# Bread



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

Well I figured that if I do post my soda bread recipe as Bob requested, then there could well be a rush of replies, all noting to do with BBQ sauce, so I thought I'd start a separate thread.

I've been making bread for nearly 40 years. For many years I did it all by hand, but eventually bought a bread-maker. TBH it did a better job, because it kneaded the dough for longer. 
Anyway after about 10 years the machine went pop and I bought a direct replacement. It is branded Anthony Worral-Thompson. Whatever happened to him, eh? silly person.

Although it's essentially the same machine, made by the same company (Breville) the programmes are not the same, and I've never been able to get the same results, so I use it to make the dough first and then set to bake separately. I usually use:

300g water
170g granary flour
170g strong wholemeal
140g strong white
Good big knob of Stork margarine. I used to use butter, but marg does a better job.
A small palm of salt. No idea how much that is, but it works.
A small palm of sugar. Ditto.Probably a couple of teaspoons, I guess. Next time I bake I'll try to measure it and edit this post.
1 ball of frozen yeast

NB. The specific flour you use will determine the amount of water you need. Ignore the recipe on the machine, you have to get to know your flours. If it it comes out cratered, which is a common problem, use less water, or more flour, or stronger flour, or a bit of all three.

This is the result:


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

However, Rob was asking about soda bread. Soda bread is traditionally made with buttermilk and it is best if you can get it. But I didn't so I mixed 200mls semi-skimmed milk with 1 tsp lemon juice and left it to stand for 10 minutes. It's a decent substitute, but it's not the same. It needs to be acidic, as it is the acid which combines with the baking soda to create the CO2, this bread does not use yeast at all.

So make you "buttermilk" first, heat your over to 200C fan, put a piece of non-stick baking parchment on to a baking sheet, and then into a bowl put:

125g plain white flour
125g wholemeal flour
1 level tsp salt
1 round tsp baking soda.

NB Baking powder and baking soda are not the same thing.

Add the buttermilk and mix quickly. Do not knead it like normal bread, we want this to be crumbly, not a stretchy dough. As soon as the dough is brought together, form it into a ball and make 4 cuts, almost to the centre. Put it on the baking parchment on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 mins. Cool on a wire rack.











I really like the flavour of this. This is not the best one I've ever made, TBH, it is a bit firmer and not as crumbly as I would like, I do know why. I didn't have any ordinary wholemeal flour, just strong wholemeal flour, and so the dough is that bit heavier and robust than it should be. The flavour is excellent, though.

Remember that, because this doesn't have any fat in it, it's going to go stale faster than normal bread does, so eat it while it is fresh.


----------



## mseries (18 May 2015)

I should get Mrs MSeries to cross post with her bread recipes, we've not bought bread for a very long time. We made our own sourdough starter too, no bread making machine here.


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

My bread machine exploded recently too. For some reason I thought you'd be doing it the old fashioned way! Hey ho......... bread looks good enough to eat


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

mseries":d83dxrb0 said:


> I should get Mrs MSeries to cross post with her bread recipes, we've not bought bread for a very long time. We made our own sourdough starter too, no bread making machine here.



That's what my brother does...the starter...has it sitting around all the time and just adds to it. I confess to not having gone to that much trouble myself, have just relied on the machine which is a huge step up from shop bought as Steve says. I'll pass Steve's recipe on to my brother.


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

The soda bread was done entirely by hand, not least because kneading it spoils it.


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

Thanks Steve, I'll pass on to my brother, he's a big fan of soda bread


----------



## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2015)

A little advice for anyone baking bread - pay your money and buy decent quality flour. it's so much nicer. I buy 16kg stoneground wholemeal from Bacheldre Watermill in Wales on Amazon. Lovely stuff, but it needs cutting with a bit of white or it's too coarse. Their mixed seed is very nice if you like fennel.


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

I agree, that's very good advice. It is not a case of flour is flour is flour.
I buy mine from Cauldwell's Mill in Rowsley.


----------



## whiskywill (18 May 2015)

I made a loaf with this yesterday. http://www.fwpmatthews.co.uk/products-p ... unchlight/

Very tasty indeed.


