Please talk to me about making bread

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I’m keen to give it a go but know nothing! What do you need? Is it time consuming? How long does the bread last for? Is it freezable? How often/when do you make it? Any tips appreciated.

Yes I did google but most of them are ads or give conflicting responses

Thanks

Need: flour, water, yeast, salt (we use way less than most recipies say). Scales, bowl. Baking sheet, or ideally loaf tin. Oven! A warm spot.

Time: you need a good few hours, but it can be abandoned for good chunks. It also need a hour is more to cool down afterwards.

The bread is best the day it's cooked, imo. It does last, but not as long as supermarket bread. Yes you can freeze it.

The toughest part in an English winter us finding somewhere warm enough to get it to rise. Whrn I lived in the middle east my yeast cooking was fabulous!

It’s an absolute faff. But nice to do. What kind of loaf do you fancy?

Oooh i have been making my own bread for a couple of months so feel qualified to comment! If I start at about 0800 I can reckon on it going in the oven at about 1600. I love it. My arms are stronger now and it is excellent for feeling smug!

I buy wholemeal flour by the sack from Wessex Mills.
I make 2 large loaves most Saturday mornings. I set yeast to fizz in warm sugar water when I make my early coffee. I drink my coffee then mix and knead the dough. Leave it to rise while I shower & dress. Then I knock it down and knead again before leaving it for an hour. Then bake for 45 mins.
Usually done by 10am. I prefer to make it by hand and it keeps bingo wings at bay but you could use a bread maker.
When completely cold, I freeze one loaf wrapped in plastic.
I use wholemeal flour, a little salt, yeast, sugar and a little oil.
It costs me about 95p per 800g loaf and tastes great. 😊

You need like two or three hours to let it rise. And you need to knead it really vigorously for at least 15 mins.

Other than that it's just bread flour, say 500g, one sachet of yeast, salt and around 300ml warm water plus oil for kneading.

Put the salt and yeast on different sides of the flour as you mix it in as salt kills the yeast.

You have to prove it once for at least an hour then again for another hour or two.

Cook on GM 8 for about half an hour.

Bread machines make it easy - plop the stuff in and collect it in the morning. Had 2 , but they don’t have long life , just a few years each

yes it freezes - it didn’t keep fresh as long as shop bread as no preservative

it does take time - we have a mixer and each loaf takes 5 mins to mix, leave for hours, another 5 mins mix, another few hours rising and then cooking for half an hour

we tend to make an oven full at a time and freeze several loaves and buns

Warm the water slightly helps the rise especially when it’s cold

I cheat I have a Panasonic bread maker ❤️ for most of our bread. I’ve given up on supermarket breads full of additives and preservatives and not as nice as home made. Whack the ingredients in on Sunday night fresh loaf Monday morning timed to perfection and freeze well. Same on Wednesday. I do try my own bread rolls in a Saturday when I have more time I follow BBC Good Food recipes and I am still trying to master sourdough 😣.

I have a Panasonic bread machine (sd-2500) bought it from a charity shop for £10
My last one was Panasonic also but much smaller, got that from marketplace
I'm obsessed and make a fresh loaf in 2 hours or so using the rapid wholemeal/rapid white loaf setting.
Not branched out much other than sometimes buying a sourdough mix from the shops and putting it in
I slice and freeze as it doesn't last long.. so cheap and smells so nice cooking.. so easy. I never buy bread unless I have a dire need
Here's my little mini loaf I did earlier today.

Panasonic bread maker 5 minutes flour yeast butter sugar salt water - fresh bread every day 80p a loaf all in.

I love making bread, it's really easy. My latest obsession is Ruggieri yeast. It's a bit like sourdough but much easier. I buy it from Amazon. It makes incredible bread rolls. I do half white, half seeded malted flour. It doesn't even need alot of kneading.

If you want to get a bread maker, you can't beat a Panasonic one. Mine is 15 years old and still going strong.
Otherwise, there are some fantastic books on bread making. My favourite is Bread Matters: Why and How to Make Your Own by Andrew Whitley. If you can get hold of fresh yeast, that's nice to cook with and you can keep it in the freezer until it's needed. Morrisons used to sell it, but I'm not sure if they still do.

I am very lazy so do the no-knead dutch oven loaf.

In the evening mix 500g bread flour, 1tsp yeast and 2tsp salt with 375ml of warm water. Just stir it until there are no dry bits and then cover with a tea towel and leave on the side to prove overnight. Don't knead it or touch it.....just leave it alone so air bubbles can form during the long prove.

In the morning put a casserole pot that has a lid into the oven at 200c for 20 minutes or so to get really hot. Then pull it out of the oven, pour your dough out of the bowl onto a sheet of baking paper and drop it in the pot. Put the lid back on using oven gloves and for the love of god don't forget that's it has been in the oven so is hot.

Cook the bread with the lid on for 30 minutes then the lid off for another 15 mins or so. It's done when it's nicely browned and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

I love this recipe as there's no kneading and only a few minutes if that of hands on "work"...... time and the oven do all the hard work for you.

I tend to be in the habit of making two loaves a week. One I mix up on a Friday night so I can bake it on Saturday morning and have a fresh loaf for the weekend and then the second if I have a day where I'll be working from home so can do the bake in the morning.

It is great the day it is baked, nice to slice and toast the day after and if I'm not going to use it I slice it up and put in the freezer for using another time.

