Bread baking essentials

Monday, March 16, 2009

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How to Bake Bread

Instead of buying bread at the supermarket or the bakery, try making your own bread at home. It's easy, cheap and lots of fun. Follow these basic bread baking essentials and enjoy warm, freshly-baked bread straight from your own oven!

Check out our home-baked bread recipe slideshow for inspiration.

Knots and rolls

1. Prepare Basic Bread dough

2. Preheat oven to 230°C or 210°C fan. Line baking trays with baking paper and dust with a little flour. Shape dough into a thick sausage and cut into 12 equal parts. Shape into rolls (see below), place on baking trays, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes, until almost doubled in bulk.

3. Brush gently with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds if you like. Bake for about 25 minutes, until crusty and golden, turning trays round halfway through baking.

To make…

Round bread rolls: shape each piece into a thick round. Turn under all the way around to make balls, pressing edges together underneath to seal.

Oval bread rolls: shape each piece of dough into a slightly flattened oval, then roll up swiss-roll style. Place seam-side down on baking trays.

Bread knots: roll each piece into a 22-25cm long sausage and tie into a knot, placing each one on baking tray as you work.

Rise and shine

Yeast is essential to bread making, being the ingredient that makes the dough rise. It is a single-cell organism that feeds on sugar, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide to make the bread rise.
Cooking destroys the alcohol and kills the yeast, and the bubbles left behind give bread its texture.
Yeast cells are more active when it's warm, but if the temperature gets too high, the yeast cells die. The longer the cells have to work (up to a point), the more maltose and alcohol they can produce and the more flavoursome the bread will be.
High-quality compressed fresh yeast has a shelf life of up to four weeks, but it's difficult to find these days and needs to be kept refrigerated. It's easier to use instant dried yeast.

Added attraction

The best time to add dry flavourings, such as caraway seeds, walnuts and raisins, is after you've mixed the dough. Chopped olives, onions, cheese and the like are best added later by folding into the dough before the second rising.

Top it off

Your bread can be varied by using different ingredients to knead and shape the dough and to sprinkle over the bread before baking. Try using burghul (cracked wheat), cornmeal or polenta, rolled oats, linseed, wheat germ or oat bran.

Coarse salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, caraway seeds or coarse wheat can be sprinkled over the bread before baking for an attractive loaf with good flavour.

For a crisp crust, brush dough with cold water and repeat several times during baking; for a golden shiny crust, brush with a little beaten egg; for a cottage loaf, dust the bread lightly with flour; and for a rich dark crust, brush with melted butter.

YOUR SAY: Do you have any great bread baking tips or recipe ideas? Share them below!

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