The recipes that made me pack away my breadmaker

Erosgirl

Hello. I was going to start a thread, but I think the information will fit in here. If I am out of place with my topic please forgive me.

I went to WH Smith yesterday and bought a lovely book that was on offer called Bread. A complete guide to making your own bread in a traditional oven and using a bread machine by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter. Publishing price £14.99, sale price £4.99. There's a history of bread at the beginning and then recipes for breads of the world. It would make your mouth water. For some reason there are two ISBN numbers. If anyone is interested they are: ISBN-13: 978-0-7548-1788-8 and ISBN-10: 0-7548-1788-1. Hope this is of interest to someone.

npsmama

Oh sorry, I forgot to say that I'vr never used the dough enhancer.
The bread is so good DH always asks me to amke some. I make 4 loaves a week!
We never buy bread now.

I buy wheat, rye and spelt grains for milling from my local farmers market in 25kg sacks. They order it in for me from Infinity Foods. I store it under the stairs in pillow cases!
I think healthfood shops can get sacks in if you ask but the ones around here wanted to charge more than the RRP whereas the farmers market charge me the RRP.

For yeast I use Doves Farm Dried Yeast. It comes in a orange packet about half the size of a cigarette packet (I don't smoke but that's the only thing I could think of!!). It costs about 99p. Lately I've been getting Fermipan from a wholefoods shop. It's a huge packet for about £2.70 but I make so much bread it was worth it.

Regarding the 100% wholewheat recipe. You need to knead it until you see webbing. Webbing is when you can see stretchy strands on the dough. It's actually the glutn that's developped. Once you see it, you'll know exactly why it makes bread rise. I''l try and post a picture next time I bake it. Once you understand this point, Bob's you uncle!

The NYT bread works wonderfully for me. I'm off the read the followup article posted above.

npsmama

Realsied I forgot to answer a few questions...for the first recipe, yes I do measure pretty exactly. tesco - infamous as I find it - does have plastic measuring cups. I bought 2 for 99p each and wouldn't be without them!

As I said before I've never used the dough enhancer and the results have always been wonderful. So personally I wouldn't use an enhancer even if I found one.

Flymouse

Thankyou for this npsmama - I was about to give up on my homemade "bricks" until I found this thread! Just 1 question, in her wholewheat recipe Marylin says you should first allow the mix to "sponge for 15mins" - could someone please tell me what this means as i don't have a clue! thanks xx

npsmama

Sponging: just mix the water, yeast and 2c flour and leave it for 15min.
Then proceed with the recipe.

newlywed

Thanks. We don't have a bread maker and I'm fed up of paying over £1 a loaf for wholemeal bread. Haven't made bread for years - and then it was white flour.

Do you know if the first recipe, the Hand mix amounts give 2 loaves of 1lb size or 2lb size?

Just trying to work out whether to try doubling the recipe on the first go or not

npsmama

I bake it in pans that are 8 x 4... i think that's probably 1lb but i'm not sure. Basically when you put the (unrisen) dough in the pan you want the pan to between half and two thirds full.

newlywed

Thanks. I've got an idea that I'll be busy on Sunday afternoon - baking bread!!

Nice to see it doesn't take 20 hours to rise with this recipe!! I'm very impatient but love to see the dough rise

Angelina-M

Thanks again, this is my fave thread at the moment! There's not many people around who are milling their own flour so I love to hear how you are getting on. If you were to post pics of you making the wholegrain loaf then you would be my hero lol!

I keep my grain under the stairs too, nice and cool.

I assume you are doing the kneeding with you KC?

I shall be giving the wholegrain one a whirl over the weekend, thank you.

Louisa_2

What wonderful bread ideas npsmama, I'm salivating just reading your post!

I use my Kenwood Chef with the dough hook for kneading too, makes the whole process so much easier. Despite being a fairly patient person normally, I just don't have the patience for kneading by hand, I can never get into the illustrious "rhythym" that others have luckily found:)

Just going to pre-heat my oven now...