Bread making

Bob Z

Does anyone here make their own bread with bread making machines? Is it a load if hassle? How much is it for a good one? Is it possible to make spelt and honey bread with them? Is the bread as nice as yoh get in the shops?

Dinkie

Its really easy and good. Not much washing up at the end either.

The only thing is that the bread needs to be eaten relatively quickly as it goes stale. You can use it to make other things such as pizza dough, hot cross buns etc, and set it to add nuts etc, to your bread.

I can't see any reason why you couldn't make spelt and honey bread. It sounds yummy!

Good breadmakers don't cost that much. However I would check the reviews before buying them. Some don't mix the dough properly (from experience) resulting in a salty crust or some other wierd thing. I belive the lidl ones are good.

Sparks

Dinkie wrote: »

The only thing is that the bread needs to be eaten relatively quickly as it goes stale.

Actually, that's just bread. The machine isn't anything to do with it
Your average panloaf doesn't go stale thanks to a lot of chemistry that frankly, you're better off without, and through cooking the bread via the Chorleywood bread process which is also not that great for you. Proper homemade bread doesn't stay fresh for two weeks at a time and isn't meant to!

As to bread machines, yes, they're excellent. Take a lot of the hard work out of it and can have the fresh bread made for you in the morning if you use the timer and can prep dough for a lot of different recipes for you as well (and proof it too). If you have the counterspace, they're worth having (I really miss having my kenwood one, but I just don't have the room in the flat )

Prenderb

I make my own bread, though I've no breadmaker. IMHO it's superior to the shop-bought stuff, but that'll be subjective. I do have a stand mixer (kenwood thing) which can take a lot of the work out of white yeasty bread. Soda bread's a cinch to mix in a bowl with a wooden spoon, and you'll soon get the hang of chucking in ingredients without the recipe.

Honestly, I do like the idea of the breadmaker, but the stand mixer gets me out making cake and other stuff too, which is A Good Thing.

Anyway, yeah, whichever you decide, go for it you won't look back. Though you might buy the odd loaf from the shop now and then, you'll taste the difference.

One thing They say about breadmakers is that you can set all the ingredients in it last thing at night and time it so that it's ready first thing in the morning....nice.

Prenderb

Sparks wrote: »

Proper homemade bread doesn't stay fresh for two weeks at a time and isn't meant to!

Hee hee - homemade bread won't last that long anyway it's so yummy!

catho_monster

Does anyone have any tried and tested recipes? I'm not mad about the ones that came with my breadmaker...

unkel

I started with one of the cheap Lidl / Aldi breadmakers I bought for €30, using their ready made bread making mix (€1.49 per pack which will make 2 800g loaves). Not bad at all, much tastier and fresher than supermarket bought bread. You know the way, I wasn't sure if this new habit was going to last and I didn't want to spend big bucks on a great breadmaker just yet.

Now I have a Panasonic breadmaker, I experiment a bit more and the results are pretty good. Everybody just loves my breads, even small kids and babies who are not that keen on supermarket bread. Personally I think it's just the freshness that does it. The smell is wonderful. And if you put on the timer for the bread to be ready in the morning as Sparks said, there's no better reason to get out of bed when the beeper goes off

And no, the bread doesn't keep well. 24 hours is about the limit unless you toast it. Recently I started freezing the bread immediately after baking it, letting it cool down and cutting it (when I know I won't need it for the rest of the day). That works out pretty well.

I love bread

The Sweeper

I have a Tefal breadmaker and it does good work.

Plain white loaf ingredients are water, oil, sugar, salt, milk powder, white flour and yeast, and it makes up a good loaf. Takes 3 hrs 18 mins to cook, including mixing and proving time. The setting for fast bread doesn't do as good a job.

Haven't tried the other recipes yet because I like the white bread one too much!!

JPA

I'd make bread by hand for a while before I think about buying a machine.
It's actually really really easy.

Magic Monkey

For those making bread by hand, there's a great kneading technique here by Richard Bertinet, a French baker living in England. He picks the dough up, slaps it down onto the counter, folds it over and repeats the process. Pretty quick, efficient, and doesn't use too much countertop space.

The Sweeper, I've made a similar loaf before but with the addition of a cooked flour & water paste. This gelatinises the starches in the flour, absorbing more moisture, resulting in a lighter, fluffier loaf which makes just amazing sandwich bread. The process and recipe are here.

Sparks

Magic Monkey wrote: »

For those making bread by hand, there's a great kneading technique here by Richard Bertinet, a French baker living in England. He picks the dough up, slaps it down onto the counter, folds it over and repeats the process. Pretty quick, efficient, and doesn't use too much countertop space.

