Get back at the man. Make your own bread.

As everybody knows, Bread is one of the major food groups. Along side Oreos, Beer and Peanut Butter, so it is important to have enough of it in your diet.

Bread Giants and Supermarket chains realise this, and in turn charge you top dollar for their rather poor quality loafs. Crumb by crumb, It works out much cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it from the supermarket, as the graph at the bottom of the page will show you.

Many a simpleton would tell you that making bread takes a long time. And they'd be right. (Some educated folk will tell you it takes longer than it actually does, but thats a separate story). From start to finish, it takes around 3-4 hours to have a freshly baked ignot of loafy goodness sitting on your lap.

BUT it is the bread that does most of the hard work. You can wander off and do your laundry or read a book, or something else, for the most part, and it will only take about 30 minutes of your time.

This is my first instructable; I'm learning the ropes so please bear with me! I don't have all the images right now, but they are coming!

Step 1 Gather the ingredients and equipment

Let the hunter/gatherer in you take over! Head out to your local Serengeti / Supermarket / etc, and hunt / purchase / otherwise obtain the following items;

Ingredients
700g - Strong bread flour. I use white, but it doesn't matter which you buy.
1 Packet - "Fast Action" yeast powder. They usually come in packs of about 6
25g - Butter
1 Tablespoon - Salt
1 Teaspoon - Caster Sugar (optional)
425ml - Hand hot water

Equipment
900g / 2lb Bread Tin

(hopefully, you should have weighing scales and a mixing bowl also)

Once you have all the above, clean down your work surfaces, your hands, and your mind, and stroll right onto Step 2

Everything should look something like this:

Comments

[tercero]

Personally, I really hate the taste of packaged yeast ie.Fleischmann's yeast. The yeast flavor always carries over into the end product (the baked loaf) and really leaves an unpleasant after taste. Is there anyway around this? I've read about "cake yeast" that bakers use. Any others? //Good instructable. Making bread is hard physical work though. All that kneading.

[diy_bloke]

Finally someone who sees this as well. Seriously of all the loafs I tried, whatever recipe, there was never teh scent of 'fresh bread' but always this weird smell and taste of packaged yeast. I stopped making bread alltogether, in spite of all the positive stories, because I have never been able (well maybe once or twice) to make a bread that came even close to tasting as good as a regular supermarket bread.
Either I am doing something wrong, or I have never been able to get the right ingredients, or it is al hogwash that I read :-)

Love to be able to make a decent bread (that is how I ended up here) but my kid already gets a sour face if he finds out daddy is trying to make bread again :-)

[solo.card]

I believe you can use baking soda instead of yeast. I have never used it, so I don't know how consistent it would be compared to yeast, but I guess the aftertaste would be gone (or different at least)..

[cowscankill]

how do you use baking soda instead? just replace the yeast with it? my mother and i have been searching for a while... And what if you only have self rising flour?

[kitsuken]

Google for Irish soda bread, there's plenty of recipes available online. It is fairly different to white yeast bread, but personally I love the taste

[tercero]

It wouldn't taste very good. It would be more of a "quick bread" than a yeast bread. I wonder if I can find a nice sourdough starter. Might be easier than trying to find bakers yeast.

[Culturedropout]

This recipe is from Mother Earth News, who adapted it from The New York Times. 1/4 Tsp active dry yeast 1 1/2 cups warm water 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 1 1/2 Tsp salt Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting 1) In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature (about 70 degrees F) 2) The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes. 3) Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it's ready, dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger. 4) At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that's OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don't worry if it's not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes. 5) Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing. Yield: One 1 1/2 pound loaf --- I used the removable ceramic insert from our "Crock Pot," along with its lid, to bake the bread. I used a clean t-shirt to wrap the bread. Don't use a terrycloth towel like I tried once! This makes a really good, chewy bread with a thick crust; it's great toasted, too!

[solo.card]

That is true. Have you tried any local vegetarian / health food shops? One near me stocks bakers yeast, in about 250g bags.

[leebryuk]

Good idea. I hate the price of the individual packaged yeast. It cuts down on the economy.

[tercero]

It's probably a good place to start. I was also going to call some of the local small bakeries and see if they'd part with some of their sponge or some yeast. I'll try the health food store it's a good idea.

[lunarman52]

stick it to the man

[frankmci]

If you let the dough sit for a bit longer, say ten minutes or so, the kneading is a lot easier. There's a French name for the resting period, but I can't think of it. From what I've read, allowing it to rest for at least ten minutes gives it time for the moisture to evenly penetrate down at the microscopic level, and also gives some enzymes time to start breaking down the proteins, making the gluten forming and stretching much easier.

[FaqMan]

This is great way of sticking to bread makers and now i can make my own bread.

[galenorama]

Great job!! My bread is baking right now. It smells SOOOOO good.

[omnibot]

Good recipie. I got me a baking-machine a year ago. It's saving me a load of moneys a year. Mostly I use recepies off the internet or cookbooks and divide by four.

[}{itch]

That's one mighty fine looking loaf! I made a new years resolution to eat only home-made bread, I'm yet to make something that looks quite so good. If you can't find a warm place to let the bread rise I've found filling a sink with warm water and leaving the dough in a pan in that seems to work quite well.

[tercero]

Or place it on a heating pad on "high" . I saw that on Alton Browns "Good Eats".

[code_e]

I already knew how to make bread, but gave you a +1 for such an appetizing looking loaf. Made my stomach growl....

[GorillazMiko]

Yum!

Now I will be the one that puts bread on the table.
;-)
Just kidding.
We don't eat bread.
We eat a lot of bread.

_{Garlic bread rules!}