According to Richard Bertine (a French baker and best-selling author on how to bake bread with his own hands), baking is an art akin to winemaking. The taste of bread can and should be refined, sophisticated and varied. It is worth mastering a simple technology and spending a little time in the kitchen to experience the true taste and aroma of the very foundation of life.

Oven Wheat Bread

The recipe using live yeast is the simplest and most understandable. Anyone can start experiments with home baking with it.

For one loaf you need:

  • 600 g of wheat flour;
  • 12 g of compressed yeast;
  • 12 g of salt;
  • 300 ml of water.

The amount of water is indicated for hearth bread that is baked on a baking sheet. If the form will be used, you can add another 100 - 150 ml. The dough will be more sticky and plastic, but the bread will be lush and airy.

For the dough to rise well, all products must be warm, and the flour must be sifted.

  1. Crush yeast and grind with flour. Add salt and pour water into the flour.
  2. Knead thoroughly. When kneading, the dough is saturated with air. The mass is pulled, folded in half and rolled on the table without pressure. Gradually, the dough stops sticking to your hands, becomes smooth and shiny.
  3. Place in heat for 1 to 1.5 hours to proof. Ideal conditions can be created in the oven. Not including heating, set the baking tray with the dough or the shape on the wire rack to an average level. Put a bowl of boiling water at the bottom of the oven. For the active life of the yeast, a temperature of at least 35 - 38 ° C is needed. Hot water will not only maintain the temperature, but will create the necessary moisture on the surface of the dough, and the crust of the bread will not burn.
  4. The mass should double in volume.
  5. Preheat the oven, place the mold on a medium level and bake bread at 200 ° C for 40 minutes.
  6. Cool in a linen towel on a wire rack.

The question often arises as to why bread cooked at home is crumbled.

There are only two reasons:

  • Unbalanced recipe: excess yeast, lack of water or fat disrupt the structure of the test.
  • Low-quality flour with a low content of gluten does not allow kneading a sufficiently elastic dough. The gluten threads should hold the air inside the kneading mass, due to which the bread rises. If there is little gluten, it is not possible to achieve the correct dough structure.

Homemade dry yeast bread

If live yeast is indicated in the recipe, they can be safely replaced with dry yeast, taking in half the weight.

For wheat bread:

  • 400 g flour;
  • 280 ml of water;
  • 6 g of dry yeast;
  • 10 g of salt.

The dough will stick to your hands for a long time, but dusting the board with flour is not necessary. Otherwise, the dough will absorb excess flour and turn out to be “heavy”.

The surface for kneading and hands can be greased with vegetable oil. This will facilitate and speed up the work.

  1. Dissolve dry yeast in warm water.
  2. In the flour, make a hole, pour in water and pour salt.
  3. Mix gently, gradually taking in all the flour.
  4. Transfer the resulting sticky mass to a kneading table. A lump of dough is formed quickly until the yeast begins to work. Enough 10 - 15 minutes to achieve a pleasant elasticity.
  5. For 1 - 1.5 hours, the dough should be placed in a warm place.
  6. When it doubles, you should lightly knead it, form a ball and lay in a greased form. It should occupy no more than a third of the volume of the mold so that there is enough space for the risen bread.
  7. Bake bread at 200 ° C for 40 minutes. Willingness to check with a wooden skewer.
  8. Cool on a wire rack under a towel. If the crust is too stiff, moisten the towel slightly with water.

How to grow sourdough

At home, it is better to bake bread with leaven. It does not involve yeast fermentation, but lactic acid, although yeast is also present. The acids contained in the leaven give the bread a rich, rich taste, and also protect it from mold, which allows you to store such baked goods many times longer than yeast yeast. Ferment is grown in various ways, make it liquid or similar to dough. In any case, she can live for years, subject to proper care.

The easiest recipe:

  • 100 g of flour;
  • 100 ml of water 28 - 30ºС.

Best leaven is possible from whole grain flour. For rye bread, it is prepared from rye bread, for wheat - from wheat. You can also use a mixture of two types.

Prepare the starter in a container with a lid tightly closed or under several layers of gauze so that it does not suffocate and damp. The indicated amount of food will require a capacity of about three liters, as the sourdough will rise greatly.

