Homemade Bread - Can it ever taste nice?

StressedSteph

We are BIG bread eater in our house and get through a good loaf per day.

I HATE paying over £1.00 for a loaf of bread, so have tried on numerous occasions in the past to make my own, with not much success.

I have tried making it by hand and also borrowed my mum's breadmaker and used receipes from a cookbook and it still comes out like a brick :rolleyes:

Mum reckons it's because I am so used to processed bread, and there is no way to reproduce your own loaf to anywhere near like Hovis does

To all those who make their own bread, have you managed to perfect it, so it isn't like eating roofing tiles?

I also worry how I would manage to make enough to keep up with our needs, as breadmaker loaves are quite small so I guess I would need to make at least two loaves per day.

Also...After buying the flour, yeast, oil etc, how much does a homemade loaf work out at? Is it that much cheaper to warrant me investing in a breadmaker and all the time it takes to make them?

Any comments on this subject would be great please as I would love to make my own but hubby can't face my bread for his sandwiches unless I manage to make it slight less heavy

xxx

organic_wanabe

I use my breadmaker to make my dough and then cook it in the oven and it tastes like 'real' bread. Not expensive to make - I use one tsp yeast to 600g of flour (usually half white/half wholemeal), 1-2 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 400ml water. I put all the ingredients into the breadmaker and put on 'pizza' setting for 45 mins. I then take it out and divide into two oval loaf shapes, put it onto a baking tray covered with baking parchment, and cover and let it rise. I then bake it for 25 mins in an oven pre-heated to 190C, then turn over for a further 5 minutes. Cool on a baking rack and wrap in cotton dishcloth to store.

spiddy100

I was just going to suggest exactly the same as Organic Wanabe. My mum used to make her own bread for years when we were growing up, and she says the bread machine makes better dough but doesn't bake as well as the oven. She mixed up some dough in the machine then knocked back and made it into rolls and they were gorgeous The bread I make in the machine is pretty rubbish normally

hannoja

I can't offer much help on the baking front, but I do understand exactly where you're coming from: I've had 'bread maker' on the little 'maybe one day' shopping list at the back of my mind for some time now

What I've been doing lately is finding out when my local Supermarkets reduce their bread and stocking up on it when it's 20p a loaf or whatever. I wasn't having much success at pinning down when Asda reduced the bread, and just discovered that they actually do it pretty much when it takes their fancy, so any time between about 3pm and 6pm -ISH! :rotfl:I currently have about three of their 'wholemeal tin' loaves in the freezer, and a couple of sliced loaves: a granary and some other 'grainy/wheaty-type'; oh, and one french stick from a batch of about half a dozen I bought - I couldn't resist: they were only 5p each or something silly like that!

Sliced bread freezes well. It can be used straight out of the freezer for toast, and I have been known to make sandwiches with it straight from the freezer too! - by the time they're ready to eat, they've thawed anyway. The unsliced loaves need a little more thought, but they don't take long to thaw.

Hope that helps

pigpen

Actually the loaves are the same weight.. 2lb!!! just a different shape.

I'd add a little more yeast.. maybe 1/4 tsp more. I also add less salt because I hate the taste of it.

we use
2 cups plain flour
2 cups bread flour
1tsp salt
2 tbsp marg/oil
2.5 tbs sugar
3 tbs dried milk
1.5 cups warmish water
1.5 tsp dried yeast.

mix rise mix rise mix rise cook...

And the children complain when we buy shop bread.. we use 2-3 loaves a day and easily keep up .. I have one ready in a morning for lunches, cook one during the day for dinner and one while cooking dinner for breakfast.

flea72

i too find that bread from the mixer tastes awful i keep cutting down the yeast, but it still tastes and smells, like a pint of beer (maybe thats a good thing lol). so ive now gone over to making the dough in my Kenwood mixer, and just rising it at room temp and cooking it in the normal oven.

if you want decent cheap sliced bread, then aldi and lidl have loaves for about 60p.

however, i did notice in sainsburys yesterday that their own brand organic sliced 800g loaf, is only 79p. compared, to the likes of Kingsmill, etc. which were all over the £1 mark

hth Flea

thriftlady_2

My OH has just fallen about laughing :rotfl: He says 'can shop bought bread ever taste nice ?' He has been eating my homemade bread for years and now cannot stomach the bought stuff.

I'm always banging on about handbaking bread so here's a link to save me repeating myself.

In short, yes it can and does taste nice. Practice makes perfect It is definitely cheaper to make your own. Last time I costed mine out (before recent rises in the price of flour) it came to 25p per wholemeal loaf.

Homemade bread can be a bit difficult to slice thinly for sandwiches, and wholemeal gets crumbly. But, you can always make rolls instead.

A breadmaker does only make one loaf at a time, but you can get round this by not using a bm and handbaking 4 at once It's quicker than a bm too. Freeze what you can't eat immediately.

[Deleted User]

you should taste my hand made bread. It is well and truly fantastic. Find my recipe for no knead bread, I posted it a couple of days ago

Paulie'sGirl

I don't think my HM bnread tastes like Hovis, I think HM bread generally has a lot more flavour. I use a Nigel Slater recipe, slightly adapted.

1 kg Bread flour
2 sachets dried yeast
20g salt (I just use 1 teaspoons)
700ml warm water

Just throw the dry ingredients in a huge bowl.
Mix in the water until it comes together then knead on a floured work top for ten minutes.
Cover with a clean teatowel and balance on top of the boiler for 45 mins... Knock back and knead briefly then shape into a loaf, lay on floured baking sheet and cover again with tea towel.
Allow to rise again on top of boiler for 45 mins.
Bake at 250 for 10 mins then 220 til it looks golden and delicious and sounds hollow when tapped

Really, really easy

moanymoany

I love the dense thick wholemeal bread and make it using my Kenwood Chef. However I made some white rolls over Christmas and they turned out very like processed white bread.

I used Tesco white bread flour.

If you really can't give up bought bread, simply buy it. I think most of us have something that we don't do os, I have a few! Give yourself a break. It's all to do with choices - not compulsion.

moonrakerz

There are lots of threads about homemade bread on this site - the one thing that is most commonly suggested is - buy a Panasonic breadmaker !

I did - brilliant machine - shop bread - Yuk !

And try the lardy cake too.