I my own bread because I try to eat organic where I can so I can make my own using organic bread flour for about £1 a loaf......which is vastly cheaper than buying one from the supermarket.

Yes it’s easy to mske
it lasts about 3 days, depending where you store it
yes you can freeze, I usually slice half the loaf, pop in a freezer bag and put straight in the freezer

i make this loaf, no knead

I have a bread machine and stand mixer with dough hook so use those for different loaves

@Aliceisagooddog need to try this yeast🤔 I loved red Fermipan but it comes in massive packets!

I make sourdough every week but never ever knead (after spending years of my life wasting time kneading).

Get a starter going with strong white flour. (Lots of instructions available online.) Once it is bubbling away after a few days, store it in a kilner jar (not sealed) in the fridge.

The day you want to bake, get it out of fridge early in morning, and feed it with more flour and water. After a few hours it will be bubbling.

At that stage, mix 400g strong white flour, 10g salt, 275g water, 200g starter, in a bowl with your hands. Put a tea towel over bowl. After half an hour, wet your hand, reach into bowl under the lump of dough, and kind of pull and stretch the underside to the top, while turning the bowl. Do this stretch about 20 times- it will take about 20 seconds to do this, that’s all. Re-cover bowl.

After at least another half hour - or longer, I often forget and leave it for much longer, repeat this process. (you can repeat this step again once or even twice if you want, but I find doing it twice is plenty.)

Take it out, and fold it into a tight ball, using flour on your hands (roll the ball up from every direction, basically - plenty of instructions on line). Leave it on a floured kitchen side for abour 45 mins.

Then turn on oven to 210 degrees (fan). Put in a roasting tray of water at bottom of oven and a metal tray on top shelf (remember bread will rise so you need yi leave room for this, may need to lower top shelf.)

After heating oven for about 25 minutes, transfer the dough ball (which should by now have risen) to the heated tray (oh, and sprinkle flour on tray first). Slash top of dough a few times with bread knife. Put oven. After 20 minutes, turn it on the tray. Then give it 20 more minutes. It should then be brown, risen and done. Take out. Let it cool on oven top.

This is a long description but in total it takes about 8 -10 minutes of my time max (plus 25 minutes heating oven, and 40 minutes cooking) to make it. It is very very quick once you abandon kneading. And it is very good bread.

You can also double the ingredients, shape it into two after mixing and stretching, and freeze one loaf after cooking. Easiest to freeze sliced.

My starter has lived in the fridge for 4 years, fed once a week when I make bread - sometimes more depending on how quickly we eat it. I also often leave the dough in the fridge overnight - it’s very flexible and can fit in round your time, just take it out, shape it and let it rise before cooking.

I make a loaf every couple of days, just make a new one once it gets eaten. I make a loaf of sourdough around once a week because I’m the only one who eats it and I only have a slice a day.

Bread is easy enough, flour, butter, lukewarm water and yeast. I can get it done in about 3 hours including proving and cooking time, I don’t knead or mix it myself though I use my KitchenAid. If you’re using a recipe from online or the back of a flour packet - you’ll never need as much water as they say.

I started making bread about 10 years ago

First I did it all by hand
then I used the dough hook on my hand held mixer
then I bought a stand mixer
then I bought a bread maker I saw in a charity shop for £15
then I bought a better stand mixer with a better dough hook

I use my bread maker for everyday loaves for the family
I use my KitchenAid mixer for my sourdough

I freeze slices of bread leftover and whole sourdough loaves as I make 2 at a time as they take a while.

Once you’ve baked your own bread you’ll never want to buy any again so that’s why I love my bread maker because it’s a timesaver.

We used to make all our own bread when I was a teenager. There was a bread shortage at one point so we had our own little bakery. My DF and I did all the work. I would do the first shift, mix and do the first kneed then my DF would do the second and then bake the loaves. We made six loaves on a Sunday, most would go in the freezer and be defrosted daily. We did it for years because the bread was so much nicer than bought bread.

I still bake the odd loaf after DS discovered I could make bread. The best recipe I came across was on a pack of Allinsons extra strong bread flour. The secret is the first kneed, it should be a minimum of 5 mins. As with most baking it’s absolutely essential to stick to the recipe. Don’t add more flour if the dough seems a bit wet initially because it alters the texture/chemistry. Make sure you have a really large bowl. Dont leave it to prove too long. Keep checking until it’s doubled in size. If it has started to deflate then you e left it too long.
Timing the bake can be hit and miss but try and use a baking oven setting ( top and bottom heat with no fan). I also put a tray of water in the bottom of the oven so the loaf doesn’t have a really hard crust. And make sure the oven is at temperature before putting the loaf in otherwise it will continue to rise and be full of holes.

I love bread! I have a bread machine that I enjoy because it’s easy and I can use my choice of organic flour. I especially love the granola bread it makes. Just a touch of sweetness and extra fiber and protein. I use the dough function often and also use it as a proofing box.

I also keep a sourdough starter which makes excellent pizza dough and yummy biscuits. I do just okay on the artesian type loaves, mainly because I give them a go in my wood fired oven and it’s a steep learning curve. But every winter I get a little better.

I would say choose what you love to eat. I’m not a big whole wheat fan and feel those types of flours can be fortified with synthetic vitamins and pesticides though not as often as white flours. So start with your favorite flour and don’t let all the dogmatic people on the online bread forums turn their noses up at you. Bake what you love and have fun.