How old is your sourdough starter?

You don’t have a sourdough starter?

pleb.

ignore all this “advice” its a bit of trial and error till you get the hang of it – just enjoy and know they that it will get better

Junkyard could post this on 95.6% of all STW threads 😀

Everyone knows that the only test of the quality or otherwise of bread is its suitability for fish finger butties. Thus anything other than this…..

… is entirely superfluous, and quite frankly… a bit gay

I have a much neglected sourdough starter in a tupperware box in the back of the fridge – no matter how long I leave it sleeping it still seems to work just fine when I wake it up.

I always find that after I have been tinkering around with a gearbox and my hands are ingrained with that thick black grease there is nothing better than kneading dough to get them really clean again.

I liked the Bertinet video.

I always find that after I have been tinkering around with a gearbox and my hands are ingrained with that thick black grease there is nothing better than kneading dough to get them really clean again.

Aye – it’s a win-win. If your hands aren’t clean before you start, they will be by the end.

My Nan used to tell me – making pastry is an excellent way to get really clean fingernails (i.e. clean your fingernails first!)

Well, the flour we bought was actually wholemeal, which is fine cos I like wholemeal bread, but the consistency of the dough seemed a bit.. well, heavy.. I had to add more water than the recipe and it still seemed hard going. Also the yeast was dried active yeast so it was in granules in a tin rather than in a sachet. It had to be mixed with water, so I mixed it with the water that went in the bread.

We’ll see how it goes.

Bread cake is the finest food stuff known to humankind, dontchaknow.

dd I do make more exciting butties than ham 🙂
Go on then, has anyone got an easy recipe for ciabatta? or does that need special oven?

Go molgrips!

I’m gradually working my way through Paul Hollywood bread recipies.
Ciabatta was fun and very messy.
Fresh pittas were amazing.
Seem to have bypassed the basic recipies.

Plan to build a wood fired oven in the garden, hopefully next year. I’m on a mission to make pizza as good as we ate on the Amalfi coast.

i used to make my own bread, then this place opened down the road from me.

bready

my god, I have never tasted bread as good as this.

Make sure the finished article looks a mess ‘artisan.’

Plan to build a wood fired oven in the garden, hopefully next year. I’m on a mission to make pizza as good as we ate on the Amalfi coast.

Having just had a two week holiday in Italy this summer (inc Amalfi Coast), I still think Pizza Express makes nicer Pizzas than most Italian restaurants…

Just going for plain white.

that will be “artisan post industrial” then

Any tips? Just going for plain white.

then…

Well, the flour we bought was actually wholemeal

😆 😆 😆

footflaps.
Luckily we were stopping in a village (Maiori) where the tourists were generally Italian. Restaurants were excellent and even takeaway pizza was awesome. The MacDonalds in the village shut down due to lack of custom.
This was a few years ago, so things may have changed.

Yeah I thought the flour was white, then I checked in the cupboard. In my defence, the BAG is white 🙂

Molly ignore all this “advice” its a bit of trial and error till you get the hang of it – just enjoy and know they will get better

Ta.. but what I’m not sure about is what to change if it doesn’t come out right. For example, last time my wife tried the bread tasted fine and was even textured just really dense, like concentrated bread. Underproved, I guess…?

Yeah I thought the flour was white, then I checked in the cupboard. In my defence, the BAG is white

he dough seemed a bit.. well, heavy

Its wholmeal it is a bit heavy

You should feel the texture change though whilst kneading- did you?
IME it never rises as much as white and wont taste like shop bought bread which tends to use the Chorleywood method.
as for water no idea i never measure for i am a true artisan king of trial and error

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ciabatta_85453
DONK dead easy no kneading and plenty of ride time with a 3-12 hour rise time- not tried it myself

That was 40 mins. It’s bigger but it’s still pretty hard, not feeling particularly aereated like they say. Maybe wholemeal takes longer to rise?

I did knead it into elasticity, but that was maybe 4-5 mins, some folk are suggesting 15 mins of kneading for wholemeal. They are also suggesting adding gluten, which I donm’t really want to do.

temperature affects how long it takes to rise [ colder = longer but there is no rush. Many recommend slow rise for flavour – i used to do it in the fridge over night!] so just be patient- looks like it is working fine base don your first picture

I thought the 15 mins was way OTT I reckon about 5 minutes for mine – you can feel it in the flour when it has stretched tbh
Wholemeal will never rise as much as white IME so doubling may not happen – dont worry it will sink it you wait too long in which case just knead and either proof a second time or shape and rise before baking

I never did full wholemeal just did a mix of white and wholemeal, as wholemeal always ends up very dense.

