:20 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    but it does need to bake inside a covered casserole

    You don’t actually have to bake it that way if you don’t want to.  You could just as easily proof it in a basket and bake it free-form on a pizza stone.

  49. 49.

    randy khan

    February 29, 2020 at 11:20 pm

    So, a potentially dumb question – I get why you’d weigh the flour, but it seems odd to me to weigh the water.  Water weighs 1 g/ml, and its density is essentially invariant over the temperatures you’d use for mixing dough.*  So what am I missing?  Is it that you get more precision with a scale than with a measuring cup?  Or is it something else?

     

    *So if you ever need something that weighs 1 kg, a 1 liter plastic bottle filled with water will be pretty darned close to that weight.

  50. 50.

    Lyrebird

    February 29, 2020 at 11:24 pm

    @JaySinWA: I’ve been leery of the drop in hot pan aspect, I am added onto that very lazy, and most of my bread baking is with GF flour.  I usually don’t bother with gums etc (see? lazy!) so I don’t want to mess with what little bubbles and structure I can get in my GF flatbread.

     

    Turns out with some parchment paper (Hi dmsilev too!) the basic no-knead bread does pretty well even for half-ssed GF bread.  I do tend to put in too much water on purpose and then use a big pyrex pan with a lid.

    Good bread is a good thing!

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    February 29, 2020 at 11:24 pm

    @dmsilev:

    My standard recipe is from Nancy Silverman’s “Breads from the La Brea Bakery”.

    Glad to see somebody else mention that one.  I adapted my recipe from that book (and BTW, it’s Nancy Silverton, not Silverman).

    For all that people talk about sourdough baking being difficult, I think the hardest part is scheduling your life so you can do it.  When I told my sister I had started sourdough baking, she said it isn’t a recipe, it’s a lifestyle.  There’s a lot of truth to that.  It takes a certain kind of lifestyle to be able to do something that will take your attention at specific times over a 24-36 hour period.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    February 29, 2020 at 11:28 pm

    @Kent:

    Do you guys have Bob’s Red Mill flours in your area?

    We certainly get it here in Southern California.  I prefer it to King Arthur, both because I like the grind a little better and because I prefer their packaging.  It doesn’t hurt that the owner is also named Moore.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    February 29, 2020 at 11:30 pm

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    I am also a big fan of the baking steel.  I broke a couple of pizza stones, and it wasn’t because I was doing anything to them.  I think they just can’t handle as high a temperature as pizza bakers like to use.

  54. 54.

    Sab

    February 29, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    @CapnMubbers: So you lost your Tassajara cookbook?

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    February 29, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    @randy khan:

    So, a potentially dumb question – I get why you’d weigh the flour, but it seems odd to me to weigh the water.

    As I see it, there are two reasons.  Reason one is that weighing, especially with a digital scale, is more accurate than measuring by volume.  I can get the water in my recipe to within a quarter ounce, no problem, but I sure can’t measure water to within a quarter fluid ounce with a typical measuring cup.  The other is that once you have the scale out and put your bowl on it, it’s easier just to keep weighing than it is to get out a measuring cup.

    Of course I’m a chemist, so I’m used to weighing liquids.  I do it all the time at work, so it translates naturally to doing it at home.  At work, I do it for the same reason: accuracy.  It’s easy to get a balance to weigh accurately to within 0.1%, but even the most accurate volumetric glassware isn’t close to that good.

  56. 56.

    RaflW

    March 1, 2020 at 12:13 am

    @Barbara: I am curious if your spelt recipe is only spelt flour, or contains other flour(s)?

    My partner basically can’t/shouldn’t eat wheat as we think of wheat. But pure, ancient spelt is tolerated fine.

    He buys one loaf a week of a local bakery’s product (for $9 a loaf!), but I have a bread machine and we talked about trying to make spelt bread at home ‘just in case’ (I also am interested in doing some baking now that our new kitchen is done!).

    So, suggested recipies would be great from anyone who might have leads on fill spelt (my brief research so far indicates there is both white and full grain flour available).

  57. 57.

    Ken

    March 1, 2020 at 12:39 am

    I used to use a single-sourced flour (grown and milled locally) but they enriched their flour.

