Bread

August 08, 2018

Bread

Nothing smells better than bread coming out of the oven...…

Let's talk homemade bread! I love bread! I love to make it and love to eat it even more!

Now that I own a restaurant and do all the baking...…I have come up with my own basic bread dough recipe. From that basic dough we make our bread, hamburger buns, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls. The nice thing about this basic dough is you can add ingredients like seeds, nuts, dried fruits, herbs and spices to give you a completely different variety.

So what is the basic recipe?

2 cups water
1 Tbsp. yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup butter melted
1/8 cup honey
1/2 cup oats
1 cups whole wheat
2 1/2 give or take cups white flour

Don't like whole wheat substitute another cup of white. Don't want oats substitute with white flour. Don't have honey use sugar.

I am not going to give to try giving step by step instructions on how to make bread dough. It is far to long and boring. However, there are tons of YouTube videos available that demonstrate how to make bread. I will share a few more tips and tricks that I have learned.

Weights

I weigh out the dough for each particular product.

Bread: 1 pound 6 ounces per loaf

Hamburger buns: 1.3 ounces per bun

I found that these weights work best for our particular needs at the restaurant. I no longer need to weigh out each individual hamburger bun. After rolling out hundreds and hundreds of buns by hand, I can now tell if the dough ball is approximately the right size. Thank heavens. I do however, still weigh the dough for bread loaves. It helps me create consistent sized loaves.

Tips

I do not flour the surface I am going to work my dough on. Instead I spray the surface with cooking spray
I spray all my bread products with butter spray just after they come out of the oven
A stickier dough is easier to work with than a dough with to much flour added
If you do not eat your bread right away it is best to store it in the refrigerator or at least a dark cool place. Homemade bread does not contain preservatives, thus, it does not last as long.
Make sure your bread is completely cooled before storing it in a plastic bag.
A good serrated knife is a must for cutting slices of bread. My favorite bread knife is a bow knife.
I like to bake my dinner rolls in muffin tins. It makes for constantly shaped rolls
For hamburger buns I ball the dough by hand and place on a bakers sheet. Then, I press the balls down to flatten them out slightly. Cover and let rise to double.