Bread

[needmorecoffee]

Any good wholemeal bread recipes. I have been making bread for years but the crust is quite crusty on my loaves and by day 2 has to be chiselled through. Inside is lovely bread. How do I keep the crust soft?

mine seems to stay ok a bit longer than that - I use a breadmaker with 9oz water, 2tsp sugar, 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 teaspoons dough improver (ie gluten) and 1lb flour.

But usually I slice and freeze whats left on the second day.

I don't have a breadmaker. Was wondering if the oven is too hot or something. I use 1Ib of flour, 11 oz water, 1 dessertsppon yeast and some oil, one teaspn sugar and do it the trad way.
I just want bread that I can cut without fetching a drill

I saw something last week that said that the trick is to create steam in the oven: put a small, deep baking dish in the bottom of the oven while you're warming it up, pour in some boiling water when you put the bread in. While the bread is baking, open the door very slightly and spray the side of the oven with water a couple of times. Do this twice.

I haven't tried this yet but am hoping it will work as I recognise your crust problem. I think it's partly because home-made bread doesn't have nasty preservatives in - think fresh French bread, that's inebible within hours.

The French use steam ovens for baguettes so I'm not sure whether using steam would have the desired effect on your wholemeal loaf.

There's a wholemeal loaf recipe in the recent guardian guide to baking - see here. I haven't tried it.

I have just started a thread asking if anyone has the Observer guide to baking with kids, from last Sunday. Am sorry I missed that one.

steam sounds like a good idea. Just made a loaf and its delicious but I know that for breakfast the crust will be hard.
Tomorrow I'll try the steam method.
You're right about french bread. Fresh bread for morning is probably best so one day I'll get a breadmaker.

i doubt the oven's too hot - you need it hot to set the crust.

what sort of yeast are you using? a dsp sounds quite a lot of you're using dried - that can make it go stale quicker (think of supermarket bread). my sourdough tends to keep well and that hasn't got any commercial yeast in it.

steam is good. i use a plant spray and spray the inside of the oven when the loaf goes in, then whip it out and give it another squirt after 5 minutes or so.

if you haven't already got it Dan Lepard's book The Hand Made Loaf is really inspirational.

i haven't got a working oven atm this thread is making me impatient to get the new one in.

yup, dried yeast.
I've always wondered what is meant by sourdugh and using a bit to make more bread.
I'll look for that book.
Still trying to get my kids to eat home made bread. They used to as toddlers.
Both have read 'Shopped' and 'Whats in your food?' so made appropriate disgusted noises at supermarket bread. DS1 eats white bread from a local bakery, ds2 eats wholemeal from the same bakery. I eat my bread and DH buys those papermache yucky supermarket loaves. Ick
Its hard getting the boys to change as ds1 has Aspergers and is weird about new things even though I point out he chomped it down when younger.