Bread

For baking breads you often use ingredients like flour, sugar, baking powder, yeast, oil, milk, eggs, seeds, kernels and nuts.

Temperature is of importance, follow the recipe and set your oven correctly. You can find available thermometers for use in ovens.

Speaking about flours there are many different types. Well-known are rye, wheat, barley and oats. Here I will just touch the wheat and rye. Because they are the main ingredients in most breads. Where rye, maybe mostly is a favorite in the Scandinavian countries.

You can buy whole grain, durum, spelt, plain wheat containing different amounts of protein. A good bread with a good crust is generally made with high level protein (12% or above). Where wheat for baking cakes often is best with lower levels of protein. (10% or below). Useful is the type named Italian Pizza Flour. It is suitable for guess it; pizza, but also for more traditional breads of wheat. Supposedly giving a nice crust and crumb.

When you bake a bread of wheat, then you can do yourself a favor and trade in some of the flour (about a fourth) with whole grain. It is healthy and it does have a better taste. You can try other flour types from the actual huge selection that your local supermarkets have on stock. In recent days, a much more diverse selection of flour is on the mark . Old, ancient, types or sorts of grains have been revitalized and is now common to be found in the shops. Also the plain wheat you can find ecological grown under many brand names. Things to add to your breads are seeds, kernels, and nuts of different kinds. Make your own mix, try to experiment and find what, and in what amounts you like it.
One thing you can try is to put some walnuts in your bread. First, you can put the nuts in a bowl and cover it with boiling water. Then let it slowly cool, to lukewarm, and add your yeast. It will be brownish and give that bread a nice color. You can cheat and add some gravy browning. With the nuts, it will taste real nice, and the bread will have a lovely color from the browning. But this is of course only for show. You can also try to add some of your breakfast müsli.

So, with todays variety of flour you can make some really interesting breads. Try baking at high temperatures. Or you can try making the dough with low amount of yeast, that raise during the night, several hours, in the refrigerator. It will open a whole new world for you and your baking. The dough will be very wet, and the breads are tasty.

Also exciting is the use of a baking stone. These come in both a moulded or cast one, and others of real stone, - being lava, those are the only I know of.
I will, in case you want to bake in high temperatures, recommend, the lava. I have had bad luck with the other type, twice. You can read more about that somewhere else in this book.
A thing I have not yet tried, but surely want to try, is how a grain mill works. How is the quality of the flour you can make using this equipment. A similar thing is a grain roll you can use that for oats, good if you, or your children eat this for breakfast.

I have added three recipes for baking here. One is a bread of wheat, and one is for rolls, mine and my family’s favorite for the moment. And last, I give you a recipe for Grissini, Italien bread sticks, super with soup, for the lunchbox, and delicious as a snack, or with sliced ham or with cheeses.

To kick-start the yeast, when baking with such, you can add a pinch of, or half a teaspoon of sugar. The yeast will be very productive and start making gasses and sugar, or what it is these little things does – puffing up your bread.

Generally, water starts the rasing agents, so when you add things for let’s say cupcakes, then you should not let the dough rest for long in the bowl, waiting to be put in the cups and in the oven.