----------



## Glynne (18 May 2015)

+1 for a good quality flour.
I use Bradshaw's (East Yorkshire Mill) which I get from Hindley's bakery in Lichfield - this is the flour they use for all of their bread. You can get white, wholemeal, malted and spelt (if that's your thing).
You can also get fresh yeast which will last up to a month in the fridge.
For any aspiring bread makers, they also run courses and Gordon Hindley is a real enthusiast and always happy to answer queries and talk bread!


----------



## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2015)

I must admit one of the reasons I use Bacheldre is because on Amazon I don't get caned for the delivery. Some of the others are a little cheaper, but you get caught for delivery.


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

so if I were to replace my broken machine (which was a Panasonic)....any recommendations?


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

Well Panasonic enjoy a very good reputation, so if you were happy with it, why not buy another? Nothing lasts for ever.

My AWT one is made by Breville. I assumed they have now found another celebrity to endorse their range...

As I say, I've not actually found a way to use the automatic program on it, but I'm happy enough using it semi automatically: make the dough, check on it regularly until it has risen to the point I want, then use the Bake function. It would be nice to set and forget it, but my recipe seems to not want to play ball in that regard. But I think it's a good compromise, because I can alter things according to what flour I have at any one time, without jeopardising the result.


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

One thing you might want to consider is what shape of loaf you want. Mine produces a traditional rectangular loaf, roughly as high as it is wide, and longer than both. Some machines have a pan which is roughly square and produces a tall loaf with a small footprint. It's a bit strange to look at, but it does mean that you can easily bake a half-sized loaf without it becoming so shallow that it doesn't work.


----------



## DrPhill (18 May 2015)

Steve Maskery":15hmhx1m said:


> Although it's essentially the same machine, made by the same company (Breville) the programmes are not the same, and I've never been able to get the same results, so I use it to make the dough first and then set to bake separately.



I have a breadmaker by 'Andrew James' (whoever he is). Supposed to be good but I have the same problem. The timings are all wrong - and maybe they vary from loaf to loaf. As a dough-kneader it is great though. I make a loaf every week for sarnies. I probably over-knead the bread by running it twice or thrice through the dough-makiing cycle, but I can cut very thin slices for my sarnies which suits me fine. I take the dough out to bake in the oven (I have some excellent polished stainless loaf tins) which has the advantage of no holes in the bottom of the loaf (play havoc with sarnie making).

I used to make dough by hand, but got lazy......

Oddly enough I have had three bread makers, each more expensive than the last. The one I was most satisfied with was the first/cheapest. Shame that I have forgotten what it was.

I use Doves Farm flour, half 'white' half wholemeal. Real butter (soften in microwave), milk not water....

What is going on? I came to this forum for MAN stuff.......


----------



## Phil Pascoe (18 May 2015)

I used to have a breadmaker, but I found it better to tip the dough out after proving and bake in the oven. When it went wrong, I thought hell to it, just do it by hand with the aid of a small hand mixer with dough hooks. When that went wrong, swmbo bought me a mixer for Xmas. I do a very nice line in saffron cake, as well. I trade with my auntie - she brings me saffron from Spain and I give her saffron cakes.


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

DrPhill":26xfuakb said:


> Steve Maskery":26xfuakb said:
> 
> 
> > Although it's essentially the same machine, made by the same company (Breville) the programmes are not the same, and I've never been able to get the same results, so I use it to make the dough first and then set to bake separately.
> ...



Don't be such a big girls blouse...after the "baking" thread we'll be introducing "knitting for alpha's with tennis elbow" followed by a "crochet for power lifting induced hernia sufferers"


----------



## Steve Maskery (18 May 2015)

Well I've got Tennis Elbox x 2 so count me in.


----------



## Random Orbital Bob (18 May 2015)

yup...I've just the one.....not pleasant.


----------



## Harbo (18 May 2015)

Half a loaf - made yesterday in our Panasonic







I normally make a Ciabatta as I'm on a low fibre diet but that one was from a Waitrose pack which turned out nice.

Rod


----------



## NickWelford (19 May 2015)

I can't get on with bread makers so I use a dough hook on my kitchenaid mixer. Works very well for kneading.


----------



## whiskywill (19 May 2015)

NickWelford":32x7suhu said:


> my kitchenaid mixer.



I thought gloating was reserved for good car boot sale finds. :shock:


----------



## NickWelford (19 May 2015)

We all like a good toolgloat sometimes.....