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  1. The ingredients are combined. It turns out a liquid, like sour cream, mixture.
  2. It is covered and cleaned in warmth. Optimum temperature 24 - 27ºС.
  3. For a week, top dressing is made from the same amount of flour and water. Thoroughly mix the entire mass.
  4. The first two days the leaven “gives away” with vinegar. If the process is successful, on 3-4 days the smell will become pleasant, sour-bread. The appearance of “crust” on the sourdough is also a favorable sign. Wheat starter is much more suitable than rye, and its consistency is much milder.
  5. On day 5, the sourdough is still young, but it can already be used in dough.
  6. On the 7th day, she is completely ready and will raise the bread well. Part of it can be used for baking, and the mother's sourdough is removed in the refrigerator.

Ferment, in which a large number of sugars ferment, is prepared much faster.

Ingredients:

  • 100 g of raisins;
  • 200 g of flour;
  • 15 g of sugar;
  • 250 ml of warm water.

Fermentation tank must be at least 1 liter. Soak raisins for half an hour and strain the water. Add sugar, flour and put in heat under gauze for two days. On the third day it can be used.

For a rich starter culture according to Richard Bertina’s recipe, you will need:

  • 150 ml of warm water;
  • 20 g of liquid honey;
  • 150 g of wheat flour;
  • 50 g of rye flour.

The workpiece is mixed in a deep container. Tightly closed with a lid and placed in heat for 2 days.

For the first feeding:

  • 280 g of wheat flour;
  • 30 g of rye flour;
  • 150 g of water.

After a day, the mother sourdough is prepared:

  • 200 g of starter (blank);
  • 200 ml of warm water;
  • 400 g of wheat flour.

Within 12 hours the starter culture is warm and ripens at 7 ° C for another 10 hours. After that, it can be used for baking especially lush bread.

Sourdough prepared in any way is fed with a mixture of flour and water once a week or whenever bread is baked. In this way, the vital activity of fermenting bacteria is maintained and the used volume is recovered.

How to bake sourdough

To bake leaven rye bread you will need:

  • 500 g of rye flour;
  • 210 g of water;
  • 160 g of sourdough;
  • 50 g of vegetable oil;
  • 20 g of sugar;
  • 10 g of salt.

To add flavor, you can add 20 g of caraway seeds or 3-4 g of malt. You can reduce the acidity of the dough by replacing a third of rye flour with wheat.

First prepare the dough for the test.

  1. Maternal sourdough, flour and water in equal proportions (160 g each) are mixed in a deep bowl. All ingredients are warm, up to 40ºС.
  2. Under the film, the sponge is suitable for warming 3 to 4 hours. Mature yeast will raise the dough twice as fast as young.

When the dough is doubled, you can prepare the dough for bread.

  1. The remaining flour, salt, sugar, butter and, optionally, additives are gradually mixed into the dough. Malt is pre-bred in hot, about 70 ° C, water. It turns out a soft and very sticky dough.
  2. There is no gluten in rye flour, so it makes no sense to knead it for a long time. It is enough to collect all the flour in a homogeneous mixture without lumps. It is important not to knock out the resulting air bubbles from the resulting soft mass.
  3. The edges of the dough are slightly tucked in the middle, plucked and a dummy is formed, which is immediately placed in a greased form. After this, the workpiece needs proofing in heat for at least 3 to 4 hours.
  4. Before putting the workpiece into the oven, the surface of the dough should be abundantly sprinkled with water from the spray gun. Thanks to this trick, the crust of bread will not be burned.
  5. Bake the first 10 minutes at 250 ° C, then reduce the heat to 200 ° C and bake for another 40 minutes.
  6. Leave the finished bread for 10 minutes in a warm oven without heating and then cool in a towel.

On kefir without yeast

It is more correct to call such bread soda, since it is soda that is a baking powder. Upon contact with lactic acid, it forms carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes the bread full and soft.

The type of fermented milk product does not play a major role. You can use yogurt, liquid sour cream or ryazhenka, only the fat content in the bread will change.

Any flour can also be used in this recipe: wheat, rye, or a mixture thereof.

Prepare for one loaf:

  • 350 ml of kefir;
  • 400 g flour;
  • 15 g of soda;
  • 10 g of salt.

You can add sugar or honey, cumin, coriander, Provence herbs, a spoonful of soy sauce, or something else to taste in the dough.

  1. Dry ingredients are mixed separately. Warm kefir is poured into the flour.
  2. Knead the dough and form a ball out of it. Do this quickly, since the oxidation reaction is already underway. Active kneading only destroys the resulting gas bubbles.
  3. The workpiece is placed on a greased baking sheet. Longitudinal and transverse cuts are made on the surface, with a depth of 1 - 1.5 cm. So the bread is better baked and the appearance of the loaf will be very effective.
  4. Soda, or yeast-free, bread is baked at 200 ° C for at least 40 - 45 minutes.