He's got two very decent books out on that actually (and they come with a DVD so you can see it better), Dough and Crust. Have both, swear by both. The poolish-based recipies are especially good.


Actually, youtube has a clip of the kneading process (it's very different from our traditional kneading process):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq6mnFTy0Ro

Sparks

catho_monster wrote: »

Does anyone have any tried and tested recipes? I'm not mad about the ones that came with my breadmaker...

The only one I have in my notes is for cornbread:

150ml warm water
5Tbsp warm milk
1Tbsp olive oil (or any vegetable oil)
280g bread machine flour (yes, there's a seperate kind and yes, you need it)
100g fine cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt (that's for sea salt, not table salt, and you can add a bit more if you want)
3tsp light brown sugar
1Tbsp honey
2tsp yeast

Add all to machine, program for quickbread, leave it knead and proof the dough, and then just before the bake cycle, brush the top with 1Tbsp water and sprinkle with 1Tbsp medium cornmeal.

You can find cornmeal in healthfood shops easily enough. And this stuff is really nice with chilli or other tex mex food. The thing is, this works for my kenwood breadmaker. Yours may have a different design, so you really want to go with the recipes that came with it as a baseline and experiment with those.

The Sweeper

I've been making a lot of sodabread recently - very simple; equal parts wholemeal and white flour, a handful of oatmeal, salt, bicarbonate of soda, buttermilk and an egg. Mix, shape into a round, cut a cross on top. Put into oven for 15 mins at highest setting, and then drop to about 200 degrees for a further 20 mins. (I use a pizza stone so that's the timings I need with my oven.)

Interestingly the mix is so cement-like it's actually less hassle to mix the ingredients in a bowl, using your hand, than it is to use a dough paddle with the magimix, because cleaning the magimix afterwards is a total pain in the arse, whereas washing the bowl is... well, it's washing a bowl.

dxhound2005

Plenty more reading here on this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055352502&highlight=breadmaker

gerbo

I started making my own bread only recently. As said above it doesn't stay fresh for long. The white yeast bread is really simple to make and you will find that your bread improves with every attempt. Egg wshing the top and putting some mixed seeds on makes it even more delicious

I have now moved on to sourdough breads which IMO blow the yeast bread out of the water, it is more work but worth it. Spent last week growing my starter. It now lives in my fridge:)

foodaholic

gerbo, whats your recipe for the sourdough starter,
is it difficult to make, have always wanted to make it but thought it might be too hard

Bob Z

so it only stays fresh for 24 hours? That means i would have to make it every day?

The Sweeper

It's best about an hour out of the breadmaker or the oven - still warm, but cuts without crumbling or becoming doughy. It'll be grand for the rest of the day, but wrap it in a clean teacloth overnight to help it stay edible. It'll be fine for toast and toasted sarnies the next day. Day three it'll be best for croutons and making into breadcrumbs for stuffing or being mixed with parmesan crumbs to top dishes.

I personally find it scary to heft a week-old loaf of supermarket bread and find it's still soft and perfect.

gerbo

foodaholic wrote: »

gerbo, whats your recipe for the sourdough starter,
is it difficult to make, have always wanted to make it but thought it might be too hard

It is the easiest thing in the world. It is just flour, water and some time.


Good link here



How does homemade bread get on in the freezer? Does it maintain its freshness when defrosted?

huskerdu

gerbo wrote: »

How does homemade bread get on in the freezer? Does it maintain its freshness when defrosted?

I freeze bread rolls very successfully. I have not tried a larger loaf.

The rolls are fine just defrosted at room temp, but are nicer if you put them in the oven for 5 minutes when defrosted. This makes sure that the crust is crusty and the
nice yeasty bready smell is back.

I also make lots of pizza bases, par cook them and then freeze them. It is so easy to take them out of the oven, straight from the freezer, put on some sauce and toppings, and put in the oven.

crazy.daisy

Good luck with the sourdough, its close to my heart too, my starter is already a few months old, and still healthy! I have a photo diary of a step-by-step sourdough loaf on my blog, check it out!
http://sallyinthegalley.blogspot.com/

crazy.daisy

Sour Do! Or sour Don't?
Good luck with the sourdough, its close to my heart too, my starter is already a few months old, and still healthy! I have a photo diary and recipe of a step-by-step sourdough loaf and starter on my blog, check it out!
http://sallyinthegalley.blogspot.com/

skywards

My mother has one, I like it. The only thing I've noticed though is that sometimes the settings get screwed up (I try to only leave it on one) and the bread crust gets really thick and somewhat unpleasant. I haven't been able to find too many recipes for it, but tbh I haven't really looked too hard. I really do like it though.