----------



## Phil Pascoe (20 May 2015)

Incidentally, I use George Wilkinson bread tins. I had several different ones that weren't particularly good, but these are excellent. I've never washed them (and neither has swmbo, which helps :evil: ), which helps. I got them on line, I think they were about a tenner each.


----------



## DennisCA (20 May 2015)

I have Kenwood mixer, my mom also has a Kenwood mixer, hers is from the 1970s, still works great.

The name soda bread reminds me that there's something called soda-buns here, it's a sweet, spongy bread-ish thing, and is made from sour cream. My mom mentioned that when she was a kid, they lost a package of cream in the well where they kept it for cooling as they did not yet have a fridge. Well the next year when cleaning the well they retrieved the package and it wasn't rotten or anything, and they made the best sodabuns ever from it.

The recipe
4 eggs
150 ml sugar
200 ml sour cream 
50 ml cream
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
315 g flour
50 g melted butter

This is a modern recipe using store bought sour cream, when we made this at home we just used left over expired cream. You mix this together like pancake batter and fry it the same. We use a traditional "plättlägg" to fry these in but any skillet will do:






edit: last year I was on a banh-mi making binge around winter, very ncie bread, but lots of effort.





I like no knead bread for its simplicity, just toss it in a cast iron dutch oven and it'll be fine.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (1 Jun 2015)

All you bakers out there - I ordered a load of poppy seed, linseed, sea salt, ginger etc. late in the day on 28th May - it's just turned up.
BuyWholeFoodsOnline.co.uk - worth a look, the P&P isn't bad over a reasonable order and the quality seems fine.


----------



## stevebuk (2 Jun 2015)

the only bread the wife and i have made is olive and manchego cheese, its lovely lightly griggled with a fresh salad..


----------



## NickWelford (2 Jun 2015)

stevebuk":3guamigi said:


> the only bread the wife and i have made is olive and manchego cheese, its lovely lightly griggled with a fresh salad..



Now we _must_ have that recipe, Steve.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (2 Jun 2015)

I suspect it's bread flour, salt, yeast, oil, water, olives and manchego cheese.


----------



## Harbo (2 Jun 2015)

Don't forget the Griggling? 

Rod


----------



## Glynne (8 Jun 2015)

Not quite as exotic as cheese and olives but a sourdough with wholemeal, malted & white flour - hand tools only (no power bread maker!).




Initial sourdough starter came from Dave123 but will have morphed into my own after over 12 months of feeding. I've just tried drying and freezing some which seemed to work OK but the test will be if I can ressurect it in the future.


----------



## Steve Maskery (8 Jun 2015)

They look superb.


----------



## henton49er (8 Jun 2015)

phil.p":zgn6tvl6 said:


> A little advice for anyone baking bread - pay your money and buy decent quality flour. it's so much nicer. I buy 16kg stoneground wholemeal from Bacheldre Watermill in Wales on Amazon. Lovely stuff, but it needs cutting with a bit of white or it's too coarse. Their mixed seed is very nice if you like fennel.



+1 for Bacheldre Mill bread. We are fortunate enough to live close enough to collect and buy a 25kg sack.


----------



## stevebuk (9 Jun 2015)

this is the olive and manchego freshly baked tonight, i will sort out the recipe if anyone is interested..


----------



## Glynne (9 Jun 2015)

Yes please.


----------



## Fat ferret (9 Jun 2015)

Loving this thread. (hammer) 

Glynne any chance of a recipe for your sourdough? I'm keen to try this for myself but a wee bit confused by instructions on the net.

See I live in a barn with a wood burner I light most evenings and understood sourdough type bread could be made in Dutch ovens which would be good as I haven't got an oven. I thought perhaps I could bake my bread on the wood burners hotplate.


----------



## Glynne (10 Jun 2015)

FF - I'm not sure whether you mean the recipe for my sourdough starter or the bread itself? 

As I mentioned, the original starter came in dried form (from Dave123 - and purportedly originated in the Yukon) and I have grown and feed this with wholemeal flour from Bradshaw's Mill (page 1 of this thread) so it will essentially now be my sourdough now as it will have taken up the wild yeats from the flour I've fed it. 
As mentioned, I have dried and frozen some but have yet to see how it resurrects but it should be OK. 
If this is what you're after, I'm happy to send you some of the dried starter or I can send some of my live starter as I know that is fine, just let me know and PM me with your address and I'll get some sent off. You'll still need to feed these to make sure they're active and have enough for your recipe. 
I tend to feed with 50:50 wholemeal flour & water (by weight) which gives quite a sticky dough but by being consistent, you can adjust bread recipes as you have an idea of the amount of flour and water you're adding with the starter. 

