Baking Bread General

Hi Veeky Forums
I'm baking a bread today. I figured I can share the recipe with you. It's very simple and quite fool-proof.

I'm not from USA, so I'll do my best to convert the units of measurements as well.

Here goes:

You'll need:
>300g (about 2 cups) flour type 650 (bread flour)
>8g (single packet) of dry yeast
>1 teaspoon of salt
>3 tablespoons of olive oil (or regular oil, or melted unsalted butter)
>2 tablespoons of dark honey
>200ml of dark beer like Ale, Porter or Stout. In this case I'm using some Porter.

The beer and honey will make the bread dark, and give it a bittersweet note.

Step 1:
Mix beer, honey and oil in a small pot and warm it up while stirring.

Make sure it's not hot, just warm. If it's too warm, you'll kill the yeast in the next step.

Step 2:
Pour the mixture into a bowl, add the salt, yeast and flour, and knead.

I've got a mixer that does the kneading for me, but you want your dough to be smooth and look a bit like this.
If the dough is too loose/runny, and keeps sticking to the surface you're kneading it on, add a bit more flour.

After that, put the dough into a bowl, cover it up, and leave it in a warm place for 2 hours.

See you all in two hours, then!

It's been two hours. Where is the bread egg man.

I'm here, just finished the next step.

Take out your dough from the bowl. It should have already doubled in size.
Lightly dust the table-top with flour and put the dough on it.
Knead, fold and punch it a bit, and then form it into a nice ball.

Now, there it is. Take your baking tray, unfold some baking paper onto it, put your bread ball on it, and gently rub a bit of olive oil onto it.

Cover it up with a bowl, or something (make sure it doesn't stick to the dough when it rises), and leave it again for two hours.

I'm keeping an eye on this

Curious about the beer as the liquid instead of water. What do you think it adds? Have you tried the same recipe with water and compared them?

I've never made a bread dough with anything but water or sometimes scalded milk for something like a donut or soft hamburger bun.

If you use water, you'll just get a normal bread. The beer adds a bit of caramel and bitter aroma.
I normally add some sourdough, but this time I didn't, because I know many people don't have it.
Next time I'll post a recipe for sourdough, and the next time - yoghurt thyme bread.

You do this just as a hobby, right?
Although interesting, I just think its crazy to make bread at home, going through all that labor, time, and mess to produce what you could simply buy fresh and expertly made in a dozen different varieties at any bakery. A top quality loaf is never more than $5 and smaller rolls are like 3 for $1, and they are baked fresh every day by professionals.
I guess its a nice hobby if you need something to fill time, and probably makes the house smell good. Thanks for the pics.

Where I live a bread costs between 0.50$-1$. So, yes, it's not profitable at all.
It's a hobby that I do to tear myself away from my tedious and boring job. Baking and cooking are a few things that give me joy.

As for the bread baked by professionals - after you get the hang of it, home-made bread is much tastier than what you can get in a bakery. Moreover, I have the full control over ingredients and their quality, which is very nice.

going through all that labor, time, and mess

Not OP, but you could say that about almost anything you make at home. But homemade bread is something that you can get superior results to professionals with a little experience. The same is true of my homemade sausages and occasionally a really outstanding batch of beer. The main thing the professionals have over a dedicated artisinal food hobbyist isn't superior quality, it's the equipment and products to ensure precise duplication of results every time.

I'm trying to decipher the language on your bag of bread flour, and figure out where those electrical outlets come from. I'm drawing a blank. Country?
I come from the land of Amerilard Clapistan. Bakeries here range from mass production and budget oriented, to hipster artisan faggotry that's certified organic, sustainable, fair trade, free range, carbon neutral, guilt free, cancer curing, and twenty times overpriced.
I go to a bakery that's somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

I'm not much of a baker honestly but cooking in general is FUN as fuck to me, relaxing and sorta meditative as well. And as far as buying the ingredients go, it's cheaper to make the stuff on your own so why not?
Like loaf of ciabatta bread here costs 90 cents but I make my own every time I want some. Costs maybe 15 cents if that to make it yourself and it's fun.

