YOU TOO Can Bake Bread
As you prepare to begin your exciting, bread-making adventure, four Grit bloggers offer advice and outstanding variations on traditional bread recipes. These bread makers and lovers will guide you through making deliciously, flavorful Stromboli, stove-top English muffins, health-conscious zucchini bread, and yummy whole-grain artisan bread.
12 Steps for Troubleshooting Bread Dough
By Loretta Sorensen
If you’re just beginning your bread baking adventures, you may benefit from understanding a few basic facts about what contributes to producing a satisfactory loaf.
These basic principles are true of nearly all types of yeast breads.
1. You must use fresh ingredients to achieve optimum results. This is true of nearly any type of recipe, but don’t sabotage your baking efforts by using flour or yeast that is more than one year old. If either of these ingredients hasn’t been stored correctly, it will have an undesirable taste and will likely not rise or bake as fresher ingredients will.
2. Yeast thrives in a temperature range between 105 and 110degrees Fahrenheit. It will function down to a temperature of 90 degrees. However, its activity will be much slower, and it’s not nearly as likely to reach its potential for boosting your final bread rise. Use a digital thermometer (or any household thermometer) to warm your recipe liquid to this range.
3. Temperatures over 115 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the yeast. This is desirable during baking, but not as the dough rises.
4. When salt comes in direct contact with yeast, the yeast dies. Your bread requires salt as part of the rising process. So blend the salt with the flour to avoid direct contact with the yeast.
5. Gluten in your flour is involved in your bread’s rise and the final texture of your loaf. It needs to be activated by the action of kneading. You can use a bread machine, mixer, or knead by hand.
6. The advantages of a bread machine include the fact that you can prepare and add all your ingredients
