A Beginner’s Guide to Bread
Welcome to the wonderful world of bread.
In this blog, we hope to prepare you for a fun time in the kitchen making your first loaf of bread. We will share top tips, suggested ingredients and essential equipment as well as a simple first recipe. Whether you're starting a sourdough journey or baking a yeasted loaf, this is the place to be.
Ingredients:
First things first - flour! The flour is very important. You'll want to start with a flour that gives plenty of energy to your loaf, this will help get a lively rise and give you a strong start to the right texture. We recommend a strong white flour, any of the following are perfect:
Marriage's Very Strong 100% Canadian White Bread flour or Mulino Marino Organic Type 00 Soffiata Strong White Flour
Yeast - For a yeasted loaf, start with an easy-to-use, reliable yeast. We recommend: Agrano Bioreal® Dried Organic Gluten-Free Instant Yeast 5-pack
Sourdough Starter - If you are starting with sourdough bread, you will need a fresh sourdough starter instead of yeast. We recommend you start with a Fresh Wheat Flour Starter. A sourdough starter needs taking care of and feeding to keep alive - advice for this can be found on the product page 'read more' section.
Salt- Every kitchen should have a good stash of salt, use a fine table salt. But we would recommend our Saltan Himalayan Extra-Fine Pink Rock Salt for the best flavour.
Water – Tap water is fine, some people like to filter their water when making sourdough specifically, but this is not essential. If using tap water, it's good to leave this out overnight to let the chlorine dissipate. A lukewarm water is good, preferably at body temperature just to help the yeast along. Don’t use boiling water as this will kill the yeast.
Equipment:
To keep it simple, this is a suggested list of what will help you bake bread, without breaking the bank or filling your kitchen cupboards.
Dough Whisk - the best value for money tool for making bread! It is superior to a spoon; it mixes the ingredients very effectively - no clumps like you can get with a spoon.
A large bowl - Give yourself space, you don’t want flour flying out when mixing and its handy to have a bowl bigger than the dough capacity so you can leave it in the bowl to proof and double in size.
Dough scraper – A tool designed for moving your dough from bowl to worktop and back again with ease. Great for wiping around the bowl to incorporate all ingredients. Top tip – flour your scraper for a less sticky situation! These are also great for clearing up excess flour on your worktop instead of a wet cloth at the end of baking. We recommend a bean scraper for work in the bowl and a flat scraper for bench work.
Baking tray – You will need a flat large surface to bake your bread on. Either a tray, Dutch oven or baking /pizza stone work well.
Scales – Bread baking is a bit of a science. Use digital scales to weigh your ingredients - especially the flour and water for consistency.
Lame - A great little tool to cut the dough just before it goes into the oven, this helps the loaf expand, letting out excess moisture. The razor thin blade cuts smoothly rather than dragging the dough, unlike even your sharpest knife would. People have got very creative with the patterns you can make with the lame, to start with we recommend a simple line across the top of the dough, cutting at a 45° angle rather than deep into the dough. As your loaf sizes get larger, a few more lines are achievable.
Try a recipe today:
