Jason Daly - Use Your Loaf: How to bake bread at home and get perfect results

What equipment will I need?

The good thing about baking your own bread is that you dontreally need any specialist kit. If you already bake cakes and pastries chancesare you have everything essential that you need:

A large mixing bowl

Measuring jug

Rolling pin

Kitchen scales

Palette knife

Pastry knife

Bread knife

Wire cooling rack

Baking tray (the heavier the better)

Black bin bags!

Spray bottle

You will also need some linen cloths or all linen tea-towels.Linen draws very little moisture so your dough should never stick to a wellfloured linen cloth. Alternatively you could sit your dough on a woodenchopping board or even a piece of plywood.

Optional extras include loaf tins, proving baskets, a bakingstone (plus peel) and a food processor with a dough hook. Proving baskets comein various shapes and sizes and can be cheap (wicker or plastic) or quiteexpensive (cane and usually linen lined).

Without a doubt, the best way to bake bread is on a bakingstone. You can use a pizza stone which is available in many kitchen shops, butit would be better if you measure your oven and go and buy the best fittingpaving stone you can find. If you do use a stone you will need a peel which isbasically a type of shovel a sheet of wood or metal with a handle. It is usedto slide bread onto your baking stone in the oven. Either buy one or make one.

If you dont use a baking stone, use the heaviest bakingtray you have, and you wont need the peel either as this can be taken out ofthe oven.

Iuse a spray bottle to spray my dough with water before it goes into the oven.

Ifthe thought of kneading fills you with dread, you could opt to use a foodprocessor with a dough hook attachment. In fact they can be very useful whenworking with very wet dough such as ciabatta.

Whatingredients will I need?

Bread only has four basic ingredients although others canbe added. The four main ingredients are flour, yeast, salt and water.

Flour is by far the most important ingredient so try to buy the best organic flouryou can afford. Wheat prices have soared recently, but remember, the cost of aloaf made at home is roughly half that of shop bought bread.

Check for anyadditives especially with white flour, as they may have bleaching agents addedto make them whiter how pointless! If you can find it, organic stonegroundflour is best.

Wheatflour is the most common type of flour in the UK. A grain of wheat is actuallya seed consisting of 3 parts: bran, germ and endosperm. The bran is the toughouter skin, the germ is the embryonic wheat plant and the endosperm is used asa food source by the germ in early development. The bran is a rich source ofprotein, the germ a good source of vitamins, and the endosperm a great sourceof carbohydrates, plus some protein, minerals and oil.

Youmay be thinking, So what! Why is he telling me this? Well, all thesecomponents have an effect on the bread making process. Plus, I think itsimportant to understand what is going on during the process, and in this wayyou will give the whole task more respect. Also, understanding what your kneadingis doing will almost certainly make you a better baker.

So,the carbohydrates are used as fuel by the yeast, the proteins bond to form theall important gluten strands, and the minerals are used to strengthen thegluten strands. The oil helps to maintain moisture thus keeping your breadsofter for longer.

Delvinga bit deeper into the science of bread making (sorry!), something happens whenwater is added to flour and that is the formation of gluten. Gluten is formedby the bonding of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin. Gluten is an elasticprotein that can be really stretched to form long strands. The more it isworked, the longer and stretchier it becomes. These strands form a complex meshwhich helps to trap carbon dioxide bubbles produced by yeast, thus creating gasbubbles inside your dough. This is the process you are encouraging whenkneading your dough, so as you can hopefully appreciate, well kneaded dough isa prerequisite for a well formed loaf.