The bread story
When I was a child, we used to have fresh bread several times a week. The products coming from that bakery were always good - we had no complains at all. In fact we didn't know what to complain about, as everything was just as they had to be. Even the pastries were just perfect. I remember the fresh bread put on the table, still warm and amazingly crispy... and the Sun was shining outside and birds were singing, and all the children were happy.
Oh, am I exaggerating?
Anyway, I also can recall that things began to change a few years ago. I think it wasn't too long after that when I decided to bake my own bread one day. Oh yes, that was the wind of change... I still hear in my ears.
So the years went by, and I suddenly came up with the idea of buying a bread machine. And, as it had to be, my disappointment came instantly: not a single bit of a bread was edible out of the first 20 tries. I was wondering what could have been wrong, what had I possibly messed up - but I didn't see the point, that one cannot make real bread with any kind of machine.
Again some time passed before I decided to try the whole thing again with my bare hands and fresh yeast. At that time I used to by only whole wheat flour, as the first signs of my awakening consciousness. Should I mention that even the very first try of this "natural" method was a complete success? Well, that wasn't my best bread I have ever made, but clearly showed I was on the right way.
Years after my first try I bake my own bread. My favourite is whole wheat bread made with sourdough (see picture on the left), but the repertoire consists of many-many different ones, as I'll show them one by one on this blog.
Whole wheat bread with sourdough
Ingredients
500g organic whole wheat flour
300ml lukewarm water (or, if fresh sourdough is used, ~140ml)
15g dried organic sourdough, yeast added (or, if fresh, 200g sourdough)
10g salt
2 tbsp oil
This is quite a basic recipe. Just mix the dry ingredients thoroughly, then add the oil and water (and the wet sourdough, if you make with that), knead the dough for about 10-15 minutes (thank God, with the sourdough we don't need to knead that much), and put it aside (covered!) for about 30 minutes. Then knead it once more for 1-2 minutes, to push the air out of the dough. Shape your bread and make some cuttings on the top, then cover with a cloth and put aside for 2 more hours.
Preheat the oven for 180°C degrees, and when ready, bake the bread for 45-50 minutes, depending on your oven. Take it out and let it cool on a grid. Cut once it's cool enough...
3 comments:
I'm sorry I can't stop writing comments on your posts. :-) There's always something that comes to my mind.
We usually make our own bread with a machine, but the result is not always what we've expected. In the summer time, when it was quite warm and we set some delay on the programming, then we had beautiful bread. Maybe we had much more success using our own hands. :-)
Do you make sourdough on your own or you buy it somewhere?
Have you ever tried the no-knead bread? It's really tasty and looks fantastic! I left two links on Parvati's blog, but I don't know when she gets back her computer. Here's the English version of it, which is a bit more precise: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=1
And of course your also alway welcome on my blogs.
Hi Anita, thanks for your comment :) I'm happy to see that you had a good experience with the bread machine. It's good to know that some people actually know how to use it :) (unlike me, umm)
Can you share some photos of the breads you made with the bread maker? I am really interested (again, I always wanted to use one, but never succeeded).
I usually buy organic sourdough, which is a powder and comes in a recyclable paper bag. It is cheap, very good quality and gives the bread a wonderful taste. However, it contains some yeast as well (like 20% I guess).
Also, from time to time I make sourdough with flour, honey, herbs, some spices and water. My only problem with it is that I don't know what to do with the rest of the stuff :) (as you always have some sourdough left)
Hey, this no-knead bread looks quite promising! I bet you have already tried it. Can you share your experience about that?
I know a quite traditional no-knead snack recipe, but never tried with breads...
Of course I can tell you about my expreinces about the no-knead bread. It's a really simple way to get a delicious bread I think, the only thing you need is time. :-) You just have to stir well the ingredients, let it raise for a long long time, than it can almost go into the oven. I like it very much, the only thing with it the 18 hours it needs for raising, I can only bake it at the weekends. You can find some pictures on my freeblog under the categorie 'Főzőcske' or here is a link: http://akrucip.freeblog.hu/archives/2008/08/05/DNK_ujra/
I haven't got a good picture of a machine made bread, but I'll post about it next time we make some fresh bread. I have a picture of a bread knead by the machine, but baked in the oven, as the main problem with machine in my opinion is that it doesn't let enough time for the pastry to get raise. That's way we bigger bread in the summertime I think, because there is time for the ingredients to warm together, or something like this. Once I tried the fast program, but it's a catastrophe! So here's the link to the machineknead-ovenbaked bread:
http://akrucip.freeblog.hu/archives/2008/06/26/Kenyersutes/
and you can look forward on the post of a fully machine baked bread in the near future on my blogspot-blog. :-)
I was thinking about writing you in Hungarian, but anyway it's a really good way to practise my English and not to forget everything.
Oh tomorrow I'll drop in on Szilvi, just to look at the finishing of my Aum, I'm so excited.
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