Bread baking is both deceptively simple. It’s just water, flour, salt, and yeast, after all. But also deceptively complex to master. Here are all the simple bread baking questions I’ve had as I learned more and gained more experience in baking good bread in a home oven.
Let’s get started, bread baking answers and better home baked bread awaits.
Cheese and bread. Can you find better friends? Okay, maybe cookies and milk but still, cheese and bread have been besties for a serious long time. And they show no signs of getting tired of each other. They work great in the traditional no knead recipe. This is another simple, easy, foolproof bread recipe that is great at using up various nubs of fridge deli drawer cheese. Take it up a notch by throwing in some age spice cabinet herbs and you really have a party.
If you want to step up your bread baking game beyond the no knead variety, but don’t have the time or confidence to cultivate a sourdough starter quite yet you might consider trying baking a loaf with an overnight poolish.
A poolish is a mixture of flour and water and a small amount of yeast. You let the pre-ferment or poolish sit overnight and then add it to the rest of the ingredients in the morning.
This small, simple step can add big flavor to your bread. It only takes a few minutes the night prior and will definitely pay off with big flavor in the final loaf.
The vast majority of the no knead bread recipes breaking the internet are for round artisan loaves. What if you want an equally easy, fool proof recipe but instead of a thick crusted slab to sop up soup or sauce, you want to make a sandwich? Is there a simple, no knead foolproof sandwich loaf bread recipe?
Yes, it exists and it’s simple and easy. It’s a great recipe to bake with kids. Best of all, the finished loaf tastes great, looks great, uses one bowl, freezes well, and works well with different add-ins.
If my text messages or website traffic are any indication, people are rediscovering, or at least trying, the joys (and some frustrations!) of baking homemade bread and pizza during the quarantine. Nothing could make me happier. I’m filling up my freezer with lots of anxiety baking. It might not help my waistline but it is helping my mental health during these strange times.
As a veteran home baker, here are my favorite links and resources to help you succeed in making your own homebaked bread or pizza.
One of my favorite products at Trader Joe’s is the naan flatbreads. Perfect to pop in the toaster and have warm, tasty bread ready on a weeknight to accompany a stir-fry or some Indian. But sometimes the freezer or empty or you get it in your head that it’s silly to buy something when it’s almost just as easy (and just as tasty) to make it yourself.
I’ll admit these aren’t quite as fast as my favorite 1 hour dinner rolls, but they don’t take all that much longer either. Give it a shot if you have a little extra time on the weekend to add fresh flatbreads to your dinner spread. They also make great small grilled pizzas, too!
Why did my bread come out so dense? When people start to learn to make bread that is often the most common question. Unfortunately, it is also one of the hardest ones to answer. On one hand, bread baking is so simple. Flour, water, salt, yeast. It really is very easy to bake a loaf of bread at home. What’s hard is to bake a consistently good loaf at home.
