Help me bake a nice loaf of bread

[MysteriousFalafel]

I’d love to start making our own bread as we’re starting to get through a wild amount of it now the kids are on packed lunches. I’m a decent cook and good at making cakes but my bread is shit. It’s somehow completely tasteless and never how I want it to be.

Does anyone have any recipes/tips I can follow? I’d like to stick to wholemeal or potentially go wild and add some seeds or something (when we buy bread I buy multigrain type loaves). It needs to be loaf shaped as it’s easier for toast and sandwiches - recommendations on size of loaf tin please! Also I am assuming the quality of the flour makes quite a big difference? Have only really tried with cheap flour so far so that’s something I can do. Ideally not desperate to start messing about with sourdough starters.

We did have a bread maker a few years back but I didn’t like the shape or the taste of what it produced. I do have a mixer with a dough hook if that helps take some of the labour out of it.

Try this one as it’s fool proof. I’d make it with white flour first then swap half for wholemeal next time. Get to know the recipe. You can pop this in a 2lb loaf tin and it’ll make a lovely loaf for toast or sandwiches. You can also make rolls and put them in a large round tin, they’ll rise into each other slightly so can tear them apart. For soft breadsticks/hot dog rolls. Two small 1lb loaves.

I find a wholemeal loaf with no extras quite bland. I like Matthew’s Cotswold 8 grain which makes a multigrain loaf and it’s delicious. We have a bread maker so can’t help with the recipe but I can recommend this flour.

I also like doves farm malthouse flour. Also delicious.

I use 50/50 strong white flour and wholemeal or other grainy fancy flour.

The main thing that I have done wrong is insufficient proving. On a warm day when I'm busy and forget it the end results are so much better.
I can't knead by hand due to arthritis so I use a bread maker just for the mixing and kneading, then make into rolls or loaves.

Thank you both! I’ll give the recipe a try today and see how I get on. What bread maker do you have @Icanttakethisanymore ?

It’s a Panasonic but it’s old so the model isn’t available anymore. I would imagine any new Panasonic model would work well. Ours has a compartment for seeds / nuts etc. so that is released during the cycle rather than going in with the other ingredients at the beginning. I think that leads to a better rise because those extra ingredients don’t interfere with the rising / proving(??) process. Clearly I am not a bread expert 😂

The yeast has a separate compartment too so that’s added at some point according to the recipe.

we use ours most days. It’s great and you get lovely fresh non-upf bread.

You need more salt in the dough than you think you need

That’s my top tip for bread making

Edited to add , I’ve just looked at the recipe above , I’d go 3 tsp salt , not 2

I would get a bread maker to save on oven costs. I got an expensive sage one from fb marketplace. I still feel really guilty tho cos the ‘well to do’ looking lady bought it round as she needed the money that day - and she looked so sad to be handing it over.

it makes lovely bread though.

sorry, well to do looking lady.

I use the breadmaker to mix and rise, but bake in the oven because I also wasn't happy with the shape. I used to do it with the mixer, but it's easier whacking it in the bread maker TBH, because it keeps it at the right temperature and beeps when it's time.

I use 600g flour (I use white, but you can sub some wholemeal in that), 1tbsp sugar 1 tsp salt, 1tsp yeast (I don't measure though, I just slosh them in these days), 230ml water or milk (top tip - use a marker to put a line on the jug in the right place so you don't even have to look at the measurements)

Machine mixes for 10/rises for 30, then I take it out, whack on the oven at 180 with a dutch oven inside, gently shape the loaf on a silicone doodad (I have one that has little arms so I can dump it straight into the dutch oven without burning myself) and leave it on the hob where it's a bit warm from the oven for a final rise for about 20 mins while the oven gets up to temperature, then bake in dutch oven with lid on for 20mins, then lid off for 15 mins (tweak according to your oven) and it's a perfect loaf - just like something from a bakery.

Actual labour time is less than 10 mins, although it takes about 1.5 hours start to finish to have a loaf sliced and buttered.

500g strong white bread flour [leave the wholemeal until you have mastered the white]
350g water
7g salt
7g of dried yeast

Mix in food mixer for about 5 mins. or 15-20 by hand.

Leave for one hour

Mix again for about a minute.

Turn out onto floured board, and knead a few times to shape it. Once you have your 'top' which is the side closest to the board and the base which is the side at the top when kneading, turn it over and then cup your hands round it, and drag it to you to shape and stretch the top [the bottom sticks to the board and thats what pulls the top]. Put into a silicone half pound loaf tin, or a round tin, or a casserole dish. Leave for about 55 mins in a cold oven to rise. I always put mine onto greaseproof paper so reduce sticking.

