Aspies For Freedom

Anyone like to bake their own bread?  A friend gave us their bread machine.  I use it every week.  I would like to make some different kinds of bread sometimes.  

Anyone want to talk about bread?

I also like to make tortillas but they are difficult.  I can never seem to roll out the dough in a round shape even though I have a tortilla press.   I am not too good at cooking them either.

I like baking too.  It's strange, I have real trouble with cooking, but little trouble baking (of course I doubt I could bake daily, but even the amount I can bake is better than the amount I can cook).  And I've never really been taught, I just started doing it and things turn out good.

I don't bake the bread in the breadmaker.  I hate the weird shape and the paddle hole.  I cut the dough in half and put it in a extra large loaf pan, let it rise and bake it in the oven.  I split the loaf when cool, bag it and freeze it.  

What kind of pan is best for cooking the tortillas?

Last year I went on short breadmaking course, one of several free "taster" (no pun intended) courses run by the local FE college to encourage us to sign up for evening classes come the autumn. I was given a lump of fresh yeast to take home, which I shoved in the freezer compartment of my fridge. This week I've been on a mission to clear out the icebox in the hope that I might get around to defrosting it. So I retrieved the yeast and made some bread using one of the recipes from last year's course:

I used two loaf tins so got two small loaves, but in fact the quantity would have fitted into one tin. The last time I attempted bread at home I followed a recipe that specified 1.6kg (3 1/2 lb in old money) wholemeal flour and 1 dessertspoon each molasses and sunflower oil for two loaf tins, and the mixture proved (!) to be too much for the containers after the rising. This time I erred on the side of caution.

Does anyone know how to substitute one type of yeast for another? Specifically, how much fresh yeast is equivalent to a packet of "easy blend" dried yeast?

Does anyone here use sourdough starters that they make themselves?  I was doing it for a while but stopped since I started using the bread machine.  It is just difficult to gauge the amount of liquid and flour needed in the bread machine.   I guess I should try again and use my mixer.

And now I've followed another one of the recipes, this one for white bread, which has just finished its proving. Excuse me while I put it in the oven!

I picked up this flier at the Festival of South West Food & Drink (http://www.visitsouthwest.co.uk/foodfestival):

Slow Food UK

SLOW BREAD CAMPAIGN

What is slow bread?

The dimensions used by Slow Food to assess the quality of any food apply equally to bread, i.e. it must:

  1.  Taste good
  2.  Be cleanly produced (which means it will be better for you and the planet)
  3.  Be fairly produced (to encourage the return of craft bakers)

Hand in hand with the quality of the bread comes a regard for our culinary heritage, which is often endangered by so-called progress.

With regard to bread the word slow could not be more appropriate since the factor that has done the most damage to our bread since the 1960s is speed. For in 1961 the Chorleywood bread-making process was invented, based primarily upon a really fast dough mixer, but also involving more yeast and higher temperatures than conventional bread-making. This enabled the initial "bulk fermentation" period to be cut from three hours to a few minutes.

The vast majority of bread is now made in large factories by the Chorleywood process, with much of it then being transported to supermarkets for baking. At the time it was hailed as a tremendous advance, yet since 1960 our per-capita bread consumption has halved. Of course, there may be many reasons for this, but amongst them, a growing number of people are saying that they avoid bread because it makes them feel unwell - bloating being the most frequently reported symptom.

In the past bakers often left their bread to rise in a cool place overnight, then shaped and baked it in the morning. Experiments have shown that most people who have problems with modern bread find that their symptoms either competely disappear or are at least greatly diminished when they eat bread that has been fermented for at least 10 hours. This traditional lengthy period of fermentation also develops a fuller flavour in the bread and gives it a good crust and chewy crumb.

Through our network of members, including bakers and millers, Slow Food UK aims to:
  *  Educate the public about the taste and health benefits of slow bread.
  *  Record those bakers who continue to produce our wonderful rich heritage of regional      sweet breads and buns.
  *  In association with other organisations develop and implement solutions that ensure the future of the traditional craft of bread-making.

For more information or to join Slow Food contact Fiona Richmond on 01584 813771 or email info@slowfood.org.uk.

this slow bread information is very interesting.  From working with microbiological cultures including yeasts in the lab, I know that most organisms ferment the glucose first because sucrose (cane sugar is glucose and fructose).  Other starches and sugars will be broken down later in the fermentation process as all the glucose is used up.  A longer and more complicated fermentation process would make the bread perhaps more digestible to humans.  

There is an article that somewhat explains the gluten part of it all http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html

What is the rush when making bread.  I am going to look up a few slow bread recipes and try them.  

Could you put up some recipes once you try them?

recipe for above article bread is here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Interesting that the recipe specifies "all-purpose or bread flour" - that seems contradictory, as by definition bread flour is only designed for that purpose. I'm assuming this is the same as what's called "strong flour" in the UK.

Strong flour is flour with a higher proportion of gluten, and hence suited to bread-making.

I think also the flour in Canada is different from the flour in United States.  The recipes that came with my breadmachine have different measures for Canadian and American flour, not just the metric.  

I have started a slow rise cinnamon bread but of course it wouldn't be ready until evening because I started it last night.

I tried this recipe http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recip...sin-bread/  for cinnamon slow rise bread.  The result was a moist and dense loaf.  Putting the recommended sugar/cinnamon mixture on top of the loaf just resulted in a burned caramel that was not appealing.  I would leave that off.  The top cracked when it baked too.  My husband was not impressed.  We have been getting excellent texture bread with our bread machine kneading.

salt is actually important in bread making.

"Salt strengthens gluten, and adds flavor. Salt enhances flavors. In yeast breads, salt helps moderate the effect of the yeast so the bread doesn't rise too quickly."  source http://busycooks.about.com/library/archi...ingred.htm

Could using a metal bowl affect yeast growth?  I usually try to use glass or plastic bowls to mix and rise the dough.  Some bread ingredients can react with the metal and the taste will be affected.

Apparently some metals can react with acidic ingredients in the dough and the pH does affect the growth of the yeast.  I wonder if conductivity affects the yeast.  Metal conducts, glass and plastic are less conductive.