9 Simple But Important Tips For Making Bread

Photo Bread No Knead

The simple tips for homemade bread I learned with my practice, reading, and of course, making mistakes. I tried so many recipes and made my homemade starter but I still consider myself a beginner for bread making. My first loaf of bread I made when I was a teenager. I found the recipe in the newspaper, we didn’t have the Internet then. I involved so much effort to make my first loaf of bread. As a result, my bread turned out like one of the bread from the closest store. We had bread without any preservatives back then and bread had a short shelf life but so healthy and natural. When my parents tried my bread, my father said to me, “Does is worth the effort, if you can buy much less inexpensive the same bread at the store? Maybe better use your time to read a good book instead of making bread.” With pandemic, I start to make bread again after so many years. Read my tips and you may find something new and useful when you start making homemade bread.

On the page:

Bread Making Machine Tips From My Own Experience.
Water And Whey In Bread Dough.
Instant Dry Yeast.
Flour Tips.
Salt Tips.
Eggs Tips.
Butter In Bread Dough.
Sugar Substitutes.
Scale Tips ( what feature I like to have in my scale and why )

1. What To Consider When Buy Bread Making Machine

I had a small bread-making machine a few years ago and gave it away and it was the right decision. I bought my bread-making machine at a garage sale for a few dollars and not a big loss. Will I buy another model bread machine in the future? Maybe, if I have bigger storage at my house. I bought a bread machine because my friend’s mom recommended getting one. She served to us homemade bread with soup, and I love it so much. However, I didn’t ask enough questions to make the right decision. However, I got great advice from her! Don’t invest in a new one; buy used and get a feel I like it or not. I got it at my neighborhood garage sale my first one!

I like the convenience of making bread in a bread machine. I just put all the ingredients in and then close the lid and done! I have such a nice bread aroma at my house and a loaf of bread for the family without any effort. Here is my guide if you are going to buy a bread-making machine and use it. Learn from my mistakes!

1. Capacity Of Bread Machine

Consider the capacity of the machine better for you, of course. In my opinion, bigger is better. I saw a 3-pound bread machine on the market. Why I suggest get a large bread machine? A small machine works for so many hours and as a result produces a small loaf of bread. I had rarely left anything for another day. Remember, bread freezes so well! Here is my first requirement for my new bread-making machine – I want a big loaf machine!

2. Removing The Kneading Paddle After Kneading

Bread from the bread machine will have a hole at the bottom from the kneading paddle but you can remove the paddle after the machine finishes kneading the dough. My son joked after he saw my first loaf of bread, “Do we have a mouse at the house?” We still have a small hole on the bottom of the bread after we remove the paddle, but less noticeable.

3. Bread Making Machine Is A Large Appliance

Before buying a bread machine, remember it is a large appliance and needs storage space. This is important if you have a small kitchen.

4. Quality of The Bread From a Bread Making Machine

Every recipe from the booklet I tried was good!

5. Can We Use Bread Making Machine For Other Purposes?

Yes! It depends on your machine. We can make a great dough that requires kneading. For example, stuffed dumplings or homemade pasta.

2. Water And Whey In Bread Dough

Use filtered or bottled water for the bread dough. If we use faucet water, make sure it doesn’t have a lot of chlorine. Chlorine effects on yeast performance and can slow down our bread rising.

To improve the taste of bread we can use instead of water whey. Whey is not only improving the taste of bread, but it enriches bread with nutritions. Just remember whey is not water and can change the recipe. It is a very common ingredient to make bread in the country, especially if people have a cow. I also used water with my leftovers of sour cream and it makes the taste of bread much better too.

What is whey? Whey is the liquid remaining after we stained curdled milk. From curled milk, we can make a great cottage or farmer cheese.

3. Instant Dry Yeast

Check Out The Exparation Date Before Use Yeast

Most yeast I tried works great. Just make sure, you check the date expiration before use. Make sure yeast not expired before use it in your dough, so you don’t waste all other ingredients. Remember a slow rise has more flavor development. I tried short time speedy recipes and always noticed a strong taste of yeast.

How To Speed Up Rising Of Bread Dough

Photo Proofing Bread Dough in Microwave

If we need to speed the rise of bread better to use higher temperature rather than increase the amount of yeast. Very important the temperature should be comfortable for your hands. Yeast is a leavening agent and hight temperature can kill it, so make sure your dough in the right environment. I use a microwave (with warm water under in the bowl) or oven without turn on the heat. Here you can find more options to speed up rising of bread → 9 Substitutes Ideas For Baking Tools And Equipment

How To Add Instant Dry Yeast To Dough

Some recipes, required to mix the dry yeast with liquid before adding to the flour. I suggest following the direction on the yeast package how to add yeast to the dough for better performance. Some yeast needs to be dehydrated before adding to flour, some don’t.