In terms of the actual bread, I vary the ingredients but the loaves above were made with: - 
White flour 400gm 
Malted flour 250gm 
Wholemeal flour 250gm 

Sourdough starter 100gm (this is roughly 50:50 flour & water and I activate it slightly with some honey ~ 30 mins before mixing) 
Yeast (fresh) 30gm (you can use dried but I can get fresh from a local bakery - again I mix this with the water and add a little honey to activate it) 
Salt 18gm 
Butter 17gm 

Water 520gm (you may have to vary this depending on the amount of water in your sourdough starter) 

This makes 2 good sized loaves (as per the picture) which lasts very well if you just wrap it in a plastic bag and store at room temperature.

Before everyone shouts foul and says this isn't a proper sourdough loaf, I know it isn't because I've added another yeast. 
The problem with using a sourdough starter to raise a dough is that you don't know how much active yeast is actually in your dough and so the loaf could rise in a few hours, or a few days! I have baked the traditional way but it can take for ages so the tip which I've got from 2 professional bakers is to use the sourdough for flavour and ordinary yeast so as you can predict the rise. Additionally, my starter is very strongly flavoured and so I would need to use a lot more if were to be the raising agent and hence the loaf would be very sour. I don't usually go above 200gm in the above ingredients (and reduce the other flour accordingly). 

I'd be interested to see how you fare with the Dutch oven as these seemed to be recommended for bread making (I did have to Google that) so let us know.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (10 Jun 2015)

:idea: "Anyone got a Hermann" starter culture?


----------



## Phil Pascoe (10 Jun 2015)

As I write I can smell the wheatgerm, sunflower seeds, rye flakes and linseed baking ...


----------



## Glynne (10 Jun 2015)

> As I write I can smell the wheatgerm, sunflower seeds, rye flakes and linseed baking ...


Just think of crispy bacon as well - and see how long it is before you have to have something to eat!


----------



## mseries (10 Jun 2015)

Glynne, can you detail how you dried and freezed the starter ?


----------



## Glynne (10 Jun 2015)

It's very simple.
You spread some of your starter as thinly as possible over a sheet of greaseproof paper and leave it in a warm place. The moisture will evaporate to leave a very crispy residue (like a crust) which you can just then crush and seal in a zip lock bag for the freezer.
I dried some last week and it took about 2 days in our utility room - even with herself going in and out to the garden.

As I'm trying to avoid a very early lunch (thanks to phil.p), I'll go and drag one out of the freezer and start to "resuscitate" it so I let folks know how it works.


----------



## mseries (10 Jun 2015)

I am not sure which starter we ended up with. We made one with just flour and water, but we also made one with raisins. Our bread is just starter + water + salt + flour


----------



## Glynne (10 Jun 2015)

Just to add to my previous post: -
I dragged the dried sourdough starter out of the freezer. 







I then just added it to a jar with warm water and some wholemeal flour at ~11:30 this morning 



Just had a look now (+3 hours) and bubbles are starting to rise so it is alive and the process worked 



I only dried some in case my normal starter (which I keep in the fridge) didn't survive not being fed for some time (i.e. holidays) but so far it has managed periods of 2 weeks.


----------



## woodpig (10 Jun 2015)

We've had our Panasonic bread maker for Donkey's, makes great bread. I recently got some Wessex French bread flour and that worked well on the basic setting.

And don't forget, if you eat supermarket bread you could be eating hair of a Chinaman! :-& 

http://www.vrg.org/blog/2011/03/09/l-cy ... -hog-hair/


----------



## Fat ferret (10 Jun 2015)

Glynne, thanks for your kind offer. Will see how I get on making my own starter but if that doesn't work I will PM you.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (11 Jun 2015)

Interesting (frightening, really) figures from Andrew Whitly's book Bread Matters.

Vitamin and mineral loss during the refining of whole wheat to 70% extraction white flour :-

Thiamine 77%
Riboflavin 80%
Niacin 81%
Pyroxidine 72%
Pantothenic acid 50%
Vitamin E 86%
Calcium 60%
Phosphorus 71%
Magnesium 84%
Potassium 77%
Sodium 78% 
Chromium 40%
Manganese 86%
Iron 76%
Cobalt 89%
Zinc 78%
Copper 68%
Selenium 16%
Molybdenum 48%

I quote "The only way to describe bread made with such flour is "depleted"."