Poland.
The entire hipster food culture hasn't really caught up in here yet (mostly because people aren't as wealthy as the other western nations), so there isn't so much choice.

Anyway, update for the bread:

Next step:
Launch up your oven to 200°C (390°F)
Once it reaches the temperature, put a small heatproof container with a glass of hot water into the oven, at the bottom, as well as the bread, and let it stay there for 30 minutes.

The steam from the water will make the bread crust crusty.

Oh yeah, Poland.
My favorite import is the potato vodka. For some reason I associate Poland with rye bread. Is that true to some extent?

Rye bread is extremely rare. It's just not as tasty as a wheat bread.

However, the sourdough I use is made from rye flour and I sometimes bake rye bread. It's quite chewy, and not as fluffy, though.

The beer bread is already in the oven. It's rather compact, to my surprise. Although the yeast I've used was a few days past its expiration date.

Generally I like baking beer bread, because it always comes out differently. It depends a lot on the used beer type. Attaching a pic of two other beer breads I baked.

tfw bread

WHY BAKE BREAD WHEN YOU CAN DRINK IT INSTEAD (BEER)

Thanks, OP, you motivated me to try baking once I move into my new place.

Here's a short-mix sourdough I made. In addition to my own starter, I added a little citric acid to give it more tang.

And here's a challah.

And finally, milk white bread.

That looks fantastic. Here's a yoghurt thyme bread I made some time ago.
I'll probably update this thread when I'll be making a new one in a few days. I'll use my sourdough then.

I admit that I've never had a fresh herb bread before. I want to try one now. Your photos look fantastic too btw!

Looks like a great crust and crumb. I've got a starter I've been culturing for 10 days and I'll probably try to make a loaf with it in 4 days or so. I'd like to see your standard sourdough recipe.

What's the point of using yoghurt? Fermentation? Moisture?

very nice, how long did you let it in the hoven ?

I try to grow my herbs, because they're quite aromatic. However, when you bake it, the herbs lose a bit of their aroma.

I like to make this bread with oregano and garlic in addition to thyme, making it a great garlic bread.

I'll try to conjure the recipe later on. I generally don't remember the exact proportions and measurements, I just add more flour if stuff's too runny.

Taste. Just like with beer, yoghurt makes it taste different. It gives a nice, smooth, aroma.

Anyone have the webm of all those different breads and pastries baking?

Is that what sourdough is meant to look like? It looks like dried up cum and snot.

If you have to put the punchline in parentheses, it's not a good joke

I just bought a nice big loaf tin. The only mixer I have is a bread machine, so to begin with I was hoping to use that to make my dough then transfer it to the loaf tin in the oven

Any good secrets to this?

Not OP, but I use a bread peel for the second rise and slide it onto a pizza stone in the oven. You get a more uniformly hard, firm crust, which is what I want for my bread, than a bread pan. I suppose a bread pan would be better for something like a Japanese milk bread or an "American" style sandwich bread, but I don't really make those styles.

What is a bread peel
What is a Japanese mill bread

Thanks for answering but what the fuck am I reading

>What is a bread peel

A flat, wide, shovel like tool made of wood or metal that when covered with a dusting of cornmeal or semolina permits dough to slide off onto a flat surface in the oven. If you google it you'll see examples.

>What is a Japanese mill bread

Japanese Milk bread is a light airy bread similar to typical US sandwich bread but with more character. I'm not sure, but it probably developed during the American occupation after WWII.

t. Weeb

Huh?

Huh?

What are these little brown and yellow balls on this loaf I bought? Shits tasty

Dunno, but if you find out can you let me know? What country are you in? That does look tasty

Looks like corn and oats to me

Isn't it illegal to not pay taxes on your bread?

>tfw worked nightshift for a few months at a viet/french bakery but still don't really know shit about baking and forgot most of the recipes I learned