Almost legendary thing, fanned by the spirit of antiquity and fairy tales - hearth bread. What is this, however, not everyone knows. Most people have a vague feeling that it is something tasty, homemade, with a touch of comfort. However, it is believed that the baking of such bread requires that the real Russian oven. So in modern realities, they say, they will not succeed in tasting hearth bread . Unless someone else had a grandmother in the village, where they had not yet reached the gas, and where the master stove-makers remained.
Let's say right away: this is a culinary delusion. You can even bake the same, legendary hearth bread in an ordinary gas stove at home. What it is and how it is made, we will tell in this article. Not only that, we offer a choice of several recipes, having mastered which, about store loaves you will no longer remember.
Hearth bread - what is it?
Those rolls and loafs that we buy every day are officially called “shaped bread”. The name also contains a clue to the way in which it is prepared: the dough is laid out in special forms, in which it is sent to the oven. As for the hearth bread, it does not need forms: it is baked on a flat surface, and it gains volume and forms its appearance. In those days, when Russian ovens were the only devices for heating and cooking, their floor, on which the dough pieces were laid out, was called under. The corresponding "name" has received and baking.
Properties of Hearth Bread
Compared to the molded, “old” bread was dense. With this method of baking, the dough gave out more water. Accordingly, it was hearth bread that was most nutritious with calorie content . Its use from this point of view for modern people is somewhat doubtful: everyone is losing weight, counting calories and dieting. However, you can restrict yourself to a smaller chunk, but get a lot of good with it: the hearth loaf is rich in antioxidants (and they have a beneficial effect on the skin and digestion), macroelements (sulfur, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus) and trace elements (zinc, iron, manganese, copper). In addition, it reduces the level of glucose in the blood and helps in the restoration of cells of the nervous system. In addition, hearth bread stays fresh much longer.
How it was baked in the old days
There were a lot of bread secrets and sacraments, inherited. Some have been lost forever, some have become the common property. Here are some of them.
- Fundamentally important was the vault of the oven: low and round, it allowed the loaf to rise steeper and cook better. This secret became known, and now the hearth stoves are made low, with a steep arch and ceramic floor.
- Wheat billets were cut (sometimes with a net), and rye or from a mixture of different flours were punctured. Thanks to such tricks, the excess air from the dough simply evaporated instead of tearing the crust or fanning the bread, making it hollow inside.
- Real hearth bread should be flavorful. And the housewives lined the stove floor with leaves, most often cabbage or oak, or spicy herbs.
- The key to successful baking of hearth bread is a well-heated oven. It is required to heat it up to two hundred degrees and only then plant the blanks there.
Having such small tips before your eyes, even without a special oven, it’s quite possible to cook up delicious and fragrant hearth homemade bread. What is it, we said, it's time to move on to practice.
Mustard bread
If this is your first time preparing a hearth bread, take the simplest recipe for starters. And let the flour for the first time be the most familiar - wheat. And for piquancy and domestic spirit, replace the water with pickle pickles (preferably your ambassador, without vinegar). If there is a bread machine, there will be no problems with kneading at all. A quarter kilogram of flour, a spoonful of live yeast, two tablespoons of mustard (bread makes it even more delicious) and a little more than half a glass of strained brine are put in the apparatus. When the bread machine finishes the kneading process, the dough is laid out on baking parchment, which spreads the baking sheet, and is sent to the slightly heated (not higher than thirty degrees) oven for parting. In the summer, when the heat in the kitchen, you can leave the future loaf just on the table. An hour later, its shape improves, if necessary, the temperature in the oven is brought to 180 degrees, and the bread is put on baking. After an hour, you can get it. But it is better to try bread the next day, so it will become even tastier.
Wheat bread with bran
This is just a godsend for those who prefer to eat right and wholesome. The only hitch is to find wheat bran, but persistent ones can easily cope with it. One and a half kilograms of this valuable product is salted with two tablespoons of large, sea salt, salt, covered with something and put into heat. Two yeast cubes crumble, fill with water (a little), supplemented with a quarter kilogram of flour and a spoonful of sugar and roam for half an hour under the lid. Then the leaven is poured into the bran along with the remainder of the water (its total volume is a liter), and everything is whipped together until the bubbles go. The bowl is covered again and left warm for three quarters of an hour. Then the dough is kneaded, two round loaves are formed , which are transferred to the laid out oven sheet and again come up for half an hour. Then, shallow cruciform incisions are made on the loaves, the tops are lubricated with milk, and the workpiece is sent to the oven for 50 minutes with a temperature of 220 degrees Celsius. This recipe for hearth bread allows you to get very lush and healthy loaves.