Homemade bread, which can be prepared according to various recipes, is considered one of the most delicious dishes. Its composition allows you to diversify the menu, including unusual and healthy ingredients during cooking. Delicious home-baked bread will become a signature dish, fill the house with its aroma and create a unique atmosphere of coziness and comfort.
Cooking flour
For those who are just starting to practice this interesting and enjoyable business, there are many quick and easy options. For those who already have experience with this type of cooking and can afford to add variety to their familiar ingredients, components are offered that are amazing in taste and degree of usefulness.
However, the initial composition of home-made bread dough includes a number of products that are used almost always, and among them - flour. She is the main component of any test.
Any flour can be used for baking: wheat, corn, rye, buckwheat, barley, oatmeal or a mixture of types and grindings. Different types of this ingredient allow you to get different taste shades, increase the degree of value in terms of the final product.
Yeast and Sourdough
Yeast is a must in most bread recipes. At home, the baking of this product is performed with them most often, since it is with their help that the dough rises, the final product acquires the necessary splendor and porosity. Yeast can be dry or fresh, the choice depends on the hostess's preferences and the expected result.
Souring options are very diverse. There may be more than a hundred, they differ in the type of the main product, a combination of additional ingredients.
For example, the greatest use in baking was found by such components for the preparation of this product as kefir, barley, malt, raisins, hops, wheat. Sourdough bread baked at home acquires an exquisite aroma, the vital activity of yeast is activated, vitamins and nutrients are preserved.
Homemade bread differs significantly from the store counterpart, as it has an excellent taste, is healthy and has a long-lasting tantalizing aroma.
Cooking secrets
The process of making flavored pastries, sourdough and dough for bread at home has a number of features, so recipes and cooking methods can vary significantly depending on the option chosen.
Sometimes professional chefs share a number of secrets that make it easier to cook bread at home. There are relatively few of them, but following them will save time, properly approach the process of choosing the type of sourdough, baking methods and preserving the finished product.
Next, we will share several secrets on how to make bread at home, which we managed to get from baking masters.
Secret # 1: making dough
Any type of test should be prepared strictly according to the selected recipe. What is suitable for one cooking option may not be relevant for another; therefore, it is recommended that you select the practical subtleties individually.
The main task when baking bread at home is to obtain a magnificent, attractive and appetizing product. This can be achieved by following the rules in the dough preparation process:
- the consistency should be dense;
- the dough should not stick to hands during its final kneading;
- if, following the complete step-by-step instructions, the dough continues to be inelastic, sticky to your hands, you need to add as much flour as the dough requires.
These rules will improve the appearance of the finished product and its taste.
Secret number 2: test preparation
To improve the taste of home-baked bread in the oven, as well as to increase the duration of its storage, professionals advise to allow the dough to stand for some time before baking.
Laid out in a mold, covered with a towel, the finished dough will “rest”, be saturated with oxygen, which will make the product more magnificent, appetizing. The standing time of the finished dough can be different - on average it is fifteen minutes, after which the form is installed in a preheated oven.
Secret No. 3: baking and keeping fresh
Since the finished dough is quite dense in its consistency, it is recommended to thoroughly preheat the oven and even the form in which the bread will be cooked for a more uniform baking. This will make it possible to avoid uncooked patches and raw lumps of dough in a finished loaf.
One of the attractive qualities of freshly prepared bread should be considered a crispy crust. And to make it when making bread at home in the oven, you need to hold the finished loaf for some time (about 15 minutes) in the off, but still hot appliance.
In order to keep the finished bread fresh for a long time, to prevent it from drying out prematurely, professionals advise to lightly sprinkle it with water and cover it with a clean towel after removing the loaf from the oven.
Classic Dough Ingredients
Beginners can be recommended a method how to cook bread at home, which is the easiest to perform, does not require special kneading dough and at the same time gives an excellent result - lush bread with a golden brown crust, much tastier than that purchased in the store.
For its manufacture, the following products will be required:
- loose sugar - four tsp;
- flour - 4 full glasses of 250 ml;
- yeast (preferably dry) - 2 tsp;
- filtered water - two glasses;
- table salt - two tsp.
Easy bread making
In the general case, the process of baking bread for all recipes is similar and can differ only in the duration of some stages. Baking bread at home according to this recipe is the simplest technique and will allow novice chefs to test their strength and gain experience.
The sequence of actions is as follows:
- First, water is heated, then sugar and yeast are dissolved in it.
- After insisting the prepared solution for fifteen minutes, it is thoroughly mixed, filtered, salt and flour are added, previously sifted. From these components, a thick, viscous dough is kneaded, which is left to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes.
- The oven warms up to 30 ° C, put in it a container with dough, covered with a lid. The residence time of the finished test in the oven is determined until it triples in size (about 2 hours).
- Now the mold is put in an oven with a temperature of 220 ° C, baked for 10-17 minutes, then the temperature is reduced to 180 ° C, and the process continues for another 30 minutes.
After turning off the finished loaf for some time, leave it in the oven, then remove the bread, cover it with a clean towel and allow to cool.