With flax and caraway seeds

Homemade bread is often baked with all kinds of additives, experimenting or reconstructing old, traditional recipes. Many ingredients not only improve the taste of bread, but also increase its beneficial properties.

 

For example, the composition of the most useful sourdough rye bread can be enriched with seeds of flax and caraway seeds.They contain iron, calcium, potassium and B vitamins, essential omega-3 and -6 fatty acids.

For a standard form test:

  • 340 g rye flour;
  • 160 g whole wheat flour;
  • 500 g of rye sourdough;
  • 15 g of salt;
  • 20 g of rye fermented malt;
  • 40 g of unrefined vegetable oil;
  • 30 g of honey;
  • 4 tablespoons of flaxseed;
  • 2 tablespoons of caraway seeds;
  • 4 tablespoons of peeled sunflower seeds;
  • 500 ml of water.

The bread will be dense and heavy. The weight of the finished loaf is about 1.4 kg. Such bread is very nutritious, does not crumble, cut into thin slices.

  1. In warm water, dilute honey and sourdough. Mix the dry ingredients separately, leaving one tablespoon of caraway seeds to sprinkle.
  2. Pour the liquid into the flour mixture, mix the viscous dough with a spoon and transfer to a greased form so that voids do not form. Smooth the top with a wet spoon. For hearth bread, reduce the amount of water so that the dough does not spread.
  3. The proofing will take from 1.5 to 3 hours, during which the dough should rise 1.5 - 2 times.
  4. Sprinkle the billet with water, sprinkle with caraway seeds and put in an oven preheated to 250 ° C. Bake for an hour, every 15 minutes lowering the temperature by 20 - 30ºС.
  5. Sprinkle the finished bread with water again and slowly cool in a towel for several hours.

How to bake a loaf of tea

A delicate milk loaf is kneaded and formed in a special way, so that the crumb is porous and light.

The ingredients are the simplest:

  • 450 g of wheat flour;
  • 250 ml of milk;
  • 6 g of salt;
  • 18 g of sugar;
  • 4 g dry yeast;
  • 40 g of vegetable oil.

Milk should be warm, at least 40ºС.

  1. To facilitate the kneading of the dough, the dry and liquid ingredients are mixed separately.
  2. The liquid is poured into the flour mixture. At first, the dough is slightly moist, supple, but with tangible lumps. You need to hold it a little under the film - then the gluten will begin to soften and work with the dough will become much easier.
  3. Knead the dough must be actively, carefully, until it becomes smooth and elastic. Yeast still does not work, there is no air in the dough, so you can squeeze and roll it with all the force.
  4. The dough is placed on the proofing for 1 hour. You can do this in an oven heated to 40 ° C.
  5. The mass is halved, it will make two loaves. Roll each half with a rolling pin into a rectangle 1.5 cm thick.
  6. Roll up loose rolls and pinch the edge. Place the seam down on a greased baking sheet.
  7. Make incisions and leave to stand again for 40-60 minutes.
  8. Grease a beaten egg on top of the workpiece to form a bright glossy crust.
  9. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes at 200 ° C and another 5 to 10 minutes at 170 ° C.

Homemade Borodino bread

The classic taste can be obtained only by following the recipe according to GOST. Not a single adapted quick recipe will allow to achieve a rich spicy taste of Borodino custard bread.

At the first stage, “tea leaves” are prepared:

  • 30 g of rye fermented malt;
  • 40 g of ground coriander;
  • 60 g of rye peeled flour;
  • 300 ml of boiling water.

Boiling water should not be steep, 90 - 95ºС is enough.

  1. In the process of mixing, the mixture cools to 60 ° C. An additional 30 g of flour is added to it.
  2. The tea leaves are saccharified in a warm place for 2 hours.

It is important to add flour in parts in order to preserve enzymes in it that are able to break down starch into simple sugars. They will ensure the quality of the fermentation. In addition, spices and malt are infused during the brewing process, which greatly affects the taste of bread.

To prepare the dough you will need:

  • 370 g of tea leaves;
  • 90 g of rye mature sourdough;
  • 190 g of rye flour.

Opara is suitable for 4 hours at 28 - 30ºС.

To test for one loaf you need:

  • all dough;
  • 100 ml of water;
  • 30 g of sugar;
  • 5 g of salt;
  • 20 g of dark molasses;
  • 100 g rye flour;
  • 75 g of wheat flour 2 varieties.

Molasses will give the bread color, flavor and will allow it to stay fresh longer. You can replace it with an equal amount of honey.

