A Year of Learning - Breadmaking

Making bread is something I always wish I had more time to do. This month I'm going to make the time to bake bread hopefully around 3-4 times a week because I feel like I need more practise. This month the learning is going to be mostly hands-on rather than reading articles. I do have some articles and videos saved but it's more about the doing this time. I've previously used a breadmaker to make bread and it went well but I'd like to be better at making bread by hand.

My first attempt went well. I decided to start with dinner rolls. We eat bread rolls like these often for tea, usually with soups or stews or maybe sausage sandwiches. It was great to have made them myself. I got lots of compliments on them at the dinner table so I'm encouraged to keep going!

Next I made a baguette but it didn't quite work out. The crust was chewy rather than crusty but it still got eaten. It didn't seem like a baguette but rather like a long thin bread loaf. Still, it was bread and I made it so onwards and upwards.

Later in the month I made Focaccia. We had it toasted with baked beans for a hearty breakfast and then lunch the next day with ham and cheese as sandwiches. I'm really impressed with myself for this one, it looks great!

The problem for me with making bread is having the patience to wait both for proving and rising the bread. I enjoy the mixing and kneading parts and I'm developing some good strong arm muscles from kneading for 5-10 minutes at a time. It's so pleasing when dough reacts to the yeast how it should and rises but then so disappointing when it doesn't.

I've had some really mixed results over the month with bread working out well and not so well. I've made cobs of bread where I've steamed water in the bottom of the oven for a nice crust, white loaves with shiny glazes, I've made hot dog buns, I've made garlic bread and Swiss Kopf.

It's been a month of trying over and over to make bread and I think I've definitely made some progress. Kneading bread has become a really enjoyable time when before I used to pass the kneading over to JD or Erin. I've even become more patient with the proving of bread. I mostly just try to start the bread making earlier in the day so there's plenty of time for it.

I'm glad I had a month of making bread even though I'm still not perfect at it. I've learned a lot and my family have eaten a lot of bread. Time to move on to learning something else!

Previously on A Year of Learning:

Smartphone Photography