Making your own bread
 

Hi all

I was wondering if there is anyone out there in TOTV land who makes their own bread. I love sourdough toast in the morning and saw that the recipe calls for sourdough starter. I looked on Amazon and sure enough they sell little dried packets of it for $7. I bought one and I am on day three of feeding it. It seems to be working. Right now I have about 3 cups of starter. I was wondering if anyone has a great recipe for sourdough or tips on breadmaking they would share with me. This is my first time. We love having fresh bread around the house and I have lots of time on my hands. I have a Kitchenaid mixer with a dough hook.

Such an ambitious undertaking! Am sure it will be worth the effort! Once upon a time I did a search on san francisco sourdough bread and printed this to tuck in my cookbook - How to Make San Francisco Sourdough Bread Page-1 - interesting read and recipe is on the second page. Not sure if it beats direct ordering from https://www.boudinbakery.com/index.cfm as I have been known to do! :0

I can't help you but would like to know how the bread making is going. I'd like to give it a try.

I make my own bread all the time. All though I haven't made sourdough bread because I don't really like it, I buy all of my products from King Arthur Flour - Try it Once, Trust it Always On their website you can shop for products and buy a starter and all the bread making products you can think of. You will also find many recipes and some will have photos (if you see the word blog-hit that for photos) and I have found that useful for a visual on what my dough should look like.
Also, I only use instant yeast which I buy from King Arthur. It is so much easier.
Good luck!

A professional chef for 35 years. The simplest and best place for bread making is:

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Buy the book. You can find it on Amazon. It has pizza dough, sourdough, etc.
Simple. And the recipe cant be beat.

One recipe called for putting a 1/2 cup of water in a sheet pan in the bottom of the oven to make a crispy crust. Is that necessary? Do you only use King Arthur Flour? I did see it at Publix. Is there a difference in that and Pillsbury?

I use a breadmaker and prepackaged mixes. Works for me.

We used to have one and were always getting loaves of bread that weighed about 10 pounds. I don't have one now (would like to have one) so I was going the old fashioned route. They didn't use to have the prepackaged mixes back about 15 years ago when I had my machine.

I looked on Amazon and read the reviews for this book. They sound amazing. Not a bad review in the bunch. I went ahead and ordered this book and it will arrive Friday. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thank you so much for recommending this book. I think it is perfect for me. No kneading the dough which I like. I can't wait to make some cinnamon rolls with it. Thanks to the others for recommending the other sites. I will read those too.

Sour dough bread
 

Hi
Google "no kneed sour dough"

I found a really interesting recipe doing the google search. This person uses a dutch oven to bake the bread and it looks beautiful. Now I wish I had one. lol

I've made that several times. You don't need a dutch oven. You can make it in anything that can stand the 425 degree heat and has a lid. When I make it, I use a 2.5 quart Corning Ware dish.

Hint: After the dough rises, turn it out onto a square of parchment paper (can buy at any grocery store). Pick the whole thing up and plop it, parchment paper and all, into the baking dish. Follow directions for baking. Afterwards, it will lift right out.

Best to use King Arthur Bread Flour, second choice any other Bread Flour, not all-purpose flour. It does make a difference

Yes, that is necessary for a crispy crust, however I use ice cubes as it easier to walk over with a pan of ice cubes than a pan of water. Also, watch the pan to make sure that it doesn't dry out and run out of water/ice while it is baking.

Yes, I only use King Arthur Flour. The quality is better.

I use a bread machine for the mixing, kneading, and everything except the final rise. I remove it from the bread machine and bake in the oven. Not baking in the bread machine seems to avoid the heavy block of bread.

King Arthur here too. Sometimes I get whole wheat flour from the health food store, but it's a bit more dense than we like.

Thanks for all of the tips. Good to know about the water and ice cubes. Also good to know that someone else has experienced the heavy block of bread that comes out of the bread machine. I thought maybe it was my bread machine.
I saw that King Arthur Flour is a little more expensive so I'll have to bite the bullet and get it anyhow.

I wish I had a dutch oven or a covered 2.5 qt. corning ware dish. I don't have anything with a lid that would withstand the oven. I have some stainless steel dutch ovens but they have a black plastic handle (Rival). These were given to us as wedding gifts 40 years ago and still work like a charm. I wouldn't want to take a risk of putting them in the oven. I'll have to visit a few garage sales or check on Ebay for a dutch oven.

I used to make the no knead bread before moving down here. I'm originally from Holland, and the best pan to bake it in was my dutch oven. You can now order these in the states, and are reasonably priced. Here's a link (they have different sizes)
BK Pan Blue Interior 22cm from http://www.thedutchstore.com

Is the handle in the middle of the cover? I'll bet you can unscrew it and replace it with something that is metal that you pick up at a hardware store. As long as you can grab it with a pot holder it can even be an eye bolt.

Thanks Tom for the tip. I found a great deal on a Dutch oven on Ebay for $39. Saw the same one at Belk today for $83. It's my mother's Day gift to myself. I see the Pioneer Woman use hers alot on TV. She makes her soups and stews with it so it will have a double use for me as I make lots of types of soups. Maybe the next topic I will post will be share your favorite soup recipes. There are more cooks out in TOTV land than I ever thought. The first few years of living here we ate out most of the time. Now I've found that I like my home made cooking much better but still eat out to socialize. I bought the King Arthur flour today and two types of yeast, regular and quick rising so I'm ready to bake bread. My bread cookbook comes tomorrow. My friends love it when I get on a cooking kick. They all benefit from it.