Turn the oven on to about 220c, and after about 5 mins, take the bread gently out, score the top and put it back in. Usually takes about 30 mins to cook but tip it out and check the bottom has cooked [hollow tap]. You can add a small bowl of water when you are cooking if you want but it isn't necessary.

I know you said you don't want to mess about with starters but with a starter and a bread machine I make the most perfect bread with very little effort.
The starter lives in the fridge until it's needed. To make a loaf I have to be WFH or not out all day but that's most days 😁
when I get up I feed the starter. 60g starter, 60g flour and 60g water. Stir and leave to rise. Around 4/5 hours in a fairly warm kitchen. Wash the rest of the starter out of the pot down the sink - you don't need that.
when the starter has risen, put 400g flour (any bread flour), 8g salt, 300g water and 80g starter in the bread machine. Set to 'dough'.
2 hours later remove the dough with oiled hands and put it in an oiled bowl. Do a couple of stretch and folds. Cover with a tea towel and leave for a few hours. Do another stretch and fold later.
before you go to bed transfer it to a bread tin, cover in foil and put in the fridge.
the next morning heat the oven to 220 with a bowl of hot water. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the water and bake for another 30 at 180 degrees. Perfect bread!

I could never make bread by hand. It always came out dense and slightly sour tasting despite carefully measuring everything, kneading it thoroughly and giving it plenty of time and gentle warmth to rise and making sure it baked for the exact time at the right temperature. It was annoying as my mum could seemingly chuck ingredients in by eye, bang it around on the table till she’d had enough, bung it in the oven when she thought it looked right, and we always had delicious, light, tasty bread.
I bought a Panasonic bread maker and never looked back.

We’ve got a very cold north facing kitchen so I do think I need to put it somewhere else to rise. Possibly the living room (and hope no small children poke it )

I’ve been making this whole meal loaf and it’s been full proof. I do 1/2 whole meal flour and 1/2 plain.

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/whole-wheat-bread/#tasty-recipes-126009

if you need somewhere warm, just put the oven on for 5 mins till slightly warm and prove in there

I use a no knead recipe and it comes out beautifully. 3 cups strong flour, 1.5 cups warm water (use the same cup for both), 1 sachet yeast, 1tsp salt, 0.5tsp white sugar. Mix it all to incorporate the water then I leave it in the boiler cupboard til I remember to get it out again (at least an hour). Tip onto a floured counter and knock it into a flat rough rectangle then roll it into a log and chuck it into a 2lb tin. 240 oven for 30 mins with a cover (upside down tin on top) then 10 mins without a cover. Also can be divided into 6 for rolls. Delish. I need to start sneaking in some multi grain flour now that I've weaned the family off the supermarket sliced pan.

I make virtually all my own bread; mostly sourdough, but I often make a small white cob or some rolls. Occasionally a wholemeal loaf.

I have a few rules! 😀
Firstly, kneading is way over-rated. The time spent proving is way more important. I never knead anything for more than 20 or 30 seconds at a time, and have never yet found a recipe that needs more (this might not a apply to real fancy stuff, like trying to make a 'proper' French baguette). i also measure really accurately (I weigh everything, including the liquids). This makes repeatability easy. Once I have my ratios right, it's in a spreadsheet, so I can factor it up or down in quantity.
So for a small cob loaf, I go 230g of strong white with half a teaspoonful of salt, 138g of warm water, and 14g of melted butter. You can bung the liquids all in together, and not bother with that 'bit at a time' business. For rolls, I proportion that down to 150/90/9,which makes 3 nice rolls.

But everyone has their own ideas about bread.

Thus.

I followed Bake with Jack when I started making my own bread. He is very watchable I think and his videos gave me confidence to try again after years of not managing at all to bake bread!
I have a cold north facing kitchen too, but found popping the covered dough in the microwave, leaving the door ajar so that the light stayed on, created a warm enough space to get it to rise.

Buying new yeast makes a big difference if you've has one kicking around the cupboard for a long time like had. I bought some new and the bread was hugely better with the new one

This is the best for toast. So easy!https://www.nigella.com/recipes/old-fashioned-sandwich-loaf

Another vote for Bake with Jack, he keeps it so clear and straightforward, and has a huge range of videos about every sort of bread you could imagine.

I make two loaves a week, one yeasted one sourdough, total time spent kneading = 8 minutes. As you get into a routine you can time the baking to coincide with cooking other things to save on energy.

This is the video of his basic yeasted loaf. I make this using half white half whole meal.