Cooking with Jonny69: baking bread.

I'm using strong bread flour.
Just waiting for a loaf to prove just now and again it's going out the way and up the way.
I'm struggling to think of a warm area to put it in. Only thing I can think of is maybe the oven on the lowest setting of 130 for a while with the dough in it.
 
Sounds like you need less water! for 500g of flour you should be using around 350ml max (for white flour), Wight dough should be rather tight when its being kneeded and will soften as as the process goes on.
 
Not sure if I said it in a previous post but the last bread I made the dough was pretty cool to the touch after the second proving process. Just not sure how I can warm it up. There's not enough room in with the boiler.
 
I did my first 'event' last night; 45 people at a wine tasting. Me and a few others provided the food, a selection of home-made quiches, cheeses, home-made canapés, home-made dips and I made the bread. I made up a big batch of dough for two rustic bloomers, a cob and two sandwich tin loaves. I did a separate wetter dough for a 40x40cm focaccia, then a slightly stiffer dough to make sausages of bread to slice thinly for the canapé bases. It went down a storm! The focaccia disappeared first, in minutes, and I was lucky to get a small slice to try! Then, because I'd left the loaves uncut, people got braver and got stuck in with the bread knife. great night and I made it back home with half a sandwich loaf for my eggs on toast this morning :D

ash_scotland88 said:
Not sure if I said it in a previous post but the last bread I made the dough was pretty cool to the touch after the second proving process. Just not sure how I can warm it up. There's not enough room in with the boiler.
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I weighed mine up the other night and my current ratios for a while loaf are 300g of flour to 200g (or 200ml) of water, with one teaspoon of instant yeast and one teaspoon of salt. On a flat tray it doesn't support itself very well and tends to rise outwards, but with a couple of slashes in the top just before it goes in the oven it pops up quite well. If you turn on your oven to full whack before you start doing anything, and leave it on, it should warm the kitchen up and get the dough rising. It's one of my best tips. And clingfilm over the top of the bowl, which has a good greenhouse effect for the dough and stops it drying out :)
 
Stan_Lite said:
Had a bash at no knead bread (actually tried it a few days ago but it came out undercooked and doughy).

Recipe came from here http://www.breadsecrets.com/noknead.html.

When I tried it before, I made the dough too wet so this time, I made it exactly as the recipe says. Here's a photo after 12 hours fermenting. I put the cotton bobbin on top to show how much the cling film had blown out with the gas produced :D

TP34h.jpg

I increased the cooking time this time (25 mins covered + 15 mins uncovered) and it turned out much better. Maybe my oven isn't as hot as the one the author has (it rather unhelpfully just says "preheat the oven and baking stone or cast iron casserole dish to the hottest setting."). The hottest setting on my oven is 250C but I have no idea how accurate that is (must get an oven thermometer).
Here's the finished product anyway:

uEMVf.jpg

And here's one of it sliced. It has a nice open texture and is quite light. The bread has a slightly chewy texture and the crust is chewy and crunchy at the same time. I quite like the texture (others may not). tastes fine too :)

tupyy.jpg

Looking forward to having some with my (homemade) spicy butternut squash soup at lunchtime :cool:
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Hey Guys,

Im trying this recipe at the moment, been left for a good 12 hours right now and its almost tripled in size. I just wanted to check though, as this is the firs time I have made bread, I used the measurements in the recipe exactly and it seemed quite dry and stringy when mixing the water and flour? is this normal?

Also looking at the next part of the recipe when I leave it on the surface to rise for 10mins, after as Im going to be cooking this in a pot with lid not a stone, do I use some baking paper to lift these into the pot? or do I just use my hand carefully to place it in?

Many Thanks!
 
Matutu said:
Hey Guys,

Im trying this recipe at the moment, been left for a good 12 hours right now and its almost tripled in size. I just wanted to check though, as this is the firs time I have made bread, I used the measurements in the recipe exactly and it seemed quite dry and stringy when mixing the water and flour? is this normal?

Also looking at the next part of the recipe when I leave it on the surface to rise for 10mins, after as Im going to be cooking this in a pot with lid not a stone, do I use some baking paper to lift these into the pot? or do I just use my hand carefully to place it in?

Many Thanks!
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Ok it turned out actually amazing!!! Its sooo good :D.

Cant believe I have actually made bread lol.

I was wondering if I wanted to add flavours to this like Onions or red peppers, when would I mix these flavours into the dough?

Thanks!
 
Jonny69 said:
Stick them in at the end when you shape the dough for the final loaf :)
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Johnny am I able to mix it around and knead it abit before the final raise and cooking? just making sure that if I do knead it abit to mix it won't mess it up!

Here is a pic of it :D

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You can do. I try not to knead it too much once the filling is in otherwise you tend to squash up your filling into small mashed up pieces :D

Last night I was going to make flatbreads but the rise took too long to get going, so I deserted the idea in favour of past instead. I decided to leave the dough in the bowl for tonight, where I'll use it as a ferment for some ciabatta. It's certainly been busy in the night and looks great. Lovely and stringy and glossy.
 
MY mum has this Machine and it does make a lovely loaf, I personally would use it to make the dough and to kneed it for me then prove the dough in a normal bread tin and bake it in the oven purely because I don't like having the hole in the middle where the mixer paddle was :(
 
BigBoy said:
MY mum has this Machine and it does make a lovely loaf, I personally would use it to make the dough and to kneed it for me then prove the dough in a normal bread tin and bake it in the oven purely because I don't like having the hole in the middle where the mixer paddle was :(
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Thanks for your response :) I can't say that that will bother me. The bread won't last long enough for it to matter!

The timer function is a big pro as waking up to fresh bread is awesome, but so is taking advantage of the Economy 7 electricity rates.
 
Salt stems thw growth of the yeast once its active. Mixing it in with the dry yeast and will make no difference other than to the flavour of the loaf. It will make the texture a little different as it will keep the bubbles in the loaf small.

Fresh yeast = keep away from salt but a little in the dough (no more than a teaspoon) will add to the flavour.

Dry yeast = a little won't hurt :-)
 
I've found the bubble size is a function of the length of the rise and the wetness of the dough. Longer rise = bigger bubbles; wetter dough = bigger bubbles (ala focaccia).

1 level tsp in a dough made with 300g flour is fine.
 
A lovely thanks so much guys :).

Also I am starting to want to make nice free foamed round loafs, do these need a baking stone? or can a normal oven tray do the trick?
 
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