4. Flour

The Best Wheat Flour To Use For Bread

The best wheat flour to make bread is bread flour. However, I use all-purpose wheat flour mostly when pandemic starts. If we use flour from different companies, the result will be different. Some flour better than others. The best tip, check what contains in the flour. I remember my friend baker on my question “which flour is the best for baking?” She suggested King Artur flour. This company flour has only 100% wheat flour without additional ingredients. Flour can be absorbing moisture from the air and the best way to keep flour in an airtight container.

Flour necessary to sift before making the dough to enrich with oxygen.

Photo pelmeni flour

Glutin Free Flours In Homemade Bread

Glutin free flours are absolutely different flour than wheat. For example, I used partially buckwheat flour or ray flour in my mix flours bread. What I learned, a better way is to follow the trusted recipe and use scale. Unfortunately, as beginners better to use the scale. Flour can have different moisture or sifted or not sifted. When we use the scale these factors are not important. Scales are not expensive, invest in one.

5. Salt Tips

Salt is slow down the yeast fermentation process. It is important to know when you add salt to the dough, don’t add directly on yeast. I suggest using scales to measure salt if it is possible for the best result.

The Best Salt To Use For Bread Dough

The best is freshly grounded pure coarse salt. You can read on the package what contents in the package. The reason is fine salt contains an anticaking agent and other ingredients that can be possible to slow down the bread rasing.

Very important for canning to use only pure salt too. Jars will be not preserved well through winter when we use fine salt. Especially picky are cucumbers!

Recommended ⇒ How To Make Homemade Breadcrumbs

6. Eggs Tips

For some bread recipes, we need eggs. I cracked an egg in a small dish one by one before adding it to the dough mixture. The reason, if something is wrong with the egg, I don’t waste my other ingredients.

Do not wash shell eggs before storing them. They are washed and sanitized at the factory when ready to go to the store.

With the internet, we can learn so much useful knowledge. However, sometimes the info is wrong. I don’t want to go for details of the story but shortly – NEVER STORE EGGS AT ROOM TEMPERATURE! According to the ServSafe coursebook store eggs at an air temperature of 45°F or lower.

7. Butter In Bread Dough

Photo Serving Butter With Melon Baller

I often substitute oil for butter in bread recipes. My family likes more bread with butter. The butter flavor in bread is a great addition that adds a great flavor and makes the bread softer. Remember, butter should be warm temperature but not hot. Too much oil or butter can slow down the activities of yeast.

8. Sugar Substitutes For Baking Bread

Sugar is like food for yeast and we can substitute it for honey. We just need to keep in mind honey has its own flavor and it affects bread taste. Honey works fine as a sugar substitute but we can’t substitute sugar for artificial sweeteners. I don’t use sweeteners in my kitchen but I read about it in my breadmaker instruction and now know it is not an option to substitute natural sugar.

9. Scale Tips

The Importance To Have A Scale To Make Bread Dough

The scale is a necessity and makes our life easier when we make bread dough. For example, a cup of sifted flour has a different weight than 1 cup not sifted flour. The scale is actually nice to have for many other purposes in the kitchen too.

The Feature Good To Have In The Kitchen Scale

Photo Plastic wrap use

My advice is to buy a scale with manual off function. I have an automatic off on my large scale and battery life, of course, shorter than with manual shot off button. Another inconvenience with automatic turn off I have sometimes, my scale is off itself with ingredients on it in the middle of the process. For example, I got distracted by the phone call and don’t touch the scale for a certain time and my scale turns off itself. So, I have to start over to weight my ingredients. On the photo above, I have a small scale that I use for salt and yeast. This scale has a manual turn off button and I like it.

How To Use Bread Leftovers?

Stale Bread in Linen Bag Photo

Homemade bread doesn’t have any preservatives and is fresh for just a few days. What to do with homemade leftover bread? We can freeze it. I like to freeze sliced bread. I layered bread slices with wax or baking paper before storing them in the freezer. We can also make bread crumbs, croutons, and use them for pudding or use for stuffing. Going out of town? Just feed bread to birds or animals.

Photo Sharing is caring, reminder

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August 16, 2023

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9 Simple But Important Tips For Making Bread