Why am I nervous about making.......

[Carltonian Man]

Have a go HH.
I had a bad time with bread making at first and our fan oven seemed it would only cook it to a brick. The good folk of this forum offered encouragement so I persevered. Now I use the River Cottage recipe (from the prog you watched) and bake for 40 mins at 160 degrees. Using Lidl bread flour and Doves Farm fast action yeast every loaf turns out blummin lovely. Not bought shop bread for ages now and would never want to go back.

[happyhippy]

Wow I made a loaf of bread and it was edible! Thanks Big Al for the recipe,which I followed.Really happy with the results.It has a nice texture and nice shape(circular)and now I've made my first loaf,its given me the confidence to do it again and try baking some other things.Beck 77 I will try that soda bread you mentioned,sounds easy and tasty!Thankyou everyone for your help and encouragement.

[Big Al]

Wow I made a loaf of bread and it was edible! Thanks Big Al for the recipe,which I followed.Really happy with the results.It has a nice texture and nice shape(circular)and now I've made my first loaf,its given me the confidence to do it again and try baking some other things.Beck 77 I will try that soda bread you mentioned,sounds easy and tasty!Thankyou everyone for your help and encouragement.

Glad to be of help. Now if you take the flour mixture and add in a hand full of rosmery leaves [ not stalks] and mix as normal then stick some rosmary leaves and stalks in the final proofing but instead of putting on a tray put it IN a deeper tray , poke holes in the top with your fiingers to make pockets, put olive oil on it and you have focatia bread.

Again the basic mix with herbs, nuts spices all mixed in will make a whole new meaning to bread.
Take the dough aftewr the second knock b ack and dampen the top with a bit of water, sprinkle oats, poppy seeds, pine nuts, etc, etc on top and cook as normal...

after the first knock back cut the dough into three pieces and roll each one out into a long sausauge shape. plat the three together and you have a plaited bread....


........then there are different flours, mixes of flours, adding more oils and sugars or reducing oils and sugars...

That'll keep you going for now.

BA

[becks77]

So glad it all worked

[happyhippy]

Thanks Big Al & Becks77!Yes I have contemplated the rosemary foccocia idea and good to know I can make it with the bread dough I have just used!My OH was very very impressed!Just feel so happy now I've conquered that ridiculous fear!Happy baking everyone and if you'd like to share your idea's that would be great!

[boboff]

Well my tips for bread are

1. Make up the fast acting yeast with warm water & sugar a good 15 minutes before you start.
2. I use the cheapest plain white flour from T&sco
3. I use my egg incubator as the ideal place to let it rise, knocked down to around 30c.
4. Where possible let it rise in the shape you want ( ie rolls or in a tin) and don't knock it back before you put it in the oven.
5. Turn the loaf / bun out of its tin and turn it upside down for the last 5 - 10 minutes.

I only really bother to make rolls nowadays when we have people over for dinner.

The lidl speciality bread mixes are very good.

[happyhippy]

Thankyou Boboff!Yes I've seen those bread mixes and often wondered if they were any good.

[Susie]

Congratulations HH, well done! You're almost making me want to do bread by hand again. I sometimes have a hankering to try sourdough but I try to wait until the hankering goes away again because sourdough does scare me quite a lot ;-).

[snapdragon]

Well done for overcoming the fear HH
I often
1. use one third to half brown and the rest lidl bread flour,
2. add a handful of porage oats on the occasion I've added too much water
3. mix in a handful of seeds sunflower linseeds etc

I did one time make a pretend lardy cake by rolling out and layering (well really 'mashing it up together' as layering didnt 'quite' work ) with half a jar leftover mincemeat, very messy business but tasted excellent.

[Berti]

Congratulations HH, well done! You're almost making me want to do bread by hand again. I sometimes have a hankering to try sourdough but I try to wait until the hankering goes away again because sourdough does scare me quite a lot ;-).

susie, why does sourdough scare you so much.
there is nothing to be scared about, I have been doing it for years and the only monsters I have seen so far are the huge loaves I am baking........3 pound ones....
you can learn ANYTHING, with some tutoring and someone explaining things.

I admit it took me some time to learn all the knacks but now I can just shake a sourdough loaf recipe out of my sleeve (as we say here...) there aren't much secrets to me anymore!
and no it is not sour AT ALL.......really depends on what you use, techniques and flours etc.

maybe I should write up an ish article huh for the "urban guide"?

[contadina]

I've just blogged, what I think is an idiots guide to sourdough because I'm an idiot and it took me several tries before I got the sourdough right. I also managed to kill a 30-year old sourdough starter, kindly given to me by a baker

[happyhippy]

A 30 yr old starter?Wow!Incredible hey?My motto from now on is "There is nothing to fear except fear itself!I really don't know what made me nervous about breadmaking.I am usually quite a confident cook,but I guess due to lack of experience in the bread department(lol)its scared the living c**** out of me!Now I've conquered the fear,anything is possible lol xxxxxx PS So lucky so have the help and support of fellow ishers!xx

[becks77]

I've just blogged, what I think is an idiots guide to sourdough because I'm an idiot and it took me several tries before I got the sourdough right. I also managed to kill a 30-year old sourdough starter, kindly given to me by a baker

I have just had a peaky sneak at your blog and am now inspired to have another go at pasta....thank you

[Harasimow]

I got a book as a present for doing someones fence it was a river cottage handbook on making bread. I've tried before and allthough my loaves tasted great they were always very stodgy and dense (which was great for spreading my too well set raspberry Jam) But reading the River cotttage book made me understand so much more about how bread works and goes into detail about how to Knead, shape into a round, prove, bake ect.

The main thing I learnt about kneading was that all you need to be doing is stetching the dough. Dont beat the living daylights out of it, just stretch it as far as you can, pull it back together, turn 90 Degrees repeat, repeat repeat. Every so often stretch it as thin as you can, if you can stretch it as thin as a pair of tights then its ready! (theres more and better written in the book)