I’m trying to save dough (intentional, sorry, sugar withdrawal) Part of my economizing means that I’ll going to try cooking my own bread on Saturdays. (store brand bread $3 a loaf! on sale! It’s shit to begin with!)
I tried out the no knead bread recipe last week and two of the three munchkins liked it. It does taste like artisan bread, like someone here suggested. Mom tells me that if I mix it longer the insides will be softer, but it will still retain it’s delicious crustiness, so that’s the next part of the experiment, to try to get number #3 on board.
So I’m looking for other tips like my mom has given me, and specifically when in the process it would be possible to freeze the dough. I’m hoping to make monster batches of dough once a month, and then bake 2-3 loaves Fri-night Sat-morning while doing the house.
Next week: Where can I buy a cow, and will they let me keep one in the Bronx? How about chickens?
You can always buy frozen dough and thaw it to bake. Bread machines are to be had from relatives, yard sales, and Goodwill for little or free. This can let your make regular bread loafs, without you doing the kneading. I cook the loaves in the oven.
I’ll give a couple tips.
Kneaded dough can be handled with out it sticking to your hands when finished.
Handling dough that is still sticky is easier if you wet your hands. This is better than butter or grease because the oils prevent the dough from sticking to it’s self water doesn’t.
A little acidity will help the rising dough. Usually buttermilk is used to do this at home.
Adding wheat gluten to the bread will help with elasticity in the dough if you don’t have bread flour. Adding it to rye and low gluten flours helps you to raise the bread so it isn’t a brick. treating the exterior differently will give to the crust you want. I leave that for somebody else or a bread book.
I have a bread question. Does anyone have a good recipe for bread that would be good for sandwiches, and is NOT crusty? I have extremely sensitive teeth and can’t bite through something like, say, french bread.
So this would be why my mother’s loaves are a little on the heavy side? (Edible, but noticably heavy). Where would one find wheat gluten? How much do you add? Or would it just be easier to get bread flour?
We’re trying to save money by making more bread ourselves. We don’t eat a lot of bread most of the time.
At the supermarket it’s called “Vital Wheat Gluten” and is usually found near the specialty flours in the baking aisle. It’s a small box, and the brand I use calls for 1tsp (Tbs?) per pound of flour, but check the labeling on the box. It’s great stuff if you don’t bake enough bread to keep bread flour (high protein) around.
Are you sure baking your own bread will save you money? I’ve looked into it a few times, and it hasn’t been cheaper because the yeast comes out to be so expensive. I’ve never tried the no-knead dough, though.
OpalCat, try this bread. I don’t find it to be particularly crusty (especially the second loaf after it’s been frozen), but it does have a good texture and holds up very well. It’s also amazingly tasty.
What kind of yeast are you using? Something like Fleischman’s yeast will run you about $6 a four ounce jar. If you use .25 ounces (an entire yeast packet) yeast a loaf, the Fleischman’s jar equals 16 packets of yeast, working out to less than 40 cents a loaf. The no-knead recipe (which I understand you’ve never tried) only uses 1/4 teaspoon of yeast. That’s enough for 142 loaves of that particular no-knead recipe, bringing the yeast bill down to four cents a loaf. Either way, it’s not that expensive.
Also, if you maintain a sourdough starter, you can get your yeast bill down to practically nothing.
Here’s another no-knead recipe that appeared in the NY Times that takes only about 5 or 6 hours of waiting and can be refrigerated for up to two weeks. The bread I currently make is a variation of the new recipe, with a sourdough starter instead of yeast, and I cook it in the Dutch oven like in the old recipe. I find the bread much crustier when made in the Dutch oven than on a baking stone and dumping a cup of water into a pan on the bottom of your oven.
I would add that there is such a thing as too much flour in bread dough. I used to add flour until the dough was easy to handle and completely unsticky - every single time, though, I wound up with a brick despite using yeast correctly. What I didn’t get was that, even though the recipe said add X amount of flour and knead until it’s elastic and non-sticky, properly-made bread dough is often sticky and the recipe is a better guide to adding flour than stickiness. So when you make bread, add as much flour as the recipe calls for and no more.
Yes, this may seem really basic, but it’s a very common mistake in breadmaking and can make a huge difference.
Yes,ale yeast will work.However, it is not a fast acting yeast and needs to be pitched early to enable sufficient quantities to develop…much like brewing beer.
An old time bread baker told me that wild hops acted as a yeast nutrient, also powdered ginger. The hops would give some acidity,as Harmonious Discord suggests.
OpalCat:You can make the crust softer by rubbing the crust with some butter when you remove it from the oven. Wrap it in plastic wrap when slightly warm too.
This is one of my favorite recipes and anybody that has had it loves the taste and texture.
