Homemade Bread

Fresh from the oven. Flour, eggs, water, yeast, brown sugar, honey and salt. For the crust I use an egg wash with yolk, sprinkled with poppy, sesame seeds and everything bagel seasoning. Already devoured 2 slices with butter. So easy a caveman can make one. Enjoy.

damn that looks good!

damn that looks good!

half's already pretty much gone

I'm already fat enough or I'd bake some

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Andrew, homemade has no calories, only store bought does. The package says so.

I have not bought store bread for ages. Once you make your own and dial it in to your own liking, there's no going back. I used to have a bread maker but ditched it once I mastered making it by hand. It's really simple. Saturdays is pizza night so tomorrow I'll make my own pizza dough. ;-)

No argument Max. Plus the aroma is heavenly. Part of the reason the loaf doesn't last very long (anticipation and the fresh taste). At times I go to extremes and grind my own flour fresh to maximize the wheat taste. But that has pitfalls since the real "whole wheat" doesn't like being turned into bread and works to destroy the structure required.

I didn't make any loaf bread this past cold season, but I did make biscuits and yeast rolls. Both are super easy.

Trust me on this... For pizza try the Americas Test Kitchen recipe. IMO it blows all other dough recipes out of the water since it gives the dough days to ferment and develop flavor in the refrigerator. ATK says up to 3 days, but I've gone up to 10 days and I got rave reviews (best ever type and folks keep talking about it, unbidden, years later). Sure, it requires a bit of pre-planning, but anyone can pre-plan within a 10 day window*. Just google it, but if you can't find it contact me and I'll post it.

* When I did it for guests we had to coordinate our guests schedules and the weather since I was grilling the pizzas in the outdoor Primo @ 400°-450°F. That's when I found that the dough could be kept for 10 days. FWIW, it was in the shop refrigerator that hovers near 32°F and doesn't have tiny hands constantly checking it to see if the contents have changed in the last 10 minutes. A warmer refrigerator with tiny hands applied to the handle might not work as good.

Brian, interesting you mention the refrigerator cause that's what I have been doing for my pizza dough however I let it rise in the fridge for 24+ hr. Makes such a difference in taste as opposed to letting it rise for 6-8 hours on the counter. I'll give the longer time a try for sure. I do use 00 fine flour (Antimo Caputo) which also makes a difference imo. You're correct. The aroma when baking is intoxicating. I'll try to lookup the ATK recipe as I believe I read it at one point in my research for pizza dough.

Different bread makers different experiences... I bought some of the 00 "pizza flour" awhile back and actually didn't like it as much as what I had been using; King Arthur bread flour. I used up the 00 in various other recipes. I've also been known to add additional gluten to the mix, but I don't do that anymore.

One thing that I see done on cooking shows is for the pizza maker to grab a rolling pin. That gets me going ever time. It deflates the dough and IMO that's just wrong. My dough comes out of the refrigerator, each round lidded container holding enough dough for one crust. Since it's round to begin with I just stretch it to shape by hand, leaving the bubbles and such in the dough for added character as it reacts to the heat of the oven.

Lovely-looking bread, Max.
I wish I still ate bread, but my body doesn't seem to enjoy wheat, any longer.