may-flowers, bread is easy. Even if you mess it up, it's just flour, yeast, water salt. Bagels are bread, in a form, but you shape them, boil them and then bake them.

If you search you'll find lots of good bread recipes, and there are some tutorials in the Frequently Asked Questions section.

I get many recipes from the King Arthur Flour site, many have pictures with the instructions. Ann T also has detailed instructions and pictures on her blog, "Theibault's Table".

Ann T also has one of my favorite yeast doughs, it doesn't need a long knead, and can be used for individual Danish/buns or a bigger sliceable one. I usually use the cream cheese filling in conjunction with my homemade jam for a fruit filled Danish.

Cream Cheese Danish Coffee Cake
===============================
Source: Home Cooking Magazine

1 c sour cream
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c butter
1 t. salt
2 packages dry yeast (4 1/2 t.)
1/2 c warm water
2 eggs beaten
4 c all purpose flour

Over low heat in a small saucepan, heat butter, sour cream , sugar and salt until warm and sugar is dissolved. Cool to room temperature.

In large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.

Mix sour cream mixture with yeast and add beaten eggs and flour. Will be a very soft dough. Put in fridge overnite to rise. (May be done same day. Put in fridge for about 2 to 4 hours, and then proceed.

Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead 6 or 7 times. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces and roll each piece out to 12 X 8 inches.

Spread 1/4 of filling on to each piece and roll jellyroll style from long side. Pinch seams and ends to seal. Place seam side down on buttered baking sheet and cut X's in top. (About 6 X's) (Danish should be slightly flatten, and about 3 1/2 to 4 inches wide and about 12 inches long.

Cover and let rise until about double in size -approximately 1 hour Bake at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes or
until golden. Let cool on wire racks.

Filling

2 packages 8 oz. cream cheese
3/4 c sugar
1 egg beaten
1 t. vanilla extract
1/8 t. salt

Filling: To make filling beat together cream cheese with sugar, add egg and vanilla extract and salt.
Glaze

2 1/2 c confectioners sugar
1/4 c milk
1 t. vanilla extract
toasted sliced almonds.

Combine the first 3 ingredients for glaze and drizzle over loaves with toasted almonds.

I, and several others here, bake all our bread, buns, sweet rolls, etc. When a loaf is $5 or more at the bakeries for "good" artisan bread, I'm baking my own!

Annie

Thank you, Annie! I used the KA bread flour for my pizza so I've been to their site. Then I started reading some pizza maker forums, and boy, do they treat it like a science! My dough doubled and I divided it and put it in the fridge until I make pizza tonight.

Thank you for the Danish recipe. I love baked goods with sour cream, so that should be tender and flavorful. Will give it a try!

Yes, it's expensive! We pay $4 for French bread at the grocery store, fresh baked. We don't have a local bakery in our city of 80,000 (the lack thereof seems to be a west coast thing), so I thought it was time for me to learn to make my own. I've always had a sweet tooth, but I hardly bake anymore. I'm not enjoying very sweet desserts, so a nice yeast recipe with a glaze sounds about right to me. Our favorite sweet is an almond croissant we get at the farmer's market in the summer.

"Artisan Bread in five minutes a day" is a great starter recipe that produces a good loaf. Another great bread is the NY times no knead bread - it's really so easy that my kids often make it.

Here is a link that might be useful: No Knead Bread

May, here's another of my family favorites, a butterflake roll that gets refrigerated overnight and baked the next day with no kneading.

Butterflake Rolls

2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
6 to 6 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
1 cup butter, divided in half

In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt and 2 cups flour. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add egg and 1/2 cup of butter, mix well, stir in enough flour to form a soft dough. Do not knead. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, punch dough down and divide into 4 portions. Roll each portion into a 14 x 12 inch rectangle, spread 2 tbls butter over dough. Fold in half lengthwise and cut into 12 strips. Tie each strip into a knot, tuck and pinch ends under. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Yield: 4 dozen

The cream cheese Danish is delicious and is one of the easiest yeast doughs I've ever worked with. If you want it sweet, glaze it, if not just eat it without as I do. It freezes really well too!

As for bread, it can be very simple or you can make it as involved as you wish to. You can make starters or biga or poolish, you can get into sourdough, refrigerate the dough to retard the rise. Or you can just make a basic no knead dough and go from there, your choice. Weighing and exact measurement does little good with bread, you just have to learn how it should look or feel as your results will vary from day to day depending on temperature, humidity, the age and brand of your flour, many uncontrollable factors. Sometimes it takes more flour, sometimes more liquid, sometimes longer to rise. It's all good, though!

Annie

As Annie said, bread can be pretty easy and if you're making basics, it's not too expensive even if it doesn't come out just how you want. If you are interested in making the 5 Min a day breads, why not get their cookbook. That first one has all kinds of breads in it, from basic sandwich bread to sweet breads to whole wheat and challah. I like it quite a bit. If you have access to a library that would be a good option, to go and browse and see if any of the books appeal to you. Good luck and have fun.

Amazon happens to have it on sale for almost half price. There are a few typos in the book that you can go to their website and check out.

Last week we were really busy and bought an artisan bread at the grocery for $5. It was raw in the middle..... I was sooo mad..lol.. They get the bread in frozen and then thaw and bake. I told them to use a thermometer. It is good to know that most breads are done by 190. If they have eggs and dairy they can take up to 200 to be done but generally between 180 and 190 is good. Most of us get to know that hollow sound when bottom is tapped sound but nice to have temps when starting out to back up the sound. Smiles.

