My bread journey continues

A while ago I baked some bread. Link. It didn't go exactly to plan, it tasted ok though. I've had a few more goes since then.

The first was following a recipe on the flour packet. 

The house smelt more bready than it had before. This time the dough rose and it was less dense. And it tasted great. 

A work colleague told me he baked a yeast free loaf. So this second version used self raising flour and appletiser. 

I expressed surprise at the inclusion of this sparkling apple drink. But went ahead the next weekend when the spelt loaf was finished.

A little burnt on top. Very crunchy, and tasty. And lighter, even if it doesn't look like it. 

This did mean I had two packets of flour. I decided to do what some commercial bakers do; create a 50/50 loaf, using all the items I now had in my cupboard. They combine wholemeal and white flour, my bread was a little more "radical".

 

The first sign that this new "Frankenstein" loaf might be different was after the second proving stage. I had kneaded it, left it to rise. Then kneaded again and left it to rise in the bread tin. The dough was overflowing. I gathered the extra flow and scooped it back into the mix. Placing it in the oven I was not sure how this was going to turn out. Would it burst out all over? What shape would it grow into? 

 

spelt and self raising flour loaf cooling

 

The house had the best "bready" smell so far as it baked. So an initial win.

spelt and self raising flour loaf sliced

I am really impressed with how it tastes, it's the lightest so far and still has a nice crunchy crust.

I'm going to get a bigger bread tin so that I can produce a loaf closer to shop bought size.

 

 

Bread

You might be expecting cycling or photography content. Occasionally I'll write about depression. Very rarely you'll read about my cooking expertise.

I made bread.

It started badly. I wanted to produce a loaf quickly so chose a baking soda recipe. As I followed the instructions I hit a problem. For some reason I had changed my mind as I shopped for ingredients earlier in the week, and forgot that I bought yeast. I didn't have time to become a baker until this weekend. It was then that I discovered this deviation from the original path to bread.

A consequence was that it would take longer. Baking soda bread doesn't need time to rise before baking; damn.

I hadn't bought bread flour, nope I'd decided on spelt wholemeal.

Another sign of derring-do: I'd wanted a seedy loaf. So in went an amount of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Does this make me an artisan?

So with "he who dares Rodney" from a little voice in my head, (Only Fools and Horses), I pressed on.

Would it rise, how would it turn out? I'd have to wait a day to find out. The new instructions said to refrigerate the dough overnight after allowing to rise for three hours. 

I took it out of the fridge, placed in on a baking tray and left it to stand for 45 minutes. What I saw didn't fill me with much confidence. Should it look like this?

fresh from the fridge

Twenty five minutes in the oven and it looked okayish. It certainly hadn't risen as expected. Tapping it produced a sort of hollow sound, which means it was done.

It felt very heavy and once it had cooled was tough to cut. The house wasn't filled with the smell of fresh bread, it's hard to describe aroma. A faint whiff of alcohol greated me. Maybe the yeast had gone wrong.

It didn't look like the pictures accompanying the steps I had followed. Maybe because I had used different flour, or something else wasn't right. Who knows.

The important thing was how it tasted. 

It tasted nice, with a great crunch as I bit into it. So I call that a success.

I'll try again next weekend. What other seeds etc can I add?