1 1/8 Cups Water – lukewarm
3 Cups Bread Flour
1/2 Cup Potato Flakes
1 1/2 Tablespoons Dry Milk
1 1/2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 1/2 Teaspoons Salt
1 1/2 Tablespoons Butter – cut in quarters
1 1/2 Teaspoons Yeast, Red Star Quick Rise
Makes 1 1/2 pound loaf.
Replace water with liquid from cooking potatoes for more flavor.
BREAD SELECT SETTINGS TO USE: Basic Rapid, Timer
Add water to bread pan.
Add bread flour, instant potato flakes, dry milk, sugar and salt to pan. Tap pan to settle dry ingredients, then level dry ingredients, pushing some of the flour mixture into the corners. Place a piece of butter into each corner of pan on top of dry ingredients.
Make a slight well in center of dry ingredients and add the yeast.
Place bread pan into oven chamber, twist to lock pan in place and close cover. Program Bread Select for BASIC RAPID, then program desired Bread Color setting. Program TIMER if being used. Press START/STOP button to turn bread maker on. When loaf is done, turn off by holding down START/STOP button until red signal light goes out. Remove bread pan using pot holder. Invert pan to remove loaf of bread and cool on rack before slicing.
For those not using a bread machine knead it until properly done about 20 minutes. Let it rise covered until doubled in bulk. Punch down the dough and shape it for the bread pan. Butter the pan and the shaped bread. Cover loosely with plastic. Let it raise to an inch or more over the pan. Bake it 30 to 40 minutes in a 350 F oven.
Making a basic white loaf you will likely have no problem with the all purpose flour. Adding stuff like potato, whole wheat, rye, 7 grain cereal, or flax. can benefit from the extra gluten.
pulykamell, I admit I haven’t looked recently. Sounds like after I did that calculation last, the numbers have changed. That would make me happy, actually, as I love to bake and love homemade breads, but I had/have it in my head that it’s more expensive.
The last time I did the math, it was with the jars of yeast. I’ll run the numbers again in the morning and see what I get. However, I did make a note yesterday and today of the cost of yeast in jars at the two grocery stores I can get to. So far, the jar of yeast is the only thing the store perceived of as less expensive has actually had for a lower price than the “snobby, expensive” store (for things I buy and/or care about). That said, there are things that only the “cheap” store carries. But this is a hijack. Sorry!
Oh, but I won’t be able to do no-knead bread for awhile. I don’t have a pan/dutch oven for baking it in that’s oven safe.
What areas can you get to? I buy yeast in 1 lb. bags, usually at the Middle East Bakery on Clark & Foster, or sometimes on Devon Ave. It keeps practically forever in the freezer; I just keep a small jar in the fridge, and the rest in the freezer. Of course I can’t remember the last time I had to buy yeast (I don’t bake bread nearly often enough, and until recently I was a one-person household), but I think the 1-lb. bag cost a bit over $3.00. Way less of a ripoff than a dinky jar of Fleischmann’s at Jewel. If you’re not near either of those places, pick an ethnicity that bakes its own specialty breads, and check out the neighborhood grocery stores!
The easiest way is to just get yourself a culture and feed it with flour and water. You can also start your own, but it’s just easier to get a dependable starter and go from there.
Great tip. You know, it’s never occurred to me to look for yeast at the ethnic bakeries. I buy my spices on Devon or Clark for a fraction of the price of Jewel or Dominick’s, but I’ve never tried looking for yeast.
Blue - You can also do the no-knead in a glass Corningware or Pyrex casserole dish with good success, if you’ve got either of those.
Eva Luna, I don’t actually know where I can get to. Technically anywhere that public transit goes, but there really is some sort of time limit on that. Amusingly enough, though, just before I got to this thread originally, I had asked WhyNot via PM if she knew where I could get bulk yeast. I will look into getting there!
ETA: I love how, using google maps, I can now get confirmation that public transit takes 3-4x as long as driving - and that’s before factoring in waiting for buses and trains and such. Grar!
pulykamell, I had one cassarole dish, and I left it in Baltimore accidentally. It’s now either in Philly or with GingerOfTheNorth in Baltimore. I actually am in a tough spot if my roommate does get transfered, because I have almost no cooking implements, a box or two of kitchen supplies having gotten lost in the move. My cast iron skillet! My “everyday” pan! Though my loaf pans turned up in Baltimore the last time I visited, and I have those again, thankfully. Especially if I start baking my own bread.
You don’t ever buy yeast at the grocery store. Most food coops sell it in bulk for something like $5.00 a pound. A pound of yeast goes a long way.
The same holds for buying gluten. It’s much cheaper scooped out of a bin than in a fancy cardboard box.
I recently got a copy of Emily Buehler’s bookBread Science: the Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread. It’s marvelous! my rye bread is now light and high, with a great texture, and a perfect crust -not too hard, not too soft.