do you make all your own bread? without a breadmaker?

[thisisyesterday]

am looking for hints and tips!
i can make a perfectly good loaf, but not sure about making all of our bread myself.
can i leave it to rise overnight?

No i don't. I do make handmade bread, but sporadically - not organised or motivated to do it all the time. I remember a friends mum used to do this, I think she made big batches and froze it. It was quite 'challenging' germanic bread as I remember

What makes you want to make all your own bread? (..can I ask?)

...yes you can leave it to rise overnight in the fridge, it works well.

hmmm fool i am i never thought of batch cooking and freezing! although my freezer isn't that big.

basically we have no money and i am trying to save money. i quite enjoy making bread so thought it would be one way to save myself a few pennies each week

I used to when I was on mat leave with DS, fresh yeast and everything. I made 4 loaves at a time. Now on mat leave with DD and DH has been put on a 3 day week, so should start doing it agian,

I use a bread maker for DSs sandwich loaf and for toasting but hand bake bread too.

Batch freezing saves a lot of time. It is as easy to hand bake 3 loaves as just one. I usually cut them in half before freezing so I can take half a loaf out at a time and does not take as long to defrost.

I have made a couple of loaves today - started them lastnight and left to prove in the fridge overnight, knocked back this morning, made rolls, left to rise again and then baked - takes about 2 hours including baking if you prove in the fridge but takes another hour or so if making the initial dough in the morning

I make a fair bit of our bread in summer, can't be bothered in winter as I can never really figure out how long to leave it in the lower temps. I have done proving in fridge overnight and found it terrific. I just never remember to make the dough early enough to do that.

I'm a big fan of ... oh, whatsisname - Bread Matters, it contains more info than you could imagine about bread making and is therefore good for learning flexibility.

I use a BM for DS's bread but even with a BM it takes too long to make it for all of us - by the time I've sliced, packaged it up & frozen it's too much effort.

I think making your own is probably only cheaper if you would normally buy posh bread. We buy the cheapo sort - 47p per big loaf.

We make all own bread - but in breadmaker. I also make soda bread about once a week. We don't freeze it though. A loaf lasts about a day.

I bake all our bread, but mostly in the breadmaker.
I use the sponge method:

mix 1cup of flour with 2cup of water and half a teaspoon dried active yeast (or a little bit fresh yeast).
leave for at least six hours (I do this before leaving for work)
then add 500g flour, a little salt, a tablespoon oil.
knead and let rest for an hour.
shape loaf and leave for another hour.

if you want a soft crust don't preheat the oven. I leave the loaf in there to proove, only warm it up slightly to let the dough rise and then turn up the heat to 175 (fan oven) and bake for 50 min. makes nice bouncy bread without much crust.
if you want crust heat up the oven as much as possible, fill a tray in the bottom of the oven with boiling water and bake the bread for 45 min at 200.

(or start the sponge in the breadmaker, add the rest of the ingredients, switch on)

I was making it all. at teh moment dh works away and I'm shattered and pg and have completely got out of the routine.

I just did 750g flour, 3/4 pint water, yeast, oil, salt. If I was going to be in in the morning then I could leave it overnight to slow rise, knock back and leave half an hour to prove before baking. I prefer this as the floavour is better on a slow rise. If I was going to be out and wouldn't have the time to bake before going then so long as I started it by 7pm I could have it baked by around 10pm.

ooh thank you all! didn't realise there were so many bread-making folk on here :)

am def going to try proving it overnight and batch cooking and freezing.

the loaves I normally buy are about £1.30 each, so think i ought to save money?

interesting about getting a soft loaf too! thanks. i wanted to make some soft rolls once before but couldn't get them to be not crusty lol

it will not be completely without crust, but much softer and paler compared to the other version.

cool, am going to give that a go too. thanks :)

haha
let us know how it turns out mrsm!

magnolia it should be fine. it will bubble but will be more of a beach foam than magic porridge.
when I make it, it nearly but not quite doubles in volume.

good luck!

I have a loaf baking in the mashine as I type, started the sponge this morning.

I bake our bread, no bread maker, but I do use a kenwood mixer for the initial mix/ knead.

I tend to bake 2 loafs at a time. mixer can't cope with more dough than that.

I bake on nights I'm cooking tea using the oven.

Rolls cook soooo much quicker that if I'm in a hurry ( can one be in hurry and make bread?) I split the risen dough into rolls and don't do a 2nd rise. 15 mins and their done.

Stupid question alert:
do you knead it before freezing or after? How do you freeze it and what you do after?
Does anyone have an easy and nice recipe for a beginer?

You can freeze bread after it has baked and cooled down.

I use this very quick and easy Artisan Bread recipe.

Scroll down the page a bit to see the recipe. No kneading required after the initial mix. Just leave it to rise at room temp and turn out onto a tray and shove into the oven with cup of hot water in a tray in the bototm.

Tastes like proper bread and really crusty.

PS: You dont need Kosher salt. Normal salt is fine.

presume people mean they bake the bread and then freeze?

that said, my pizza dough recipe says it can be frozen after the second kneading although I've never tried it so don't know how it comes out

Oh that bread sounds good MoreBeta, i like the idea of having ready dought in the fridge for 14 days and use it whenever you like.

What is granulate yeast? I 've got sachets (7g), it says Allinson Easy Bake Yeast. Is this ok?

Do you know if i need to change anything if i add olives?

Re freezing: i meant if you freeze the dought.

I have never frozen dough just easier to bake and freeze in my view.

When I add nuts/olives/fruit to bread I dont change the recipe unless the thing I am adding is really wet. If your olives are really wet then chop them and dry them out a bit on kitchen paper otherwise you might get wet doughy spots.

Easy Bake Yeast should be fine. It is just fast acting which is good if you are a beginner and not doing any kneading as in this recipe.

Oh lovely! Thank you very much MoreBeta