handmade bread

northwest1965

I went to see one of my customers today, she was previously a Home Economics teacher and I told her about my breadmaking. She said if anyone wants to speed up the process, put in a vitamin c tablet!

zippychick

I think the vitamin c helps rise the bread especially where wholemeal or brown flour is involved - it helps the yeast work harder i think. There are quite a few threads on it i can look up if you want?

I have used it when using the BM, but only tried one brown loaf HM - and it worked fine without it.

Some on here say it makes a difference, some see it as an unecessary cost

I am sure she was impressed with your HM bread stories he he!

marmalize

zippychick wrote: »

:rotfl:be warned, it is addictive!

and theres nothing to compare to the fabulousness of the first crusty slice slathered in Lurpak...:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Thriftlady, try some (red) grapes in to get the starter going. There are natural yeasts on the skins

If you want a sourdough starter to wake up and get busy quickly after storage then mix with lukewarm water and 000 flour. I never throw any starter out, I always save some in the fridge and make flatbreads with any that should be taken out of the jar. I always keep two starter samples in the fridge, one is at least 6 months old but that is my back up

My starter was woken up 2 days ago and I am in the process of feeding it more flour and water every day, tap water is fine. It will be ready to bake in a day or two. The very best result for me is in a closed, hot, pot in a very hot oven and the dough just whooshes up. A fan oven doesn`t give brilliant results on its own but I get pretty good results using a very thick bakestone and steam. Its hard to try and replicate the old fashioned bread oven. My bread tends to be about 4 lb in weight but I measure nothing, except the salt.

I personally don`t like to get this type of bread ready too fast so I use a fridge when I want to slow it down or for it to fit in with my plans. Tomorrow I will start to stretch and fold using more flour and thats pretty well it

thriftlady_2

Thanks for that Kittie. Lots of useful stuff;):T

trixietoes

I couldn't wait and made the rolls today - they are lovely. Much lighter than previous attempts and taste a bit better too.

As I am an impatient person I put the dough in the oven on 50 degrees with the door open to speed up the 1st rising, it took about 1hr instead of 1.5hrs. Then made the rolls (or squares as they ended up as) put them on the tray and back in the oven to prove with a damp cloth over them.

When I was happy with the size I just closed the door and turned up the temp to 220 degrees for 15 mins (mine too were in the middle of the oven) I read somewhere on here that the time the oven takes to warm up just adds a little more proving time.

They came out great. Now I am going to get fatter eating all this bread LOL

Thank you everyone for the help xx

Rossy2692

Right folks,

I made the OP bread yesterday and I have a query: I did everything to the letter, the bread rose beautifully, tastes nice but this is the thing, to me its not like 'bread' it is more like a crumpet texture, does anyone else think this??? Is it supposed to be like this????

thriftlady_2

My sour dough starter is evolving. Beginning of day 3 now and it has changed from looking like floury silt with water sitting on top of it to a bubbling mass. It will be few days yet before it is ready to use, I'm getting quite excited now:D

trixietoes

Rossy - I tried that recipe too - it was one of my distasters - I had 3 all different recipes.

The recipe Penny gave a link too was good.

My bread doesn't have the texture of shop bought it is denser (sp) but not like crumpets... mmmmm crumpets I have a recipe for them.... they may be the next project... after Nann, Chapati and Pitta that is.

Don't give up though, maybe try a different recipe see how that goes.

TrixieB

I have a breadmaker, never really got on with it, and now it's !!!!!!ed anyway as I left the pan to grow a green forest in it for a couple of months accidentally!
So I am trying it handmade stylee!

It's in the bowl, in the lounge as the fire is on, it's flipping cold today, am resisting the temptation to go and check it every 5 mins to see what it's doing!

Wish me luck *fingers crsossed*