The Magic of Bread, Part 2

Okay, so I owe you the finish of the story of my bread making adventures as of late.

The loaf I made that day had some issues. It just didn't rise very much at all. If your yeast is good (ie. not expired), usually rising is dependant on your environment. All those tiny little yeast yearn for a warm moist place to do their magic. Emphasis on warm. Cold and drafty kitchens don't work very well.  And your liquid needs to be very warm (usually about 110 degree F, or so my recipe book says).

I made the mistake of prepping my water mixture before I got my flour together. Normally when I use regular yeast, you 'proof' it in warm water with sugar to activate it. Quick yeast doesn't require that so you add it right to the flour. So my water cooled quite a bit before I added it to the water.

Everything went as usually, but the loaf was small and not what I was used to.

Subsequent loaves saw me experimenting and I did a few things that made a huge difference:

* Do the flour first, then the water and add it right away while it's still hot.

* If the kitchen is cool (make sure the window is closed), I heat up the oven with the fan on and when it's hot, open the door and let it vent into the kitchen for a few minutes before turning it off. Or I make bread on while a load of laundry is drying since the washer is in the kitchen. (That's my perfect cheat!)

* I have only one large bowl, so I have to mix my dough, dump it out to knead it, and then wash the bowl so I can oil it for the rising stage. When I wash it, I do so right after I've kneaded and rinse it in really hot water so the bowl is nice and warm when the dough goes into it. Works great to get a good solid high rise the first time.

* I also realized how important it is to score the top of the loaf so it can expand in the second rise. Yes, it really does make a difference!

I've realized also that the reason my leaves are so short (height wise) is that I have an 11"x7" pan, rather than the standard 9"x5" pan most bread recipes call for. I'll fix that one of these days, but for now, my heartier bread slices are smaller, which is actually useful for both my husband and I, as we've been getting healthier and losing weight. He in particular eats a lot of bread, so he doesn't mind the smaller pieces.

But here is that perfectly lovely loaf in all it's glory. Speaking of which, I have a leaf to make tonight...

The Magic of Bread, Part 1

I grew up on brown bread. We might have had white sandwich bread at some point, but all that sticks out in my memory is brown bread. When we were pretty young it was 60% whole wheat and I remember we'd get multiple loafs from the bakery section of the supermarket and that smell of fresh bread is always in my head.

So I grew up loving brown bread. As I got older we ate multigrain and I still do to this day. Don't get me wrong, I love a really good Italian loaf or French baguette, but when it comes to sandwiches or toast, nothing beats a really nice, slightly dense multigrain loaf with a crust that is slightly dark. I know it's a thing in my family, but anyone else absolutely love the crust and ends of baked goods? Are we just weird? I'd quite happily eat the top of the muffin and pass the bottom to someone else.

I had to zip out to pick a few things from the shop (listen to me, the lingo has taken a hold!) and I was cruising past the bread in one aisle. There was a moment when I stopped and eyed the loafs of brown and white bread wondering if I should just grab one considering we were down to only a few slices back at the flat.

"Don't do it!" the motivational side of my consciousness screamed out.

"What?"

"You don't need bread. Go make it."

"But that takes time and I couldn't find any proper yeast and I don't even know if that other yeast I bought will work properly."

"You haven't tried it."

"But if it doesn't work I'll still need to buy a loaf of bread..."

More pondering ensued and I left the shop without any bread.

Fast forward a few hours and I just mixed together a loaf and it's currently rising... presumably.

Score 1 point in the battle against tiredness and laziness. Admittedly, I made it after a nap, so I had a bit more energy than earlier. Something about my nice week of weather being gone and the rain coming back that made me feel lethargic this morning. Staying up for the closing ceremonies of the Olympics didn't help either.

I've gone a little nuts for flour here. See, it took me a bit to sort out the differences in lingo and actual processing. Here, you have plain flour, bread flour, pasta flour (often notated by 00 to show it've very fine) and sometimes you pastry flour. No cake flour. A really good quality all-purpose flour is the best you can hope for, but when I made cupcakes for Ryan's party, I found one that claimed it was fine, and having eaten said cupcakes, I would say they were right.

Bread flour here is also known as 'strong' flour, or extra strong. This means that it has a higher gluten content that when kneaded results in a nice rising bread. All purpose flour/plain flour just doesn't quite do the trick. On top of that is the shift in lingo from whole wheat/whole grain to brown/wholemeal. When you see 'brown' here, that is generally equivalent to whole wheat. The all important and more healthy 'whole grain' is called wholemeal here.

Got that all straight?

Now, so far, I haven't made wholemeal bread with 100% wholemeal flour. It usually is way too heavy so I've been playing with wholemeal/white flour mixtures to find which one I prefer. 50/50 works pretty well for bread, I prefer my pizza crust a little lighter so I use about 60/40 white to wholemeal.

Bread also requires yeast. All I've ever used before is dry active yeast. It comes in little containers that you measure out or in pre-measured sachets. I've been using it loose and just measuring out whatever my recipe calls for. Yes, some time was spent looking at conversions for yeast measurements and differences between countries because what is the equivalent in one country in a sachet is not the same in the other.

Oi people, you're giving me a headache!

The crux of my problem is that when I went to buy more yeast and after 4 shops I couldn't find the containers and I ended up with sachets. Fine, I could deal with that. However when I read the box carefully (notably after I got home), I realized that I had quick yeast, not regular dry yeast. None of my recipes called for it and I had no idea how to substitute and adjust the recipe to make it work.

Insert more internet research here. And then some procrastination.

So after successfully dodging the commercially made loaves (which I should note I have nothing against, but it's sooooo nice to have homemade bread), I set out to make bread this afternoon.

I used wholemeal extra strong bread flour and instead of plain white strong bread flour, I used one that had all kinds of grains and seeds in it. My thought is that it would still be light, but have that wonderful nuttiness that multigrain bread gets. In place of the wheat germ (which I didn't have), I used porridge oats, which is as close to rolled oats as you get over here.

I learned in my research that quick yeast basically is finer and doesn't require 'proofing' in water first. So I added it right to my flour. The salt and a bit of honey was dissolved into my water (which normally would have contained yeast, not the salt), and it was all mixed together.

Admittedly, I had my doubts. There was no confidence after kneading the bread for several minutes that it would actually rise properly and turn into moderately light multigrain bread. Thirty minutes into the first rise and I can say that I was wrong. It's rising beautifully.

Stay tuned for the results and the verdict...