Learn About The Basic Steps in Bread-making

Learn About The Basic Steps in Bread-making
by: Mary Walsh

Believe it or not, baking your very own homemade bread does not involve rocket science. Some people think that baking is difficult because you'd really try to follow instructions precisely so that you will get the texture and taste of your bread right. Although, the easiest way to have bread is to buy them at grocery shops, for some, commercially-made bread does not really suit their tastes and they'd rather opt for baking their own homemade bread, as tedious as it may seem at first.

Let me tell you that there is nothing like smelling the succulent aroma of good bread you actually baked yourself. Admittedly, it takes lots of practice before you'd be able to produce the perfect loaf of bread. On your first few baking ventures, you will end up with loaves so hard that you can't eat them anymore. Trial & error is something that you would need to go through when trying to create your very own homemade bread. Also, you must also learn baking the traditional way, even if your kitchen is stocked with all the modern tools that you would need. For instance, you should learn kneading your dough with your hands and not rely on electric mixers every time.

If you really want to get into baking, you should know some basic stuff, like flour and yeast. There are lots of these flour types available in today's market, but the very best one that you should use still is your basic bread flour. Its high gluten content produces great results when it comes to taste and texture. Use bread flour on your first few attempts when you're baking. When you're already getting the hang of it, that's when you're ready to experiment using other types of flour during baking, you could use whole-wheat flour for healthier variety of breads.

Yeast is really a very fickle baking ingredient. This organism likes sugar and warmed water. Water that is very cold or very hot will end up killing your yeast. So in order to control yeast, you'll need to put in salt into your baking mixture. Without salt, your yeast will get out of control then eat up everything.

Starters are very important for novice bakers. This is especially true if you want to make good sourdough breads. The taste and texture of sourdough bread relies heavily on yeast quality. This is why sourdough bread in San Francisco tastes better than those made in other places. The reason behind it is that the natural yeast present in San Francisco's air is really ideal for making sourdough.

Weather also plays a considerable part in producing quality bread. It basically dictates the amount of flour that you'll need. Dry weather means that you should use lesser amounts of flour and humid conditions require additional flour