The Key Ingredients That Are Required For A Fresh Loaf Of Bread
Everyone enjoys a fresh loaf of bread – the beautiful smell… and the taste…
But how many people that read this actually experience a fresh loaf of bread?
But we are still only talking to the people who have actually read this or visited our bread blog – what about the others who have yet to read this bread blog or who may not be interested?? ?
Why Not Make Our Own Fresh Loaf Of Bread?
When we explain to people we are into making our own homemade bread people often reply by telling me that they wish they could bake their own homemade bread too but it just seems too complicated. In actual fact the baking of our own homemade bread is the easiest thing you can do in the kitchen.
The Basic Ingredients Necessary For A Fresh Loaf Of Bread
Your basic bread recipe is just made up from four leading ingredients:
Flour
Water
Yeast
Salt
And that’s it!
This is a simple recipe to make your own homemade bread and you can say you found it here on our bread blog.
It sounds too simple – but we can make it even more simple by providing you with our breadmaker tip – we have a Breadman TR-2500tr bread maker to do all the ‘hard’ work.
There are many different types of bread you can make and you can prepare pizza bases, make your own buns and donuts and almost any bread based ’substance’ with a Breadman TR-2500 bread maker - but you can also do it all by hand if you have the time.
Every one of the ingredients in the process of making bread serves a distinct purpose. When you understand what each ingredient contributes and what is occurring in each step of the process you will feel liberated to experiment and create your own recipes.
There are even methods to cut out at least two of those basic ingredients (yeast and salt), but the end product is unlikely to come out tasting like a typical loaf of bread.
Understanding Ingredients That Make Our Fresh Loaf Of Bread
Flour
There are different type’s different types of flour for bread making.
They can be made from different grains, from different types of wheat, bleached and unbleached flour, enriched flour, blended flours, whole grain flours etc but you can actually start with your basic all-purpose flour for bread making.
Don’t let all this put you off!
Realize that your standard grocery store has a blend of all-purpose flour that comes in a ten pound bag for under two dollars and is a good enough flour for bread making – it will produce an excellent fresh loaf of bread.
It is probably higher quality than the flour that many of the bakers throughout history have ever gotten their hands on and some of them are now in the history books for making bread … you should be happy making your fresh loaf of bread from what you can get cheaply and locally.
For some diets you may need to use specific flour such as spelt flour.
Flour forms the basis of a fresh loaf of homemade bread – for any type of bread!
Bread Needs Water
You can always find some of this around the house, can’t you?
Water activates the yeast and dissolves the other ingredients.
Adding more water results is a stickier, flatter loaf with less regular holes in it, like a Ciabatta but too little water can restrict the expansion of the dough and results in a tight, dry, hard loaf.
Different Yeast Used In Making Bread
Basic Instant Yeast
Basic Instant Yeast (also known as Bread Machine Yeast) can normally be purchased from the grocery store and comes in little packets which are good enough for most of us who want to make bread at home.
Active Dry Yeast
Active Dry Yeast is also commonly found in your local grocery store. It needs to be activated by pouring it in warm water prior to mixing it into the dough so make sure you read the back of the packet before adding it to your mixture.
What Does Yeast Do?
Simply it is the yeast that causes the dough to rise.
Adding more yeast will cause the loaf to rise more quickly but also be aware that adding too much yeast can affect the taste in your loaf.
A teaspoon or two of yeast for each loaf is typical in most bread recipes. Remember you will need to be more exact when making bread in a breadmaker as the breadmaker recipies have been specifically written with the size of the breadmaker in mind.
Salt
Table salt works well enough.
Sea salt tastes slightly better and you may want to use sea salt if you have some, but it isn’t worth buying sea salt just for your bread baking, or at least not for your first fresh loaf.
Use whatever table salt you’ve got in your kitchen.
Salt retards the yeast and helps the control of the fermentation process. It also helps the flavor that most of us like in even basic bread recipes.
These are the basic ingredients used when making a fresh loaf of homemade bread.
Further ingredients add flavor and complexity to your bread.
When you understand the way these four main ingredients function you can look at any recipe and realize that the basic rules of how bread works don’t change.
There are many additional ingredients that can be used to make different types of bread, but to make a basic fresh loaf of bread using a white bread recipe and that tastes great you can stick to these basic four ingredients.
Making a fresh loaf of homemade bread is really quite easy. We hope you have enjoyed reading what we shared here on our bread blog and also hope you will share this bread blog with others and come back again soon.
What are you waiting for – get to the kitchen to make your fresh loaf!