Rye bread with garlic
Professionals suggest using original techniques for baking at home. The recipe for rye bread can be varied by adding garlic to it, which will add a special flavor and turn ordinary bread into a real table decoration and an original snack.
The components of the test should be taken as follows:
- rye flour - 300 grams;
- vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l .;
- water and wheat flour - 400 g each;
- salt - 2 tsp;
- brown or white sugar - 3 tsp;
- garlic, depending on preferences - 5-8 cloves;
- yeast (better than dry) - 2 tsp.
If you want to cook bread at home without sourdough, pastries according to this recipe will do just fine.
The manufacturing technology of this product is also simple and can be carried out using the simple baking method described previously, but with some adjustments: the garlic is crushed and added to the sifted flour, and the baking time is increased to 35-45 minutes.
Kefir yeast-free bread
The lack of yeast in the recipe makes the finished bread more useful, while the degree of porosity of the crumb does not decrease, the taste remains soft. To improve the baking of such bread, it is recommended to make several cuts on the crust during its preparation.
The recipe includes the following components:
- wheat flour of the first or highest grade - 500 g;
- sugar and salt - 2 tsp;
- medium fat kefir - 150 ml;
- filtered water - 210 ml.
The process of making bread at home looks like this:
- 85 g of flour and sugar are added to kefir, all are thoroughly mixed.
- The composition is left under cling film for a day.
- After that, in the pre-sifted remaining flour, you need to add the obtained yeast and salt, thoroughly mixing with your hands.
- Lubricate the mold with oil, crush with flour and put the resulting dough.
- A baking sheet, also oiled, is placed on top.
- The dough is shaped like a loaf, covered with a cloth on top and put in an unheated oven.
- After 3.5 hours, the dough is thoroughly mixed again, then again formed in the form of a loaf and left in the cold oven for another 25 minutes.
- Now the oven warms up to 220 ° C, the bread is baked for 17-20 minutes, then the temperature is reduced to 180 ° C, and baking lasts another 30 minutes.
- Next, the upper parchment is removed, the finished product remains in the oven off for another 11 minutes.
Sourdough white bread
The preparation of white bread at home using sourdough is carried out according to a similar method, but the recipe may vary slightly depending on the wishes of the cook: components can be added that improve the taste of the final dish and increase its biological value.
It:
- raisins;
- dates;
- prunes
- nuts (peanut, walnuts - chopped and added to the dough);
- seeds (flaxseed, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin).
Sourdough has long been considered the most healthy option for making bread, since yeast, which can disrupt the intestinal microflora, is not used.
A feature of the considered bread recipe at home is the simplicity of preparing the starter culture: it only needs wheat flour and water.
Ingredients for cooking:
- water - 300 g;
- first-class wheat flour - 500 g;
- whole grain flour of any kind - 150 g;
- salt and sugar - 1 teaspoon;
- 1 tbsp. l refined sunflower oil.
Sequencing:
- Water (50 ml) should be heated, poured into a deep bowl. Add flour (150 g), knead the dough. The resulting sourdough is poured into a plastic container, covered with cling film and put in heat for 3 days.
- After the elapsed time, remove the film, discard the top layer of the starter culture: only its middle part is used. A similar volume of flour and water is added to the dough again. After kneading, the mass is left warm for 12 hours.
- Then the upper part of the dough is removed, the same ingredients are added to it again in the same amount, the dough is kneaded and left to warm for an hour.
- Now the remaining components are added. The dough is divided into 2 equal parts, from which oblong loaves are formed like baguette, cuts are made on their surface for better baking.
Bread is baked on oiled paper for 15 minutes, temperature - 220 ° C, then - 35-45 minutes at 160 ° C.
Borodino bread
At home, the preparation of such a product is considered quite complicated, so beginners need some practical preparation.
First, prepare rye sourdough:
- Four tbsp. l heat water to 50 ° C and add the same amount of rye flour, stir thoroughly. Leave the mixture warm for 24 hours.
- Then add to the solution two tbsp. l warm water, stir and keep warm for 3-4 days, covered with gauze. Mix in the morning and evening.
- After the appearance of a pleasant smell, the leaven is ready.
To make Borodino bread at home, you need to take:
- fermented malt - 25 g;
- sifted rye flour - 75 g;
- ground coriander - 1 tsp;
- filtered water - 250 ml.
Components for the test:
- coriander for sprinkling - 10 g;
- second-grade wheat flour - 75 g;
- molasses - 20 g;
- salt - 1 tsp;
- purified water - 55 ml;
- rye flour - 250 g;
- sugar - 3 tbsp. l .;
- previously prepared sourdough - 155 g.
The sequence of steps for making Borodino bread at home is almost the same as described for white bread. The only addition is to get the tea leaves: the flour is mixed with coriander and malt, poured with boiling water and left, wrapped, for two hours in a warm place.
Next, from the tea leaves, water, sugar, salt and molasses, knead the dough and leave it covered for three and a half hours. Then it is put in a greased form for another couple of hours.
Before baking, coriander is sprinkled on top of the mold and sent to the oven preheated to 220 ° C for 20 minutes. Then the temperature is reduced by 20 ° C and the product continues to bake for another hour.
The finished bread is taken out and covered with a cloth until it cools. Delicious product is ready!