No wonder they attempt to put stuff back into it. :?


----------



## Fat ferret (14 Jun 2015)

https://flic.kr/p/tH1J41
https://flic.kr/p/unzwpk
https://flic.kr/p/uEfZpR

Look what I made! Not sourdough decided that was running before I could could knead just ordinary wholemeal.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (14 Jun 2015)

=D> Looking good!


----------



## Steve Maskery (14 Jun 2015)

Excellent, but I hope those chisels were not absolutely necessary...


----------



## Fat ferret (14 Jun 2015)

Steve Maskery":3a12p7hg said:


> Excellent, but I hope those chisels were not absolutely necessary...



No but might need a saw, feels like quite heavy bread! Will find out tomorrow when I try to make sandwiches from the stuff.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (14 Jun 2015)

It will probably be heavy if you didn't cut it with white.


----------



## Steve Maskery (16 Jun 2015)

Indeed. All these fancy flours are fine, and indeed excellent, but I wouldn't use any of them on their own. They are additives to improve plain flour.

My favourite blend is 500g flour made up of
About 175 granary
About 175 strong wholemeal
The rest strong white


----------



## woodpig (16 Jun 2015)

Sainsburys own brand wholemeal bread flour turns out a lovely loaf in our bread maker, no extras need except water and some butter.


----------



## Fat ferret (17 Jun 2015)

woodpig":3rmepo2r said:


> Sainsburys own brand wholemeal bread flour turns out a lovely loaf in our bread maker, no extras need except water and some butter.



That was what I used. It was actually very good, heavy but not dry. No saw necessary. I used;

6lb wholemeal flour
8oz medium oatmeal
Olive oil 4tbs
Honey 4tbs
Salt 2tbs
3 pints water
2 seven gram sachets dried yeast.
Egg and crushed oats glaze. 

35mins at 200 degrees fan oven. 

Thanks for the inspiration everyone.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (17 Jun 2015)

And yeast, presumably.


----------



## woodpig (17 Jun 2015)

No, the stuff we used is all in the packet, just add water and fat. Comes in 500g bags to make one loaf.


----------



## Fat ferret (17 Jun 2015)

phil.p":2xz701gh said:


> And yeast, presumably.



Yes well spotted Phil two 7g sachets dried yeast.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (17 Jun 2015)

I use two to a kilo, so you would have a better rise with a bit more.


----------



## Fat ferret (17 Jun 2015)

Steve Maskery":1uhekq81 said:


> Indeed. All these fancy flours are fine, and indeed excellent, but I wouldn't use any of them on their own. They are additives to improve plain flour.
> 
> My favourite blend is 500g flour made up of
> About 175 granary
> ...



Nothing fancy about wholemeal Steve. Whole meal as the name suggests, is just grain milled without removing anything.


----------



## Fat ferret (17 Jun 2015)

phil.p":toq2jerr said:


> I use two to kilo, so you would have a better rise with a bit more.



Right enough phil. I got a good first rise but not much second time around after an hour sitting in their tins so loaves were a bit dumpy. Thanks for tip will use next time.


----------



## Phil Pascoe (19 Jun 2015)

Here's one to try that's not difficult - 
two loaves -
800gms (stoneground) strong wholemeal
200gms strong white (unbleached, ideally, but not necessarily)
Two cloves of chopped, crushed garlic
two satchets of dried yeast or an ounce of fresh
Salt
Olive oil
500gm carton of passata.

Just add the passata first then make the dough wet enough with added water, no set amount as it varies according to the flour. Drop the temperature 10c and increase the cooking time by 10 mins., as the bread is quite dense. I see no reason why it shouldn't be halved for a machine. I came across this by experimentation and it works really well. Try it with chopped olives as well.


----------



## woodpig (19 Jun 2015)

Spelt and Sunflower seed yesterday, from Sainsburys again. Very nice although I did add a little extra yeast "just in case" and it worked well.


----------



## woodpig (19 Jun 2015)

Why are they charging 20% VAT, I thought food was zero rated?

http://www.wessexmill.co.uk/acatalog/info.html


----------