  1. Molasses, salt and sugar are mixed in water. The dough is diluted with this liquid and flour is added to it.
  2. The dough is very sticky, like warm plasticine.He needs to stand in heat 1,5 - 2 hours for fermentation.
  3. For about two hours, the dough is spread in shape. Spread it with a spoon, tightly, without voids. The surface is smoothed.
  4. When the mass volume increases 1.5 times, the surface is sprayed with water, sprinkled with caraway seeds and coriander. Put in a preheated oven.
  5. Bake for an hour. The first 10 minutes at 250ºС, another 10 minutes at 230ºС and until ready at 200ºС.
  6. Custard bread can be cut no earlier than 6 hours after baking so that the crumb does not stick together when sliced.

Express method in the oven

There is no particular difficulty in baking bread yourself in the oven. Most of the effort and time requires a batch of dough. All other active work is unlikely to take more than 15 - 20 minutes. In order not to lose enthusiasm, novice bakers can learn the quick way to make bread without kneading.

According to this recipe, you can bake both rye and wheat bread.

Products:

  • 460 g of flour;
  • 360 g of water;
  • 4 g of yeast;
  • 10 g of salt.

The resulting test is enough for two loaves. If you plan to bake only one, the rest of the dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

It is better to start preparing the test on the eve of baking.

  1. Dilute yeast and salt in warm water. Pour liquid into flour. Stir with a spatula. The dough will turn out very, very sticky, it can’t even be assembled with your hands in one lump.
  2. Leave it warm under the lid for 2 hours. During this time, the dough will fit, filled with air bubbles.
  3. Now, without stirring, it should be removed in the refrigerator for ripening for 13 - 20 hours. Time depends on the quality of the flour, its gluten content. The more gluten, the faster the dough will ripen. After the refrigerator, it is absolutely elastic and does not stick to your hands.
  4. Dust the board with flour and put the dough in two parts for warming for 2 hours. When forming loaves, the dough does not need to be kneading, squeezing or folding. At this stage, it is important to maintain its porous structure.
  5. Heat the oven to 230ºC. Place the workpieces on a baking sheet and place on the middle wire rack.
  6. On the lower wire rack, identify a hot water pan to form steam.
  7. Bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
  8. The bread should turn out magnificent, the crumb will be with large pores. So that it does not stick together when slicing, the loaf is cooled in a towel.

Rye bread in a bread maker

Modern kitchen devices can significantly simplify and automate the process of baking bread. To prepare it in a bread machine, it is important to accurately observe the proportions when loading the ingredients. The rest will be done by a smart car.

For one rye loaf you will need:

  • 220 ml of water;
  • 150 g rye flour;
  • 200 g of wheat flour;
  • 1 bottle of finished sourdough;
  • 20 g of malt;
  • 12 g of sugar;
  • 12 g of salt.

Water can be used at room temperature.

  1. All the ingredients, without mixing, put in the form of a bread machine.
  2. Select a mode for baking rye bread.
  3. Indicate the weight. From this amount of products you get a loaf for 750 g.
  4. Indicate the desired color of the crust.
  5. It is better to trace how the dough is formed. Sometimes you have to add a little flour or water “by eye”.
  6. During proofing of the dough and baking, the lid is not opened, so as not to violate the temperature regime.
  7. A sound signal alerts you when it is ready.
  8. It remains to take out the loaf and cool it on the grate, wrapping it in a towel.

A simple recipe in a multicooker

To bake bread in a slow cooker, you will have to knead the dough yourself, and compliance with the proofing and baking modes can be entrusted to the technique.

Ingredients for Wheat Yeast Bread:

  • 400 g flour;
  • 250 g of warm milk;
  • 12 g of salt;
  • 12 g of sugar;
  • 5 g of dry yeast;
  • 40 g of vegetable oil.

In a slow cooker you can achieve a beautiful crisp, if you choose the optimal operating conditions and cooking time.

  1. Knead the dough thoroughly and keep it warm for about half an hour.
  2. To knead and place in a multicooker bowl, having switched on "Heating" for 10 minutes.
  3. Then the test should be organized for half an hour of rest, after which the “Baking” mode (150ºС) should be activated for half an hour.
  4. Bread needs to be turned over so that the crust forms on both sides, and hold it in the bowl for another half hour in the same mode.
  5. Cool the finished bread on a wire rack.

Homemade bread is a real work of culinary art. Having mastered the technology of its preparation once, you are unlikely to return to the store product and will delight your home and surprise guests with new options for tasty, healthy and incredibly fragrant baked goods.

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