The best bread in my baking history

Initially, thinking of having slices of bread of ordinary square in shape, just to fit in the normal cheddar cheese my sister brought.

Last week, I tried to bake with the loafpan, after so many months left it aside, and baking without it. In my mind, to make the dough grow well entirely, I did it in some special way, which saw from other website, divide the dough into few small pieces, and turn it become rolls, and put together in the loafpan.

The set is nice after an hour, but I'd forgotten the actual baking duration for this suppose to be 40mins. Thus, the bread was wet in the middle part.

Yesterday, just tried to use back the loafpan again. I prepared the biga in the morning before leaving home to office. When i back home around 6pm, roughly after 12 hours, the yeast in biga looks so active. I mix in all the ingredients and start to work with the dough, proving, shaping the dough in rolls, and prove for another one hour.

Biga: 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast + 1 cup flour (i used wholemeal) + 1 cup water

Dough: Biga + 1 cup wholemeal flour + 2 cups white flour (=50% wholemeal bread) + 1 cup water + 1/2 teaspoon salt + 3 tablespoons of olive oil + 3 tablespoons of sugar + 1/4 cup of milk powder

I think the most essential point for this round is the baking temperature and time. I set the oven to 180degree celcius, and baked for 40mins totally, which the first 30mins loafpan with cover, and remaining 10mins with loafpan cover opened, to have some nice colour on the top.

I guess the flour is too much until no more space for the dough to grow during the baking time.

Maybe for next bake i'll try to reduce it to 3 cups of flour.

Anyway, the round shape of each roll still visible on the loaf.

Cheese Bread

Last week, while shop around with my friend, the bleeding gum, he suggested me the feta cheese. So, according to his suggestion, i just have a try.

This round, i followed his folding method (of mr bertinent) to "exercise" the dough, by the time just mixed in all the ingredient, in friday evening.

I prepared the yeast (half teaspoon) with 1 cup of white flour, plus 1 cup water, put for 3 hours as the first fermentation. Then mixed in the bread-baking remaining ingredients for 2 loaves, and start the workout. Within couple of minutes, the dough is really become smooth and non-sticky to the table.

After that, the dough was left for 2 hours, and re-folding again. By that time, almost mid-night, and i decided to left it until next morning.

After 6 hours, i divided the dough into 2 equal part. One rolled with raisins, while the other with the feta. Put inthe baking tray for another one hour for settling. Surprisingly after one hour, the raisin mixture was growing little bit, not too big as previous white bread, caused by the heavier weight of raisins. Sadly, for the feta dough, not much growing it has. Anyway, I put these 2 tray into the baking oven after preheated it to 230 celcius, with my newly purchased thermometer, sprayed with the mist to create steam within it.

My second surprise in that morning appeared. During the early minutes in the owen, raisin dough grow very little, but feta dough grow much higher than it's neighbor, so a bit curve shape on the top. :)

But as the first time baking with so high initial temperature, i stopped the oven after 30 minutes, and took out the loaves. So, the outer skin won't so much brown.

But the texture of this 2 loaves really great, although the feta cheese not fully melted and integrated into the dough.

Perhaps, the next cheese loaf i will try with other type of cheese. Any recommendation from you? Thanks anyway!

Bread Baking

Just triggered the interest to bake, by my new colleague. :)

and tried to bake 3 bread so far, sure the yield is better than the previous one each time.

Here's the ingredients:

2-cups organic unbreached bread flour + 2 cups organic whole meal bread flour

2-cups of water

1-teaspoon instant yeast

1-tablespoon sugar

1-teaspoon salt

As the advice and reference from other bloggers, i mixed up the flours & sugar & yeast, then put in the water slowly while mixed the bulk around. And add in the salt little by little. And the dough formed but very sticky to my hand. Here's the picture of my first dough, in the pan :)

Left it "grow" for 2 hours in the .

The size can be twice bigger.

For the first time, i put it in a container which is too small. After one hour, the dough overflow as shown in the next picture.

After 2 hours, took out from the pan, and put in the loafpan, or any baking pan will do, with some stretching with the dough.

Wait for another 1 hour for it to grow for better texture and taste.

After that, i baked it for 30 minutes as not to let the bread too crust. It just nice.

Here's the snapshort of my latest baking project yield. The shape is quite ugly, as i still have got an proper loafpan.

The size is approx 8 inches of diameter with 4 inches of height, thus the volume is approx. .. 201 inch-cubic, or 3 liter ++.