Book of Bread Recipes Bringing Back the Good Old Days

By Greg Corless

This is a cook book full of Bread Recipes without the use of a bread machine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Corless
• Release date: May 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513075105

Book preview

Introduction

Once in a while technology helps do a lot of mundane things faster and easier, like writing this book, I am so glad I am able to compose it with a laptop computer. How about the microwave? Now we can cook just about anything we want in two minutes. But then technology has taken away some of the joys of doing some things by hand and yes it does take a lot longer to do these things. 

That is what this book is about. I want the reader to go back twenty or twenty five years and try some of these recipes without the terrible bread maker.  I would prefer for the good old days when mothers and grannies made bread in the kitchen and yes it generally took all day, but the result was always well worth it. 

There truly is no other aroma than that of bread beaming through your house.  But that is after the dough makes it to the oven. I was lucky, I grew up in a house where my mother took the time to make homemade bread and she always had the kids come in and watch and help. One of my favorite memories was watching my mother knead the bread. She would literally beat the heck out of it. She used to make it a very amusing experience. After she kneaded the bread she would then put the dough in a bowl that she covered up with a kitchen towel and within a couple of hours the dough had doubled in size. That was also another fun experience because then she would take the bread out again and beat the heck out of it again. I could never have this experience if she used a bread maker. Thank God the bread maker was not as popular then as it is today.

But now in the twenty first century the kids do not have that fun experience because people interested in baking bread have a bread maker and that is an absolute crime. So with this book I want to bring back the old time bread making experience for our children and your families, and I hope with this little book I can do that.

Now let’s start talking about the wonderful world of baking bread.

Bread is processed by baking dough made from flour, (ground grain), water, and frequently additional ingredients such as salt. The bread may be leavened or unleavened. Leavened bread uses a leavening agent which very often is yeast. 

The term bread as defined by definition.com is: a kind of food made of flour or meal that has been mixed with milk or water, made into a dough or batter, with or without yeast or other leavening agent, and baked.  But other times it refers to quick breads (raised with something other than yeast, normally baking powder) and flatbreads (not raised at all).

There are a lot of types of bread and really this book is just scratching the surface. Each type of bread has its own history, style, and of course taste. The more you try out with different types of bread, the better you will be at producing new and riveting recipes.

History

Bread originated in ancient Egypt where grain was crushed, or sometimes chewed, to create a flat-bread with several varieties becoming available as the dish grew in popularity. Greece, and later Rome, Italy, would come to adopt this method of production and spread the dish across the Western world, adding their own variations. And since then bread has become important both within individual families and across entire cultures. It is now an integrated part of most people’s lives, as reflected by the vast array of available recipes.

Composition

The amount of water and flour used in bread are the most significant measurements, because these two ingredients affect texture and crumb the most. With regards to measuring ingredients, weight, instead of volume, is used as the measure.

Taking the amount of flour to be 100 percent, common North American table bread uses approximately 50 percent water, resulting in a finely-textured, and light bread. Most artisan bread formulas contain anywhere from 60 to 75 percent water. In yeast breads, the higher water percentages result in more CO2 bubbles, and a coarser bread crumb. One pound (500 g) of flour will yield a standard loaf of bread, or two French loaves.

Water, or some other liquid (depending on your recipe), is used to form the flour into a paste or dough. The volume of liquid required varies between recipes, but a ratio of one part liquid to three parts flour is common for yeast breads, while recipes that use steam as the primary leavening method may have a liquid content in excess of one part liquid to one part flour by volume. In addition to water, other types of liquids that may be used include dairy products (milk or cream), fruit juices, or beer. Yes beer can be used in bread; I have included a beer recipe.  In addition to the water in each of these, they also contribute additional sweeteners, fats, and/or leavening components.

Types of flour

Wheat flour is the most popular flour to use in bread, because wheat has many qualities that contribute to a good loaf.

White flour, the refined flour made from wheat, is used more frequently than its unrefined and more nutritious counterpart, whole wheat flour.

Other flours that are used include the flours of rye, corn, and barley.

Using a mixture of different flours can make an interesting loaf of bread. (When you become a seasoned veteran in baking bread, give it a try.)

Liquids

Sometimes liquids other than water, or in addition to water, are used to form the flour into a paste or dough. These other liquids include dairy products (milk or cream), fruit juices, and as mentioned above even beer. In addition to the water in each of these, these other liquids can alter or add sweetness, fat and/or leavening to the bread taste.

Leavening

Leavening is the process of adding gas to dough before or during baking to produce lighter, easily chewed bread.

Some of the most common leavening agents for bread are: yeast, baking soda (an acidic ingredient like buttermilk to activate the soda), baking powder, steam and beer.

As you may or may not know the majority of breads are leavened by yeast. Most bakers in North America leaven their dough with commercially produced baker’s yeast. Baker’s yeast has the advantage of producing uniform, quick, and reliable results, because it is obtained from a pure culture. Many artisan bakers produce their own yeast by preparing a growth culture which they then use in the making of bread. This culture kept in the right conditions