I did knead it into elasticity, but that was maybe 4-5 mins, some folk are suggesting 15 mins of kneading for wholemeal.

You almost always need to knead for longer than you think. You can always knead it and then leave it for a bit before kneading again.

Fresh Yeast

– yeast is alive, either it’s alive yeast or dead yeast. If you want younger yeast, then all you have to do is mix the old yeast up into a starter (sugar and water) using what you are going to feed it on is a good idea – flour, or any kind of malty sugars is a good start, and then keep it alive till you need it, then add it in – easy, virgin yeast, not that aged slutty yeast you get in the supermarket. You could get some speciality yeast on slants, but that’s a bit of an effort for abusing it in some bread.

I reckon if that’s all wholemeal, what you’re in the process of making there mol is a doorstop.

I was thinking some kind of building material.

Anyway – it seemed to prove ok, this took about 30 mins

And this is it after I waited for the oven to heat up:

It’s in now – fingers crossed 🙂

Those cuts need to be at a more acute angle. You’ve wrecked it.

I tried two loaves at this week 50/50 White/Rye flour which was like a brick and my kids didn’t hestitate to tell me so!
Then made 75/25 white/rye flour and let it prove for 45mins, knocked it back and then 2nd proving for aboout 3-4hrs. Was very nice indeed.

Sometimes when wheat was being fed from the hopper to the millstones, if the feed was too fast, or if stones had got into the grain, the millstones would stop. This is where the phrase “grinding to a halt” comes from.

DD, you are Jack Hargreaves from “How” and “Out of Town” and I claim my five pounds! 😉

Looks lovely Molly well done you

Knead for at least 10mins for white and at least 15 for wholemeal. Time it, kneading is probably the single thing that will make a difference to the loaf, most people don’t knead for long enough. Sugar will make it prove faster and the bread will be sweeter (duh). Salt will slow it down, oil will make the bread last longer.

… is entirely superfluous, and quite frankly… a bit gay

Oh binners 😥

Knead for AR least 10mins for white and at least 15 for wholemeal. Time it, kneading is probably the single thing that will make a difference to the loaf

Extended kneading’s a bit of a myth for 90% bread really…

/baking equivalent of a wheel size debate

I was pretty pleased with this until I realised it’s the same weight (800g) as the supermarket bloomers, and a lot smaller. Building material it is then.

Might be a “learner” mol. 🙂

If it’s too dense, let it go stale and make breadcrumbs from it.

It’s a learner of ocurs,e it’s my first effort 🙂

I’ll make compact sandwiches out of it – same amount of food, takes up less space. And saves on cheese.

No Moly you need more cheese 😉

IMO it will make better toast if its dense.

I’ll make compact sandwiches out of it – same amount of food, takes up less space. And saves on cheese.

Love it, I will steal that as my excuse too if you don’t mind. 🙂

Time it, kneading is probably the single thing that will make a difference to the loaf,

Disagree its the method of proofing that gives the flavour – ie slow rise using sour doughs etc
Once it kneaded its kneaded.
Many techniques dont even require it as given enough time the gluten will form strings anyway [ way too technical there eh ]

Mollly – something to be proud of – no one can make supermarket style bread as its pish- you could take their bread and roll it up into a ball – you can only do that with fast proof chorleywood type breads not proper breads so dont think yours is wrong

Looks fine to me for a first attempte

Well I had a slice, it was quite good actually. Dense, but still soft and quite mouth-melting so very easy to eat. Tasted lovely too. My wife reckoned it was ideal soup bread. It had the consistency of soda bread.

I was going for supermarket fresh baked wholemeal style, not the packet stuff, and I rekcon this tastes better but isn’t quite as fluffy.

Next time I’ll try one of the things I read about for improving wholemeal bread making:

Adding vitamin C (but this is an additive so maybe cheating)
Kneading longer
Adding some white flour, although I want to make wholemeal bread not just brown.

I’d love to try granary bread but I can’t get granary flour in the local supermarket. Malt would be nice too.

this tastes better but isn’t quite as fluffy.

which is what the chorleywood techniques does – makes fluffy bread- which we have all become accustomed to.
It does not sound like it is wrong it is just different
i have never tried adding vit c so cannot comment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process