Please talk to me about making bread! I've over promised....

[IDontMindMarmite]

I don't really make bread. I've done Naan bread easily enough but that's about it.

I really want a bread that has flavours in it like cheese, bacon, onion etc. What kind of bread recipe could that be?

Go onto BBC good food website, they're bound to have loads of recipes. You might find some on Jamie Oliver's site too, it sounds like the kind of recipe he'd have.

Have a look at Bake With Jack, he has a website and a YouTube and I’ve found him so helpful

I've done a blue cheese and bacon bread which was a Paul Hollywood recipe. It worked well, but you have to fiddle with the the yeast amounts. Let me see if I can find it.

It's close to a normal bread recipe (500g flour, 300ml water, 7g yeast and some salt) but with a pre mix of half the yeast, 100g flour and 100g of water for a few hours before.

Look for a focaccia recipe, they are good for loading with extras.

This is the blue cheese and bacon bread. Any strong blue cheese is fine. It copes better being slashed in a \l/ pattern than a cross as less cheese escapes.

So have you over promised to provide bread or do you actually want to learn to do it?
If the former, Wrights do a cheddar cheese and onion bread mix. It is delicious and after proving I pat the dough into a rectangle and spread on tomato paste with herbs, then roll into a fat sausage , into a 2lb loaf tin for the final rise. Couldn't be less effort and never fails ( unlike my leaden cheese bread attempts from recipes).

Oooh thank you so much @Nacreous. I am loving your notes! Why do you say 30 seconds where the recipe advises 5 mins whisking?

I've over promised because i'm a dessert aficionado! Bread is way out of my comfort zone. But I pretty much religiously cook from scratch and love to learn so I do want to do it myself. The bread mix sounds pretty great though.

Soda bread. Can easily add cheese/bacon etc and it is super easy to make. No kneading or proving required and is delicious

Soda bread, good to know, thank you. I think i'm going to be baking a lot more bread in the future!

30s will be because it was fine with that and I am exceedingly lazy, if I can shortcut something I do. I use a Kenwood/KitchenAid style mixer with a dough hook as well for the kneading - pre adding things like cheese.

I am mainly a desert person too, lockdown has given me time to get to grips with bread a bit more.

I had found this recipe which is American and leaves the dough to rise 3 TIMES, is that normal?

Do you think the Paul Hollywood recipe could be made into the same sort of twist design?

I guess you could rise it 3 times but I am waaay too lazy.

I don't know if it would do a good twist unless you chopped the cheese and bacon up really finely because I think they would burst out of it? But could work maybe, if you did a short fat plait? This was my last attempt - you can see it's popping out the cuts.

Damn that looks good! I'm not experienced enough with bread to have the confidence to know if I can skip a prove if it's in the instructions.

I think you could skip the prove after adding the bacon and the cheese and before doing the twist in that one, but I just don't know American measurements enough to know if that recipe looks off or not.

Yeah I prefer the look of the one you posted. I would have put 20g of dried fast action yeast in though, you've said 7g dried yeast. Is he talking about some fresh yeast or something? I've honestly only ever heard of fast dried!

Yes, he's referring to fresh which weighs a lot more, I imagine 20 would be about right if you did it with fresh but I've only used fresh once or twice.

You can in non COVID times usually get a lump from the big supermarket bakeries but I don't think they'd let you at the moment, so dried is probably safest.

it's half dried to fresh if you are converting any recipes.

also if you use fresh you often have to "prove" it first in some warm water/milk, sometimes with a little flour as a sponge type starter, but with the quick dried yeast you can mix it directly into the flour.

Amazing advice here ladies, thank you very much indeed!

Have you tried no-knead bread? A revelation and so so easy! Here's a video to show how simple it is to make: m.youtube.com/watch?v=I0t8ZAhb8lQ

I chuck in a cup of chopped black olives to make an olive loaf (just make sure the olives are dry i.e toss between 2 sheets of kitchen roll) Delicious!

Another easy one to try is this spring onion and cheese soda bread. Takes a few minutes to stir together, then it's ready to bake: www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/bread/spring-onion-and-cheese-soda-bread

I use feta and it works really well. The bread is pretty much demolished by the family as soon as it's out the oven.

I haven't, is it proper bread?

Yes! Looks like this when baked - rustic, artisansal boule.

Challah.
I made this complete with plaits with the kids from school. Yr 4’s it Ned out brilliantly. I think it was Paul Hollywood’s recipe or BBC.

@242Mummy

Yes! Looks like this when baked - rustic, artisansal boule.

Wow, looks very fancy!