Haven't bought bread in about a month...

[John Coloccia]

Bread machine is for sale....it makes absolutely horrid bread. We had all but given up on homemade bread until I started making it myself from scratch. Turns out, my handmade bread absolutely blows away the stupid bread machine. It's not that hard (quite easy, in fact) and it's every bit as good as any bread I've ever bought....actually, it seems to be quite a bit better than most bread that's available around here.

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[Chuck Wintle]

looking at that loaf of bread has made me hungry!!

[Jason Roehl]

Take it up a notch--grind your own grain for flour.

I don't mind store-bought bread, but I do like the homemade stuff more. There are other foods on which I'm not willing to compromise, though.

[John Coloccia]

Recipe has evolved to my own taste, but it's as simple as can be:

2 cups warm water (no hotter than 110F)
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
2 cups wheat flour
enough all purpose flour to form dough (haven't recorded how much but it's probably another 2 or 3 cups or so
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt

Combine water, honey, oil and yeast. Cover with a towel and let proof (it's done when it looks likes the head on a beer...takes maybe 10 or 20 minutes)

Add the salt (don't be tempted to do this before proofing...you will interfere with the yeast)

Start mixing in the whole wheat flour. Then keep mixing and add enough all purpose flour to turn it into a dough. It should be slightly sticky but not gooey. You'll develop a feel for it and it different depending on the day.

Knead....and knead....and knead. Knead for about 15 minutes.

I make a little skin on my dough and roll it into a ball but that's not necessary. Put it in a lightly oiled bowl (by lightly oiled, I mean put a little oil on the bottom of the bowl, grab a paper towel and lightly coat the rest of the bowl). Cover and let rise. This will probably take less than an hour. It's done when it's doubled in size or when you can poke it with your fingers and the indentations DON'T bounce back).

Punch it down (just what it says) and deflate it. Knead it for a little bit more. I usually cut mine into a 2/3-1/3 ratio. I take the 1/3, cut that down further and make dinner rolls. Just make a little ball. You can get fancy like me and squash them a bit to get that classic shape. Take the 2/3 and roll it into a near cylinder, except taper a little at the ends. Put all the formed dough on a baking sheet that has been generously dusted with corn meal.

Cover and let rise...this will take another 40 minutes or so.

At this point, you can toss it right into a 375 (preheated of course) oven, but I like to take a knife and make little cuts to give it that classic look. I also like to give it an eggwash (just beat an egg and paint it on lightly...some say the egg should be warm but I've never had a problem with cold egg). Bake the rolls for 20 minutes....the bread for 25 minutes. Yes, you should check it and not just use the timer, but I've made this quite a few times and it's always been 20 and 25 right on the dot. In practice, I set my timer to 20 minutes, take out the rolls and put them on a cooling rack. After another 5 minutes I put the rolls in a bowl and take the loaf out and onto the cooling rack.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really quite simple. If you've never baked bread before, definitely try this recipe. If all you have is all purpose flour, go ahead and use it. It will be just fine with only AP flour, but having 2 cups of whole wheat in there really wakes it up.

[Rich Engelhardt]

It will be just fine with only AP flour, but having 2 cups of whole wheat in there really wakes it up.

Yep - AP is fine & bread is easy to make.
All it takes is to resist the temptation to rush things.
I'm more partial to Rye than whole wheat though.

As an aside, if you form some of the dough into pretzel shapes, let it stand for ~ 15 min, then boil for a few min, then stick in the oven until brown, you can makse wonderful soft pretzels.

[John Coloccia]

Yep - AP is fine & bread is easy to make.
All it takes is to resist the temptation to rush things.
I'm more partial to Rye than whole wheat though.

As an aside, if you form some of the dough into pretzel shapes, let it stand for ~ 15 min, then boil for a few min, then stick in the oven until brown, you can makse wonderful soft pretzels.

You know, I just had to toss my whole stash of rye flour. It had gotten very old, left over from the "bread machine" days. I need to pick some up today. Thanks for the reminder

[Bill Davis]

Here's the other view of bread. http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blo...37208010653770
Good Book - Wheat Belly by Dr William R. Davis cardiologist

[Mike Henderson]

Pick up a copy of "The Bread Makers Apprentice". This one is also very good.

MIke

[Gordon Eyre]

I'm with you John, I have been making my own bread for several years now and also grind my own flour. I turn out five loaves at a time and give away a couple of loaves to older folks in the neighborhood. I also make rolls and a special artisan loaf on occasion. The artisan loaf is made in my Le Creuset cast iron pan and has a wonderful crust. I find the whole bread making experience to be rewarding and fun.

[David Weaver]

I also do pot loaves like gordon is talking about, but not artisan breads.

