Sunday, 14 August 2011

More About Baking Bread

I bake my bread in the oven. The loaf that comes out of the breadmaker just doesn't cut it for me. So here are detailed instructions for what I consider to be the perfect loaf of bread.

Firstly, I use Laucke bread mix. I like it. Gives a great loaf every time. It's totally Australian made and owned. There are no added anythings outside of what you actually need to make a loaf of bread. My favourite is the Golden Wholemeal Bread Mix. You can buy a box of 4 pre-measured packs so that you don't need to weigh, mix or measure flours. On the box are directions for breadmakers and for bake it yourself. Even though I mix the bread dough in the breadmaker I use the bake it yourself measures for water.

So for the Golden Wholemeal Bread:

Into the breadmaker goes 2 tsp of yeast (conveniently provided for you with the Laucke bread mix) and 400 mls of warm water. If you like add half a teaspoon of sugar to provide food for the hungry yeast. I then use the jam setting on the breadmaker to get the yeast moving along because it has a 10 min cycle of heating at the beginning of the jam setting. After 10 mins the yeast and water mix will have bubbles and froth forming on top of the water. Add the packet of bread mix and set the bread machine to dough.

When the cycle is finished heat the oven to 200 deg C. While it's heating up place the dough into a greased/oiled and floured large loaf tin or bread tin. Cover it with a damp cotton tea towel and place in a warm spot. (I have a spot inside the loungeroom window where the sun shines through that has been dubbed the "bread spot" by the kids.) The loaf will rise even further! When the oven is hot cook your loaf for 30 minutes or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.

Today I'm making bread rolls. I just took globs of dough about the size of small dinner rolls, rolled them into balls between my hands and put them on a oiled tray. The dough made 16 of them. At the moment they sitting in the sun and look to be bigger than a dinner roll but smaller than a hamburger roll. I plan to put them in oven for about 15 minutes to cook so that we will have hot, crusty bread rolls to go with our Beef Bolognaise. Droooooool. Minimal effort for a delicious, warm, crusty bread.

No comments:

Post a Comment