    What was the problem with their enriched flour?  I get that enriched usually means “we took out the germ and used peroxide on the rest just in case some vitamins snuck through”, but was your local provider doing that?

  58. 58.

    Ruff the dog

    March 1, 2020 at 12:42 am

    1. Scale

    2. Work under time pressure. Scones, biscuits, breads come out better with less handling, and The immanent arrival of the Spanish inquisition helps that.

    3. second Time is good, third time’s a charm. nothing beats repeated practice; what was fussy the first time is fast and efficient the fifth.

    4. Flour is cheap. Practice lots. Don’t throw good labor after bad.

  59. 59.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    March 1, 2020 at 12:47 am

    No link, on account of I typed this out from a sheet of paper, so apologies for the length. I do this every Friday that I have time, which is at least once a month. Soooooo good.

    Donny’s Challah

    Named for our congregation president, Donny Friend, a class act who teaches the best challah-making class.

    This recipe makes one immense 6-strand braided loaf or two pretty good-sized 3 or 4-strand braided loaves. Proportions are controlled by the number of eggs; using 2 eggs and reducing the rest of the recipe to 2/3 is enough for a large 4-strand loaf that will feed 12 hungry Jews. Even a 1-egg loaf will keep you going through Shabbat dinner and possibly all weekend.

    7 t active dry yeast

    ½ C sugar

    2 C hot water (as hot as it comes out of the tap)

    Mix these ingredients in a large bowl with a plastic or wooden spoon or spatula and wait for the yeast to react with the sugar. After about 10 minutes, it will start to puff up into a light brown, bubbly liquid.

    Then add:

    3 large or jumbo eggs

    ½ C olive oil

    1 T salt

    Mix these into the bubbly yeast and sugar and stir while adding unbleached white flour (I like to use Trader Joe’s “Baker Josef’s” all-purpose flour, which I’m pretty sure is King Arthur’s bread flour under another name). Gradually add the flour to the bowl while mixing with your plastic or wooden spoon until the mixture becomes less and less gooey and you can add a little flour at a time to get the goo off the spoon and then off the sides of the bowl. Keep working the batter off the sides of the bowl to the center so that when you touch the ball of batter it no longer sticks to your hands.

    [Editor’s/baker’s note: I’m a biochemist. I freakin’ HATE experiment protocols that are imprecise with units and ratios. If you’re like me, this is about 8 cups of flour.]

    Sprinkle some olive oil on top of the ball of dough and then drape a damp cloth over the bowl. Let it rise for about an hour, until it’s roughly doubled and looks puffy, and then you can braid. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

    Braiding techniques are readily available online; I particularly like Tori Avey’s 4-strand braid here:

    https://toriavey.com/how-to/challah-bread-part-2-how-to-braid-challah/

    Scoop the braided loaf onto a lightly oiled baking sheet that is big enough to allow the loaf to expand. (Or braid it directly on the pan.) After braiding, put an egg yolk in a little dish and stir in a teaspoon or so of water. Paint the outside of the braided, uncooked challah, making sure to get the egg wash over the whole surface. If you wish, sprinkle heavily with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or both. Bake at 350F for about 35 minutes, until it is deeply browned and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. It’s better to slightly underbake than overbake.

    Eat with a blessing. Any blessing will do, but I’m sure you can find one you like online, or from your bubbe, or from Leonard Cohen. And even if it’s all gone wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah. (And challah.)

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    March 1, 2020 at 12:47 am

    Great for the reticent without a bread machine are no-knead, no-rise breads (usually use beer instead of yeast). Also incredibly easy and takes real effort to screw it up is Irish soda bread.

  61. 61.

    James E Powell

    March 1, 2020 at 1:02 am

    Question for the OP and the horde: when I bake the breads, buns, etc., do I convection bake or ordinary bake? My oven can do either one.

  62. 62.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    March 1, 2020 at 1:07 am

    @James E Powell: I usually do the convection setting, because I think the result is more even baking, but I either adjust the time downward by 5 minutes out of every 30 called for by the recipe or decrease the temperature by 5 degrees.

    ETA: and then test for doneness. You’ll figure out the quirks of your own oven pretty quickly. I got a new range two years ago, and it took one or two runs through each old favorite recipe for me to adjust.