I do a very simple recipe, though, one that just has flour, water, sugar, salt, yeast and a little extra gluten. But the dough is extra wet and very little yeast (1/4tsp) so that the rise is overnight in a mixing bowl instead of hours or minutes (temperature is not as critical then). Wet dough is very easy to knead (you hardly knead it, I guess), too, and after a half hour to an hour of rest between the rise and the semi-knead, it just goes into preheated dutch ovens.

I call that my "maintenance" bread, it's very plain, but total involvement from the maker is only about 10 minutes for two loaves. It is impossible to mess up and you still get a good dark crust without having to glaze, and the crumb has good structure (it's not overly dense, and it's not puff with no strength, either, like some bread machines seem to make).

My parents have had two different bread machines. They're enamored with each for a little when they got them, but the bread leaves a lot to be desired and eventually they dropped using them.

[Dave Lehnert]

Living near Amish country we get their bread often. Not sure how it's made but is very heavy. I can eat a whole loaf at one sitting.

Believe it or not, Walmart has good bread from the bakery.

In a hurry, the frozen dough you bake at home is not bad at all. My guess what the Walmart bread is made from.

[Ryan Mooney]

+1 on both of Mikes suggested books, I found the Reinhart book to explain a bunch of things I had only suspected before.

I've about quit kneading, I found that if you just give the dough enough time to properly hydrate you don't need to knead nearly as much. For a lot of doughs I'll just mix them the night before and stick them in the fridge overnight. Next day give it a few turns and your done (well and let the loaf rise, blah blah ). Most of the time you're kneading you're really just waiting for the gluten to soak up the moisture (well and re-distributing the yeast.. but thats more important later).

Mostly I use a wet sourdough starter because of this (you can just add a little extra flour and some honey and its good to go because its already fully hydrated). With that I can take ~1.5C of sourdough, a splash of olive oil, a pinch of salt and just enough fresh ground flour to make a loose dough, let it rest while the oven is heating and have 100% whole wheat pita bread in about 30 minutes!

For grinding your own I highly recommend the nutrimill, makes great flour really fast. We bought one quite a few years ago and missed the one caveat - don't grind oily things - like oats! with it. Burned up the motor and we figured it was a write off since we'd had it for at least 3 years... They cross shipped us a new one in three days, no questions asked. Maybe my expectations of service are low, but I was really impressed! Its not really cheaper to grind your own (unless you know a wheat farmer), but you don't have the rancid flour problem. Once you've tasted fresh wheat bread its really hard to go back. The whole berries last just about forever.

[Charles Goodnight]

Actually, I have a bread maker, and I recommend you not throw it out. It makes hopeless bread, but it makes good dough. What I do when I am making a fancy meal is I use the bread maker to mix and kneed the dough while I am making dinner. Then its a small matter to form it into loaves, let it rise and bake it. It doesn't take much thought to have the bread come out ten minutes before dinner is done, and well, everybody tends to be quite impressed -- except my kids who are inclined to think that fresh bread is a standard for any good meal, and lack of fresh bread is a failing on my part.

[Michael Weber]

Problem is homemade bread is it's half gone before it cools
I baked our bread for many years and must have 20 bread books of so. All kinds of fancy breads but I stayed mostly with a partial whole wheat loaf. At one point I was ordering 25 lb bags of different wheat berries from a place in Montana until shipping became prohibitive. I had a grain grinder for my KitchenAid mixer. I tried all kinds of gimmicks over the years to get "artisan" looking loaves using more whole wheat flour without a lot of success. Just could not get the oven spring I was trying for. Tried all levels of heat, baking stones, spritzing the oven and loaf during baking, adding extra gluten, throwing in ice cubes to create moisture, etc. I did learn that throwing substantial amounts of water into a 500 degree oven is not good for it. Nor do you stand in front of the oven while doing so! I even bypassed the oven controls and installed a 3 mode industrial process controller to gain better temperature control. Kind of a Frankenoven. Haven't baked any in a while but I have found a 12 grain commercial loaf I like. Last loaf I tried I used the 'wet no knead' method first published by the New York Times several years ago and mentioned by a previous poster. Made beautiful white loaves with a great crisp 'flying' crust and beautiful streatchy open crumb but again with more than a small percentage of whole wheat the oven spring was lacking. Okay, getting nostalgic. Heading for kitchen

[Paul McGaha]

My wife does all our cooking. She's very good. Gets it from her mom.

We have a bread machine we use on occasion. She makes these yeast rolls for the Thanksgiving meal with the bread machine. Best rolls I've ever had. I think we use the bread machine for other things but its pretty rare.

John, you and these food threads. Makes me hungry just thinking about them.

PHM