It's Bread!
 

I made a large batch of dough today using the recipe for no-knead white bread on the Kingarthurflour.com website. This is the first loaf of bread I have ever made. It turned out great and took only about 15 minutes to mix up and there is enough dough for at least two more loaves of bread! I mixed it by hand because it is a no-knead recipe it was simple. I'm attaching a photo. So far we have had it with just butter, butter and strawberry jelly and for dinner we dipped it in olive oil and herbs. It's a very good recipe. I plan to use some of the dough to make cinnamon rolls with pecans (also the recipe on the same website).

Great job! Makes my mouth water!

It looks beautiful! I bet it won't be the last loaf you make, either.:MOJE_whot:

It looks delicious.
Did you use a dutch oven?
http://i58.tinypic.com/23ht3ee.jpg
Would this work? It's the wrong shape and the lid is oven proof but it's glass [as you can see]

I didn't use the dutch oven recipe so I just lightly oiled a cookie sheet and put the bread on it, put another cookie sheet on the second rack and put a cup of hot water in it. The hot water on the bottom rack makes a nice crust on the bread. I did see a recipe made for a dutch oven which I plan to use some of the time.

I don't know if that would work since I don't have experience with that dutch oven recipe and don't know how your pan would do in the oven.

You can also use a pizza stone instead of a cookie sheet. Makes a nice crust at the bottom. Happy to see that you made a bread and were successful. King Arthur recipes are easy to follow. If you buy anything from their shop, buy the instant yeast, and then keep it in your fridge. It makes your baking so much easier. No mixing with water and waiting around.

Yesterday I made their chocolate chips cookies. It has some oatmeal in the recipe. It made the best recipe for 2014. These cookies are the best cookies I have ever made. I do buy my chocolate chips from King Arthur though as there is a difference in quality. Their vanilla bean paste is very tasty too, and you can pick that up at The Fresh Market.

Monday I am making their flat bread. Great for hot grilled chicken sandwiches, and for individual pizzas. Their recipe makes 8 pieces. I guess you see I bake year round. I enjoy it. Have fun!

Anyone find a gluten free recipe?

Vanilla bean paste at Fresh Market? I have looked there for it but not found it. I did buy some special vanilla bean crush from KA but haven't used it yet. It has vanilla beans and seeds in the syrup. Supposed to be really good in cookies & cakes. Shop for vanillas | King Arthur Flour

There are lots of gluten-free recipes on at King Arthur Flour - Try it Once, Trust it Always. Click on recipes, then gluten-free.

Although I absolutely loved the bread when I went to toast it, it didn't toast all that well. It wasn't light enough and was a little bit dense. Still absolutely awesome though. Does someone know maybe I needed to bake it a minute or two longer? Would that solve it? I baked it on the low end of the range that was called for because it was perfectly brown. Any suggestions?

I used to make the sour dough bread and had tons of recipes. Not sure where they are right now but am sure I still have them. I also made bread in the bread machine a lot and have several real good recipes--not dry and heavy. It is in a word document. If anyone wants it private email me and I will forward the recipes for the bread machine. I am going to have to pull my bread machine out again and start using it.

The water heats up, steams and helps,the crust firm up.. Saw this on pbs last week.

Yes, it is in the pasta isle where they sell the baking items at the beginning of the isle. As you start down the isle look on the right where they sell the vanilla. It is a brown bottle from Nielsen-Massey labeled at the bottom: Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean Paste. $7.99
I use this for every recipe that requires vanilla. When I go up north I pick up a few bottles at Market Basket as I can get it a few dollars less. I go through a lot vanilla. Another item that KA sells that is worth picking up is their Vietnamese Cinnamon. One whiff of that and you know you have a great product for your baking needs. I make my own granola every week so the cinnamon and vanilla help make it so tasty along with the honey I pick up at Bownwood.
There is so much you can do in the kitchen. Have fun with it.

Thanks, I'll look for it. I have the Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzeys. I stocked up the last time we went north. It is awesome; puts grocery store cinnamon to shame.

I'll definitely get some of that Vanilla paste. I sent hubby to the store this week for vanilla and he brought me imitation vanilla extract. Said that was all they had at Winn Dixie.

Well, like hubby's everywhere, he was probably looking in the wrong place. (Which is why my own hubby takes the cell phone with him when he goes to the store with one of my lists!) I have bought real vanilla at Winn Dixie Pinellas.

Good to know. Thanks so much. My husband used to hate to go to the store with one of my lists. Now we have downloaded an App for our I-phones. I have synched our two phones together and now we share a shopping list. It's called "Buy me a Pie" shopping list. You can color code the items by department and as you put an item in the cart, you touch the item and it goes down to the purchased area. Makes it very quick to do your shopping.

Those are great. We use a similar one for Android called Out of Milk. What a joy not to be scratching things off a list with a pencil or pen. How retro!