Home made bread.

Hi,
Im putting this how to make bread for two reasons,
(1) reason is for the first time for ages i had a round of shop bought bread and not only did it not taste half as good as home made but it was not filling
hence you'd eat more of this rubbish bread and feel empty.

(2)
The second reason i wont to point out how simple it really is to make your own "but" more important the little tricks you need to know about to have the making and end result perfect.

So, Lets clear a few little but very important things up before we even start to make bread.

Your tools for the job and how they need to be and why!
Clear & clean working area,
Mixing bowl, must be clean/dry and large enough to work in ie you'll be mixing by hand and so need space to mix the flour and then let it rise to twice its size.
make sure your bowl plastic/metal/ OR what ever is warm to use and not cold.

As in any baking the tools you use must be of room temp, and not cold as the cold can cause the mixing to not mix true & end up with the likes of butter/fat yeast etc being lumpy.

You'll need scales
A sieve
jug, for water and milk,
"Tea spoon" for sugar and salt

Cup and a pastry brush,

And a metal oven cake tin or if you want to shape your bread "a very clean clay plant pot" or oven metal tray.

Ingridents.
2pounds of (in this case) white plain flour "you can use bread flour" but ord/plain flour works well and is cheaper.

3OZ of unsalted butter (again fully salted butter can be used but wer'e told to cut down on salt hence unsalted)
3 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar (white)
1 & 1/2 oz of fresh yeast (you can buy cubes of yeast from the supermarket and these are as the norm one and a half oz size cubes. (CHECK USE BY DATE of the yeast)

Now this is we're the little tricks come in,

Take the yeast and crumble it into a jug thats just been washed in hot water dry and is now warm to touch, fill this jug with 1/2 a pint (half a pint) of warm "but not hot" clean water and crumble the yeast into this water, add the sugar (again room warm) and now using a wooden spoon stir, and then place jug in a warm place and leave it to start to rise (frothy) takes about 20/30 mins.
Note.
If the water or milk is to hot the yeast will die, it wont be able to do its job and your bread wont rise,
this is why its so important to use "warm" water / and later room temp, milk rather than cold.
Note, yeast is a bacteria and lives and multiplies in nice warm conditions,
the cold isn't the best condition for yeast to rise,

Now while your yeast is doing its job, your not finished yet,

flour and salt.

2Ib of flour and one Tea spoon of salt are to be fed into your clean dry and warm mixing bowl,

Important tip
The flour must be aired into the mixing bowl, use a sieve raised about 6/8 inches above the bowl and feed the flour & salt through the sieve so that it lands in the bowl very light,
Butter.
Again not stone cold or hard as rock, just nice to cut into small cubes and let these cubes fall into the bowl as spread out as much as you can,

Mixing,
clean hands are the order of the day here, rings off!

Start to mix the butter/flour/salt by just feeling the butter through touch and continue turning the flour etc until you feel the butter is not a pile of lumps,

Yeast/milk,
Its now time to have 1/2 a pint of warm rather than cold milk to hand,
But first if the yeast has shown signs of a froth at the top of your jug!
it can be added to the flour/butter & salt mix,
Just make a little space in the middle of the flour and pour in the yeast,
you can use a little of your milk to make sure your yeast jug is empty of any yeast that may have stuck to the bottom of the jug.
Fold your flour mix over the yeast pool and now add your milk,

Get stuck in.
Now's the time to start to use your hands and mix all you have in your mixing bowl by just folding and rolling the contents together,
this will take a few minutes to do but you'll soon feel and see the mix looking like a huge ball,

Floured rolling bourd,

spread a little plain flour onto your bourd or flat "clean work top".
"not to much flour"
and take the contents of your mixing bowl and start to roll and squeez and press as you work as much "Air" out of the mix as you can,

Do this for a few minutes and then return the mix (in a ball shape) to the mixing bowl cover with a "t" towel thats been rinsed in warm water and leave the bowl in a warm room temp,

Wash and clean all the tools etc you've used and enjoy a nice cuppa.

APPROX 30min,
The bread mix should have doubled its size and once again it has to have the "AIR" rolled out of it,
But first,!!!!!!!!

The oven also needs to be turned on and pre heated before the bread enters it via the middle shelf of the oven, so turn the oven on a high setting to heat it up and then reduce to a setting of gas 4 electri 425°F
Have your bread tin ready (no need to use greasing) or just use a flat oven tray or if you want to show off to the neighbours use a clay plant pot,

Now nead (roll the air out of the bread for the second and last time)
and place the dough in or on your baking devices,
place in the pre set oven and set the times for 30 mins

Tip
this time is an approx time as all ovens do differ a little but you can take a look around 30 mins and by tapping the bottom of the loaf you can tell if its baked, you'll hear and feel a hollow sound rather than a solid sound or take a sharp pointed meat prod and enter this to the centre of the loaf and check to see the result is not wet and sticky looking.

Stand the baked bread,

Now the breads out of the oven and the kitchen has that fresh baked smell about it It's time to stand the bread to cool,

Water and pastry brush ready.
Stand your bread on a wire try (i use the wire netted inner out of the toast tray)
Using warm water brush the top crust of the loaf now and you'll have a nice texture to your bread crust and it wont be like trying to chew rock.

Once the breads cooled down, cut yourself a nice slice add butter and you'll taste a fresh slice of fresh home made bread full of the good things used and i'll tell you this, you'll know the difference from shop bought and home made.

Once you've made one home made loaf, you'll soon get to know how much of everything you need / the setting for the cooker and the time it takes to cook and you'll see its not that time consuming as you may think,
Good baking and eating to you all