Tips and Tricks for Homemade Bread
By: Nancy Honig- Adult Development and Aging Agent
Bread has been around for centuries in a wide variety of shapes and forms. But, making bread generally comes down to a few basic ingredients and techniques. Like all baking, there is both a science and an art to it. If you are a brand-new baker, or an experienced one, hopefully this gives you some tips and tricks and makes you feel more comfortable in your bread making.1. Read All Instructions – This may seem over simplified, but you need to know ahead of time how long the recipe takes, if there are multiple rising times, if ingredients are added in stages and not all at once. Making bread isn’t complicated but there are often multiple steps.
- Organize Ingredients in Order of Use – Make sure you have all ingredients on hand and add them in order. For best results, ingredients should be at room temperature, to prevent them bringing down the temperature of the dough and preventing the yeast from activating. Always make sure your ingredients are fresh and check the expiration date on your yeast.
- Measure Carefully – If ingredients are not measured properly you will not have a good consistent product. Flour should always be spooned into your measuring cup. Otherwise, it becomes too packed and you add too much flour.4. Adjust Recipe if needed – After you have added all your ingredients and begun mixing your dough, make sure the dough is mixing properly. Check to see if the dough is too moist or too dry. Dough may need adjusting by adding small amounts of flour or liquid. Err on the side of being too sticky rather than too dry!
It is important to know which kind of yeast your recipe calls for and how many times it proofs. In bread baking, yeast ferments from eating the sugars available from the flour and/or from added sugar, and the carbon dioxide gas cannot escape because the dough is elastic and stretchable. As a result of this expanding gas, the dough inflates, or rises.
Active Dry Yeast. Due to the low moisture content, the yeast is in a semi-dormant state and is therefore more stable than cake yeast. Consumer packages of active dry yeast are stamped with a ‘Best if used by’ date, indicated by the month and year. The shelf life of an unopened package is two years from the date of packaging.
Instant Yeast. Instant yeast, also known as “fast-rising” or “fast-acting” yeast, is also a dry yeast, that can shorten the rising time in traditional baking by as much as 50%. The main difference between instant and active dry yeast is that the instant does not require “proofing”It is not necessary to proof, or dissolve, instant yeast before using it. Some bakers like to do this, because it gives the yeast a good start – the yeast feeds on the sugar allowing it to become very active and ready to work in your dough.
I usually buy my yeast in the larger bulk package due to the reduced cost. I learned that air is the primary enemy of yeast. Once the bulk yeast package is opened, you have six months to use the yeast, regardless of the ‘sale by’ date.
Kneading is important to build gluten which gives bread structure. Using bread flour with a higher protein content than all-purpose flour, it is able to develop more gluten. Gluten also lends bread dough its stretch and elasticity, leading to loaves that rise high instead of blobs that fall flat.
The kneading process helps work the gluten in the flour to create a smooth, elastic dough. It can take between 5 and 10 minutes until the consistency of the dough changes and it becomes smoother and more elastic. Eventually, it will begin to hold together in ball and develop a soft skin. The next step is proofing the dough.
What happens when dough over ferments? As the yeast eats through the sugars in the dough it produces carbon dioxide which gets trapped in the gluten and makes the bread puff up. The longer the dough ferments the less food there will be left for the yeast and the longer it goes the more the gluten will start breaking down.
If the yeast runs out of food before it hits the oven it will not produce any more carbon dioxide during the first few minutes of baking and the bread will not rise. Yeast starts dying at a temperature of 130F. When the bread goes in the oven fermentation is accelerated because of the temperature increase and the yeast will keep active and produce gas until it reaches that critical point. If the gluten breaks down before baking (this will happen in tandem with the yeast running out of food), then the structure of the bread will be compromised. Holes could appear on the surface letting the trapped fermentation gas escape instead of holding it in and making the bread rise. A dough that is too cold won’t ferment at a rate that produces good volume, strength, or flavor.
For the best bread, controlling the temperature of the dough both in the water when mixing and in the proofing, is just as important as proper ingredient measurements. Proof in a container with a tight lid to prevent drying out. Any portion of a dough that dries or hardens during fermentation will not reincorporate later in the process, leaving bits of dried dough in the loaf during shaping. The bowl also helps control the ambient temperature by keeping off drafts and temperature changes. I recently did a number of programs on Breads 101 in the district and I would be happy to email or mail you a copy of our handouts with recipes and more tips to share! Contact the Hugoton office at 620-544-4359 or email our office professional at morane@ksu.edu.
