Anyone here baking bread?

I've always liked to cook, which I learned to do out of self defense as a teenager. 

About 10 years ago, I decided to learn how to bake bread. I got to the point where I could inconsistently turn out a decent yeast bread.

Then, a couple of years ago, someone gave me some sourdough starter.

This stuff is awesome, and incredibly versatile! I'm still just dabbling with it. Anyone here into baking?

This one's from last week.

These just came out of the oven.

I don't, but would love to have that bread next to me right now. It would probably last all of the next 2 minutes. 

'bout to start another crack at it soon.  Made the Irish wheaten bread from the Americas Test Kitchen book a few years ago. 

I've been dabbling in yeast breads for years, mostly basic stuff, like a baguette.  It all kind of grew out of my pizza doughs from making pizzas at college.  They were famous.  Notorious? 

I need to start again.

Baking bread? More like making bread. But seriously I do spend too much time at work. The wife wants to make bread and is probably just waiting until winter to try some recipes in one of her dutch ovens. 

That sourdough is making my mouth water! I've baked bread a little for fun. I like to make biscuits in the camper in the winter time for some reason :)

I've done a lot of no-kneed breads over the years.  Been a while, probably get back into it once it's a little cooler out, as I don't love heating the house up with the oven.  I tried with starters a few times but couldn't keep them alive.  Getting my own starter going always ended up with something that looked and smelled unsafe.  

Your loaves look good.  

Yeah, I make bread.  I think in the past 20 years, we've maybe bought 5 loafs and I've made all the rest.  I get my whole wheat from the farmer in Colorado.  A bit pricey, but really makes a difference over anything you can buy in a store.

If anyone has a good Keto friendly “bread” recipe, I’d love to hear about it.

I love eating bread.  

10.0 oz bread flour

6.7 oz warm water

1 tsp of active yeast

1 tsp of salt

Hand mix in bowl, kneed some

10 to 12 hours rise time.

Form into loaf and let rise while oven and a clean paver* reaches 450°F. Bake until bread is 210°F.

*I dont have a pizza stone so I used a paver from the yard. I transfer the loaf with some aluminum foil and a bit of yellow corn meal on it.

I should be starting the oven tomorrow morning around 7am. 

Sourdough starter hasn't been that difficult to maintain. It's like having a pet, you do have to feed it, but it can spend a week or longer in the refrigerator without any attention.

I formed the loaf shape and preheated the oven for about an hour. Then tossed it in for about 27 minutes.

Learn from my mistake. Make sure you slice the dough well enough, hence my bread with a neck.

Jonny Lieberman makes some excellent bread. I want him to do a podcast where he makes and bakes a loft while talking about something completely unrelated concurrently and it wraps up with enjoying the first slice. 

It's almost bread season here. My mom starts around October and goes until May. Basic white Italian loafs. 

I really want to try my hand at sour dough this year, as I love to eat it, but getting the good ones gets expensive. I also have an idea involving sour dough pizza crust I want to try out

I cheat.  I use my half Cherokee great grandmother's recipe in my bread machine. The results are predictable and the bread is delicious.

Justjim75 said:

I cheat.  I use my half Cherokee great grandmother's recipe in my bread machine. The results are predictable and the bread is delicious.

That looks amazing.  Learn me bread machines.  Is it as easy as dumping ingredients in and hitting go?  Is it possible to produce bread with a lot lower sodium than found on shelves?

I'm baking bread right now!

Okay, actually I'm at the coffee shop picking up breakfast, but today's loaves are "autolysing," which I can't remember all the technical details of, but mostly means that the flour, most of the water, and the levain are having a rest before I add the last of the water and the salt and the bulk fermentation starts in earnest.

I recommend the book "Tartine Bread." I started with Ken Forkish's "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast" and it got me going, but was short on troubleshooting/how stuff works info.

Getting my levain/starter started took way longer than Forkish's book suggested, and I had no idea why and almost chucked it before it took off.

We received a bread machine as a wedding present, and used it a lot. Eventually, the non-stick on the bread case degraded, so I bought a replacement case. The second case didn't hold up long, and by then I was eliminating all non-stick products from my kitchen. That was the end of the bread machine for us.

I went without home made bread for several years before deciding to learn to make my own bread. Using sourdough has made the quality of my loaves more consistent. I also recommend King Arthur flour, my yeast breads improved a lot after I started using the King Arthur flour instead of store brand or Gold Medal.

As noted in my original post, my starter was given to me. It's a commercially available starter originally bought from King Arthur. I thought I had lost it, when I left for a three week vacation this summer, and didn't bring any along to keep it going. I also didn't feed it for several days before leaving (since I was going to feed it, then carry some with me).  It sat in the refrigerator for about a month, and looked pretty quiet when I got home. A couple of feedings, and it came back, and that's the starter that I used for the loaves in my photos.

In one of the Scandinavian countries (I think it was Norway), they have a service at their international airport where you drop off your starter and they feed it while you're away. Sort of like kenneling your pet!

This spring, I gave away some batches of starter to some of my friends from church and one of them has gone nuts. She's been to France for bread baking classes, and just came back from taking classes at the King Arthur headquarters in New England. She's keeping three different batches of starter going.  She reports that she's also gained 15 lbs in the last six months.

In reply to ProDarwin :

You can make bread with no salt at all, if that's what you want.  Yes,basically, bread machines are as simple as dumping the stuff in, hitting go and coming back in 3 hours.  I have found that the rectangular bread machines need a little bit of spatula to the corners at around the 3-5 minute mark to ensure everything mixes well.  The square (tall) loaf machines don't need that.

My recipe:

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups white flour (preferably "better for bread" type)

12.5 oz water

1 tablespoon yeast (Fleischmann's from Sam's club)

2 tablespoons sugar

1.25 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons oil

Hit Go.

I tried a number of bread recipes in the bread machine before giving up. The first bread after the machine was 100% better. I wish i could have figued it out bettwr, but we sold it and I make decent bread now with minimum effort.

Dr. Hess said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

You can make bread with no salt at all, if that's what you want.  Yes,basically, bread machines are as simple as dumping the stuff in, hitting go and coming back in 3 hours.  I have found that the rectangular bread machines need a little bit of spatula to the corners at around the 3-5 minute mark to ensure everything mixes well.  The square (tall) loaf machines don't need that.

 

Any recommendations for a machine?

I prefer a but-it-for-life machine (if possible), not some piece of E36 M3 that will wear out in 5 years. 

I buy them at the thrift stores for $5-10.  Most look unused.  Virtually every thrift store has one, or three.  I keep one on the shelf, as they always seem to go out the day after Christmas, and try finding one anywhere at that time.  They all wear out, and 5 years is pushing it for any of them if you use it weekly.  Avoid Sunbeam.

I have also found that the secret to keeping one going for years is to put it on a high quality surge supressor.

Dr. Hess said:

I buy them at the thrift stores for $5-10.  Most look unused.

They are the classic Christmas/wedding/what-have-you gift that is as likely to get used as a January 1st gym membership.