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Bread aka Things That Make You Go "Dough!"

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Since Chef John posted pretzels this past week, I decided to try my hand at lye bread. First time! Pretzels ended up a bit small and slightly lumpy, but apart from that, exactly like I would’ve wanted. Also: not hard to do at all, just a little more work because of dumping them in the lye before baking.
 
Check out my buns. Made these for thanksgiving yesterday.

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I just want to pop into this thread and say that I love all y'all's buns.

(I should try making bread sometime. Maybe this is how I get around the "no one does döner in a bread pocket here" cravings.)
 
So, since it's december, let's go nuts and start the cookie factory... also while the oven is hot, why not throw a tiny little sourdough 15% whole weat thing in there. look at that thing, that exploded real nice! i am shocked myself :D

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NEXT!
Tried my hand at panettone and after failing miserably (and predictably) the first time round, I decided to go again for mini muffin panettone’s. Not quite the right texture*, but the flavors are all there and they look the part, as well. So yay and let’s never do that again ever!
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* still mostly made of air, so that’s alright! That’s about 15 muffin sized panettone from 200g of flour (maybe 220 if we count the sourdough starter).
 
WHAT IS THIS travesty last post 1 year old!??!!?!?!?
still regularly baking bread over here, mostly in a regular loaf pan, because that just cuts and freezes much easier than the admittedly better looking boules.

anyhoo, todays bake I sort of forgot about... so it stayed in the oven for 1.45h - so a good 45min longer than planned. but apart from a rather more crunchy crust (actually good, because that suffers a bit during freezing) it was perfectly fine! also, since our scales are sort of screwed, i made the dough entirely by feel and eyeballed all the ingredients... worked out fine somehow.

also new oven! still with steam, haven't used that yet, though...

oh yes... also made cookies. 4 kinds so far. may do some more tonight. basically just scroll up to see what's happening lol. so yeah, i guess this was an entirely pointless post :p
 
Second try at bread  looked a little nicer...but I realized I used active dry yeast instead of instant, so the tiny amount I used couldn't overcome the whole wheat flour i added to the mix this time, and the loaf ended up pretty flat.

Next time I either need to use way more yeast, or buy another package, instant this time. The Active Dry is what my fococcia recipe calls for, though, so maybe I'll just use more of it instead of having two kinds hanging around.

This time, instead of dusting it with all appeared flour, I subbed in some masa harina (think something in between corn flour and cornmeal). Smelled lovely when baking, but didn't add much. After I get a couple more successful loaves under my belt, maybe I'll pick up some cornmeal, or maybe semolina.

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I tried my hand at making cinnamon rolls from scratch, based off of my aunt Carolyn's (RIP) recipe. By recipe I mean it was more of a loose set of instructions. It starts with making her dinner roll recipe, then adding butter, sugar and cinnamon. I muddled through it to make something that's edible, but nowhere near what she made. Things I learned, more cinnamon, more sugar, they were sweet, but not sweet enough. Don't roll the dough so thin (hers where very, very large, at least twice the size of what I came up with). Make sure your active yeast is in date. I had Mrs. CraigB pick up a pack when she was at the grocery store, it was a week out of date already. It foamed, but I didn't get the big bubbles I needed. Felt sort of dense compared to what it should have been. I'll try again when I get time.

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My experience with yeast has always been that it’s much more important to just wait for the desired doubling in size that’s typically called for rather than to follow any times given in any recipe. Also: less yeast and more time will always make for a tastier result… it just means having to wait and pay attention for potentially much longer. Also: I’ve been using yeast that’s well past it’s best before for years and never had issues… but maybe fresh yeast is different to dry in this regard…

anyhoooo Christmas Eve haul from me, two rather short but fat baguette style things, one with some rye and nuts and grains. Also for dessert, pasteis de nata 😍
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calvinhobbes said:
View attachment 3568077

Behold my first ever attempt at baguettes. The recipe failed to mention whether or not to use the convection fan and I am unfamiliar with this oven, so I hope they’re cooked through.
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Do you have a food thermometer? As long as you hit just north of 200°F/93°C, that seems to be the target for most bread recipes I've seen. Beng able to check that helped me not overcook my last one to the point where the crust was unpleasantly hard.
 
I call this latest loaf, "The 45".

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This is a no-knead, dutch-oven-cooked white bread. It starts with 3 cups flour. Would there be any issue with increasing the ingredients proportionally and making it a 4-cup equivalent?
 
NecroJoe said:
Do you have a food thermometer? As long as you hit just north of 200°F/93°C, that seems to be the target for most bread recipes I've seen. Beng able to check that helped me not overcook my last one to the point where the crust was unpleasantly hard.
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I do, but I don’t think my parents do and it was their new oven that I was using.

The baguettes were perfectly fine; this was the first time I’ve actually sat in front of the oven and watched something bake and it was a good call.

The ingredients are just flour, water, yeast, salt and time, by the way.
 
NecroJoe said:
I call this latest loaf, "The 45".

View attachment 3568125

This is a no-knead, dutch-oven-cooked white bread. It starts with 3 cups flour. Would there be any issue with increasing the ingredients proportionally and making it a 4-cup equivalent?
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That certainly looks interesting! 😂 As for increasing it, I would do so proportionally apart from the yeast. Instead, I’d let it proof a bit longer and perhaps colder.
 
calvinhobbes said:
As for increasing it, I would do so proportionally apart from the yeast.
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Yes on all - yeast is a bit of a personal preference thing (less yeats = more time etc.). That's why a bunch of bread recipes are often times expressed in bakers percentages, i. e. all ingredients are expressed as a % of total flour weight... stealing the example straight from wikipedia here:
flour​
100%
water​
60%
yeast​
1%
salt​
2%
oil​
1%

edit: take in mind this is all weight-based, as volume is not a reliable measurement for something like flour, salt, etc.
 
The last time I let my dough rise longer than 18-20 hours, the surface got super dry, and the bread barely rose. The bowl was covered tightly with clang wrap, but maybe the wrap had to be pushed down on top of the dough?

The down-side to these no-knead breads is that the bread is less stretchy-chewy and more spongey-bouncy. The only ones I've made have ben strictly flour, water, yeast and salt. J. Kenji has a version with vinegar. I wonder if that's just a flavor difference, or if it improves the texture at all...
 
Anyone still bake anything here? 😜
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I’m still of the opinion that pizza is just a very certain type of sandwich, technically… 🙈 don’t tell any Italian please
 
narf said:
I'm sorry, but pizza is toast.
Structural starch at the bottom only, a sandwich would require a second layer.
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Ah, I was not aware of the requirement… so you’re saying an open faced sandwich does not technically exist and should be called toast? Fair enough!

Huh, checking Wikipedia: German version says 2 or more slices of bread with filling in between, English entry is more lenient:
[…] or placed on a slice of bread, or more generally any dish in which bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type.
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