Bread: what am I doing wrong?

[SenoraPostrophe]

I've taken to making bread. it's probably the pregnancy hormones playing up, but still, there it is.

The thing is I have the texture just right, but there is something missing in the taste. it tatses very mildly floury and it's missing that zing you get from baker shop bread. I'm using organic bread flour (can't remember the brand, but it's def strong white) and fast action yeast (plus salt, butter etc). Could it be that i should use fresh yeast? or do bakers put all manner of crap in their bread after all?

i've found putting in a LOT more salt than one would imagine makes quite a difference.

I use fast action yeast, not fresh - I tend to use a white fat (or half and half) rather than butter though. My bread tastes...well...bready. Yummy in fact.

Sugar? You didn't mention sugar.

white fat....do you mean lard? I do like lard. we don't use it enough these days. I did put sugar in, and water - double what the recipe said for sugar but about right for salt. maybe I should just use more.

I like the River Cottage recipe, is it a breasmaker or by hand? I do it by hand, and use olive oil (and sugar!)

you can forgo the sugar if you don't want it crusty... would you like the RC recipe?

I have used lard, also use that white Flora (bet you can't get that in Spain though). I definitely prefer the taste of the finished loaf when it's not made with just butter.

by hand. part of the reason for doing it is because dd and ds adore the kneading part. and anyway i haven't got a bread maker.

the other part of the reason is because I miss english style bread. spanish bread uses olive oil and I thought maybe that was the reason for the difference in taste. Now I am miffed that i carted 2kg of flour all the way here for floury tasting bread.

actually does how fresh the flour is m,ake a difference?

Might do, have you tried adding half anf half wholemeal and white? Yum! I find the olive oil doesn't make it taste Spanish at all... but that's just my taste :)

I love the kneading, are you sure you're doing enough? Do you let it rise for 2 - 2.5 hours in a warm places and then put it in or on the tin and let it rise with a tea-towel over it for another 30 mins? Second rising makes for yummier bread I find....

I'm typing really badly!