bread recipes

[zgma]

I have just started baking breads, and I'm looking for good recipes. Any master bakers out there who are willing to share your secrets?

[zgma]

I should mention - I don't have a bread machine; I'm just looking for good recipes to make by hand. Thanks.

[rekstout]

Tons of mature cheddar, mixed harbs and a dash of mustard powder (mustard enhances the flavour of the cheese)

Also try sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and olive oil.

Try to ensure your yeast and flour is fresh, ensure that all ingradients are warm or at least at room temp (including your tins/trays). Leftover water from boiling potatoes makes excellent breadmaking water - I have no idea why.

[New Forester]

As many ways as you can think of... Malt bread is good. Add plenty of malt syrup or black treacle to the dough, plus a bit of allspice and dried fruit. Soggy and sticky, but yum. I often make white bread with olives, chopped onion, a little garlic, capers, chopped peppers, dried mushrooms and spices. Perhaps some salami or bacon (think pizza with the topping mixed in). Don't over-knead after adding the lumpy bits, or they all come to the outside. Olive oil dribbled over the top. Seeds on top are nice too. Brush a little water over the top of the loaf before baking, and sprinkle them on -- sunflower, caraway, poppy, sesame or what have you. Then cut simple patterns through the seeds. Try using milk instead of water to make the dough. Also, sodabread: use baking powder instead of yeast -- especially good made with milk or even some yoghurt. I use this to make grilled flat breads, as a quick base for other things. Then there are different flours. Wholemeal, brown, granary, very strong white, rye, etc etc. I often make a kind of pitta to eat while the main lot of bread is rising. Take a handful of dough, flour it, roll out flat and long, and grill very hot (watch out for the steam coming out of the edges, and take care it doesn't expand and touch the grill element). Then split and grill a little more, or cut one edge to make pockets and fill with salad etc. Takes ten minutes, and works even when the yeast has only just been added. Rolls are nice too, and are also ready to eat before the rest. Glad to hear you're making real bread, not cheating with a machine! Though the machines do seem to make good bread, and the shops now do a wider range of ingredients for us purists. I find the the main problem with the machines is that it's rather spoilt the reaction when you tell people you make your own bread -- twenty years ago they'd say "how wonderful!", but now they say "so do I -- what machine do you have?".

[zgma]

Thanks, folks! Lots of good ideas here. When do you add the olives or other lumpy stuff? After you've already kneaded for a while?

[New Forester]

Yes, fold them in at the end. One way is to spread the dough out quite thin, put the bits on the top, then roll it all up like a Swiss roll. That way you get an even distribution without too much mixing, and can keep the olives from popping out through the outer layers. Then coriander or cumin seeds on the top...

[zgma]

Mmmmm - I'll definitely do the cumin seeds on top!