fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxuryā¦..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. Iām not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we canāt make our own damn food bc itās a special expensive thing thatās exclusive to wealthy retirees but itās stupid as hell and it makes me angry
bread takes like max 4 ingredients counting water and sure it takes a couple hours but 80% of that is just waiting around while it does the thing and you can do other things while itās rising/baking plus im not gonna say baking cured my depression bc it didnāt but man is it hard to feel down when youāre eating slices of fresh bread you just made yourself. feels like everythingās gonna be a little more ok than you thought. itās good.
bread is amazing and itās also been sold to us as something really hard to make? Every time I tell someone I made a loaf of bread I get reactions like āyou made it yourself???ā and ādo you have a bread machine then?ā I havenāt touched a bread machine in probably 10 years. You CAN make your own bread, folks, and itās actually pretty cheap to do so. I believe the most expensive thing I needed for it was the jar of yeast. It was about $6 at the grocery store and lasted me MONTHS (just keep it in the fridge.) The packets are even cheaper. destroy capitalism. bake your own bread.
You can also make your own yeast by making a sourdough starter, so that cuts cost even more.
But you have to feed the starter daily/weekly and that means it grows quickly, but there are tons of recipes online for what to do with your excess starter. Cookies, pretzels, crackers, pancakes, waffles, you name it!!
Hereās a link to The Home Baking Associationās site. It has recipes and tips.
Make it even easier - āNo-Knead Breadā. All YOU do is mix the ingredients together and wait until itās time to heat the oven. The yeast does all the rest.
Hereās @dduaneāās first take on it and the finished product. Weāve made even more photogenic batches since.
Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you donāt want to or donāt have one, get hands-on. Itās like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat - it takes about 10 minutes - until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesnāt stick to things and feels silky-smooth.
Hereās what before and after look like.
My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.
Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and āknock it backā (more kneading, until itās getting back to the size it started, this means there wonāt be huge āis something living in here?ā holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever - weāve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roasterā¦
You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.
Let the dough rise again until itās high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180Ā°C / 355Ā°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.
Hereās some of our breadā¦
Hereās our default bread recipe - it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.
Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we donāt bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a āready for my close-upā glamour shot.
I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf. Weāre happy to have it on our table.
Even if your first attempts donāt work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like thisā¦
can we have more posts like this in future please? this is really useful and could help those who are struggling
