"I actually haven't ever made bread before and I'm pretty sure that I'll have to make it a dozen times or so before getting it right, but I don't know where to start. I thought if you had a recipe that is reliable, it'd be worth a shot for me to try it.
Any thoughts? Also, I don't have a mixer...is that a problem? Have you ever had to actually knead dough?"
I haven't made bread all that much myself yet either! The recipe that I used the other day was great, but I did use my Bosch mixer to knead the dough. You can knead dough by hand, in a mixer, or in a bread machine with the same recipe. I have used my bread machine before to knead the dough and then I dump it out and bake it in the oven. Bread machines can be found inexpensively at garage sales or on craigslist, so that might be a good option if you don't want to knead dough by hand all the time.
The recipe that I used recently for whole wheat bread was from A Beginner's Guide To Baking Bread. This is a great e-book with lots of tips on bread baking and getting started.
My library has this dvd on baking bread so I'm going to check that out soon.
Here is a great tutorial on bread making with a video on kneading dough. I haven't tried this recipe, but it looks very similar to what I've used.
A reader shared her bread recipe with me in the comments on this post.
And another recipe with tips on how to bake bread. She also answers questions in the comments section.
Have fun!
(linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays)
I have made bread the old school way many times. It's a little daunting at first to knead by hand, but trust me, the more you do it the easier and quicker it gets. You'll have some less than perfect loaves every once in awhile, but it's exciting to wait and see what will happen. So I guess I just want to encourage anyone who doesn't want to spend money on a machine just yet that it can be done without it. :)
ReplyDeleteBread machines are nice because they do all the timing for you too. So you don't have to stop what you are doing. My only critique against the bread machines are the metals that can go into your bread from the pan.
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