  63. 63.

    Mart

    March 1, 2020 at 1:13 am

    I bake 90% no knead breads in a dutch oven. So easy. If no dutch oven pour boiling water into a pan under the bread as Tamara’s recipe notes. Saw Martha Stewart make this no knead seed bread on PBS. Super easy and will impress friends and family.

    No-Knead Seeded Overnight Bread | Martha Stewart
    https://www.marthastewart.com/1112187/no-knead-seeded-overnight-bread

  64. 64.

    ruemara

    March 1, 2020 at 1:16 am

    Ooooo, maybe I’ll make a nice bread. And give it away, as I’m supposed to stick to my keto regimen for this month.

  65. 65.

    Mart

    March 1, 2020 at 1:30 am

    @James E Powell: Do I convection bake or ordinary bake?

    I accidentally burnt two loaves of what would have been beautiful bread when I accidentally set the oven to convection. Unless using a specific convection recipe, would bake normally.

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    March 1, 2020 at 1:42 am

    I try not to eat too much bread. I’m not all that good at it but I try. Also as I have a hard time eating anything prepared because of too much salt, which I have to avoid like the plague. So yesterday when I went to the store I planned to buy the fixings for drop biscuits. But I found a box at the store and had to give it a try, Zatarains buttermilk biscuit mix. I’m baking tomorrow. The ingredients look OK, nothing out of the ordinary for biscuits. I also have an issue of cooking for one. At least no one complains about the taste or the time.

  67. 67.

    Kent

    March 1, 2020 at 2:01 am

    @Mart:I accidentally burnt two loaves of what would have been beautiful bread when I accidentally set the oven to convection. Unless using a specific convection recipe, would bake normally.

    I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread.  But convection ovens basically run a fan inside the oven to circulate heat faster. When hot air is flowing fast the food it causes faster heat transfer then when the air is sitting still.  Same principle as wind chill but in reverse.

    Most every recipe is written for conventional oven baking so you have to dial back time or temperature to adjust for convection baking.  But it works great when you really want to blast heat on your food like when baking pizza.

  68. 68.

    Cathie from Canada

    March 1, 2020 at 2:13 am

    @M31: I just use a 1-quart Pyrex bowl for my no-knead bread. Its called Peasant Bread

    https://food52.com/recipes/69714-alexandra-stafford-s-no-knead-peasant-bread

    The full recipe makes two loaves, but I halve the recipe so I just use one bowl. It makes a small round loaf, about 7 or 8 slices.

  69. 69.

    NotMax

    March 1, 2020 at 5:29 am

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Ever use honey in place of sugar? Try it; can elevate a challah from good to excellent..

  70. 70.

    Sarah

    March 1, 2020 at 6:55 am

    @dmsilev: 
    Exactly! Mine goes in the freezer sliced and lasts a long time.

  71. 71.

    Sarah

    March 1, 2020 at 6:58 am

    @Yutsano: you mean, it doesn’t dissolve? It won’t do much in the water – it needs food.

  72. 72.

    Sarah

    March 1, 2020 at 7:05 am

    @Roger Moore: True about the amount of time involved, but so much of that is letting the dough rest, and in my experience, an extra hour here or there doesn’t matter much. And it just tastes so good!

  73. 73.

    E.

    March 1, 2020 at 10:11 am

    @Yutsano: It’s far more likely the yeast is fine than not. Put in lukewarm water the yeast should expand and burst after five or ten minutes. Add flour and mix to a simple dough, then wait 30 minutes and you will see the dough expand. The advice above about chlorinated water is incorrect. I’m a baker by trade. I have baked many thousands of loaves in chlorinated tap water. I do it every day. For those seeking a more flavorful loaf check out the books Tartine (Chad Robertson) or the straight sourdough loaves in Flour, Water, Salt by Ken Forkish.

  74. 74.

    randy khan

    March 1, 2020 at 1:02 pm

    @Roger Moore: 

    Thanks. As a long-former biochemistry student, I am used to thinking about liquids in very small, very precise quantities that are best measured in a pipette or the equivalent, so it’s an interesting perspective, and the point about just keeping the bowl on the scale makes sense to me.

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