From what you are made: sugar and spice and all things nice

[venta]

So, about this one new skill per month idea.

April, as you know, didn't start well. Since then I've been away a lot, so it hasn't so much gone badly as not really gone at all.

In the past fortnight, I've managed one batch of bread and one batch of cinnamon buns. And even thought I wasn't expecting to get to the end of the month and think well, brilliant, I'm now a master baker I was hoping for something a bit more impressive.

My bread was - again - "all right". I took one batch of buns out of the oven a tad early (they're cooked, but anaemic-looking) and, though the second batch looked more healthy, they still weren't great. They seemed a little doughy and solid - does anyone know what might be the main cause of this ? I noted after the fact that my mum's recipe called for rather more yeast-per-pound-of-flour than the one I used - might increasing the yeast help ?

The cinnamon bun manufacture was a series of disasters. The first one bopeepsheep warned me about: the quantity of flour in the recipe was woefully inadequate. The second I fell into because I decided that (without greater experience) I should follow the recipe exactly; something I'm very bad at doing ordinarily. Accordingly, I simply mixed my fresh yeast in with the flour then added the liquid. What I wanted to do was warm up the milk and dissolve the yeast and sugar in it before adding to the flour. I think this would have been a much better way to go.

(I suspect yeast issues caused the dough not to rise much during proving, then rise massively and uncontrollably while actually in the oven. Never mind, I enjoy cleaning burnt sugar off enamelwork. And I wasn't at all worried when the oven slightly caught fire. Oh no.)

April has given way to May which means I have a new quest, but I still have an imperial shitload of fresh yeast to use up post-haste so will attempt to continue in the bready products vein. The mother has dispatched what she claims is a simple recipe for tea-cakes, and I'm hoping I can improve on the bread.



(The finished buns. Which despite the disasters, and the middle ones being a little undercooked, actually tasted OK. Photograph, flour-pouring assistance and consolation in the face of disaster courtesy of leathellin.)



All and any advice welcome from those with bakery skills.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about proper baking, but messing around with our breadmaker suggests that either of two things make bread too solid/dense/heavy:

1) Not enough yeast. And this varies not only with the size of loaf, but also (massively) with the type of flour. Wholemeal flour needs a lot of persuading to rise. Indeed, I once discussed this with Pam (at Tao) who apparently comes from a family of professional bakers. According to her it's common practice in the bakery business to slip a small quantity of white flour into even wholemeal loaves to make them come out nice.

2) Too much liquid (water, in the recipes I use). If the mixture's too wet it doesn't rise well. That said, if you're not using a breadmaker you probably notice this at the kneading stage.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

PS. Have you noticed the BBC have a big picture of you here? (Click through the slides...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I had not. I went looking for Mayday photos on the BBC yesterday, but they were all "People jump off bridge! Aaargh!"

Thanks for pointing it out. I'm slightly worried that they've captioned us as if we were a pub!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Either that or you're very very keen for breakfast.

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

If you're using a breadmaker, they frequently prompt you to add half a vitamin C tablet if you're using wholemeal flour to boost the yeast a bit.

However, be very careful with breadmaker recipes --- they frequently suck. Mine suggests using one tbsp of sugar in a small loaf. It works, but it tastes like cake. I think it's a typo for tsp.

Salt is vital, and not just for flavouring. It makes the gluten gel. Put in too little salt, and your bread will die. Put in too much, and the yeast will die. Don't put the little pile of freeze-dried yeast on top of the little pile of salt...

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

BTW, you may be interested to know that my icon is a picture of a loaf of particularly fine (if slightly disturbing) curry bread I made once. And marmalade.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I remember it well :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Mine suggests using one tbsp of sugar in a small loaf. It works, but it tastes like cake. I think it's a typo for tsp.

Weird! I'd love to know how you get that effect. I always add around 1 tablespoon of sugar and have yet to get anything cakey out of the other end.

(And yes, all the wholemeal recipes I use do have vitamin C in them... but my comment above is with that already included. I think if you missed it out you might get dwarf bread!)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was really surprised when the breadmaker (which hendybear brought to live with us for a little while) suggested we make bread with all wholemeal flour. The home-made bread in various households when I was little was always brown/wholemeal, but always had at least some white flour in it.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

1) Really? Thank you, I think you may have just debugged my bread making. I used to be really good at bread as a teenager, when I used white flour, but now I have developed a taste for wholemeal bread I mysteriously appear to have become rubbish.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Fingers crossed for your next loaf, then! I generally make 75% wholemeal these days, which comes out about the same as commercial wholemeal in terms of density and texture.