Here is a link that might be useful: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

I'm in FL in a town of about 80,000 and we do not have a bakery outside of a grocery store. That's why I bake! Follow what Annie says ... she is awesome!

Thank you all!! I am really encouraged by my pizza dough, so how hard can it be to bake bread? I just needed to see and feel what proofed yeast and correctly-made dough was like. I've never seen anyone make bread, though I made monkey bread successfully before my bad pizza dough experience.

Do you think it's necessary to use a Kitchen Aid to make bread dough that uses 5 or 6 cups of flour? I made the pizza dough by hand and it was easy. I have a smaller Cuisinart, so should I plan to use that to make bread?

I'll get my hands on that book. Thanks for the recommendation.

I almost always use the Cuisinart for bread......if you have a smaller machine, make a recipe with less flour. Somewhere I have the amounts to use for different sizes.
Years ago I forgot to add the yeast and water mixture.....added it at the very last and it turned out well, anyway.
You will love making bread.
I use the Five Minute a Day Artisan recipe off and on, too and it always turns out well.
Just remember homemade bread doesn't last as long as bakery bread as far as getting moldy.
Or at least the "Wonder bread " stuff my DH buys for 99 cents a loaf at the dollar store. It lasts forever.

I don't use the food processor for bread so I can't help you with that, occasionally I'll use the Kitchen Aid but mostly I use a Zojirushi bread machine on the dough cycle to knead everything, then I take the dough out, shape it, let it rise and bake it in the oven.

I made bread with no machines at all for decades, until my carpal tunnel got so bad that it hurt to knead bread. The Zo changed that for me (Thanks, Deb!)

Incidentally, I never proof yeast. (shrug) I buy big packages at Sam's Club, it comes in two individual one pound packages. One pound goes into the refrigerator for regular use, the other into the freezer until I need it. It keeps virtually forever there and a long time in the refrigerator. I've never had any that didn't work.

If you make less bread than I do, the small packages should have an expiration date on them, be sure to check the "age" on the package.

Oh good, your pizza dough came out well then. It's easy to bake bread, really it is.

Annie

I'd love to try the NYT no-knead bread but how much water should I use? I guess 1 5/8 cups water is one cup and 5 liquid ounces? Sorry if it's a dumb question but I never ran into liquid ounces before. Here in the Holy Land we're strictly metric.

According to the google converter that would be 1 cup plus 0.625 cups water. I don't have measuring cups. I use water glasses so I can see where the liquid is (promise to mend my evil ways when I get into baking more seriously).

Should I use one whole cup of water plus slightly more than one half of a cup?

Thanks!

I, too, had been wary of any yeast recipes or bread for that matter. I am an experienced and knowledgable cook. Three years ago, I was seduced by Artisan Bread in Five (abin5) minutes a day, and now I love to bake bread. It comes out so good that I can't believe I made that delish loaf. I get compliments on my bread.

I don't have a stand mixer. I make no knead bread, all, easily, by hand. A bread machine is not needed if you make no-knead breads.

The cooking forum members will help you along as well as the artisanbreadinfive.com website.

Each 4 small loaf batch uses about 6.5 cups of flour. The abin5 recipes are easily halved.

Keep in mind that you don't have to have a baking stone if you bake breads in a dutch oven, no pyrex. I hope your pizza comes out great as it may be the impetus for you to become an artisan bread baker! Join the revolution!

Here's something a bit different - it's a bready cheesy deliciousness "galette franc-comtoise au comté" just means that it comes from the region of Franc-Comté and is made with Comté cheese but you could use cheddar.

Mix : 140ml milk with 2 eggs, 90g melted butter, 450g flour, 1.5 coffee spoons instant yeast and 1 coffee spoon salt. This makes a soft dough that you kead and leave to rise. (easiest to make in a machine) Then spread it out on a baking sheet to about an inch thick. Leave to rise for half an hour then dot the surface with 200g of cheese cubed and 30g butter cubed. Bake for 20 mins at 200°c. Serve it straight away cut into squares for an aperitif or with a green salad. Great for a buffet.

There's a couple of websites I really like. One is called "The Fresh Loaf (link below). They have bread lessons you can follow that are very straight forward. Don't be intimidated, as there are professional bakers on their forums. Sometimes they talk about stuff.....I have no clue! The lessons and their favorite recipes are great (you'll need to scroll down to see the favorites on the left hand side of the first page).

I'm also very fond of King Arthur Flour's recipes, www.kingarthurflour.com . You can actually live chat with someone if you are having trouble with a recipe! I haven't done this personally, but my brother-in-law has.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Fresh Loaf

Here is a very easy and delicious recipe that makes three free-form or pan loaves. Short rise times and simple ingredients make this great for beginners. I made it again this weekend!

Gump Bread from gumpsgirl on the backyardchickens.com forum

2 cups warm (almost hot) water
4 tsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
-Combine together and let rise for 5 minutes

1/4 cup oil
5 cups bread flour, plus extra when kneading
2 tsp. salt
-Add to yeast mixture and knead until smooth and elastic.

Use mixer and dough hook to knead if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer.

Cover and let rise for 20-25 minutes. Beat dough down and make into loaves or rolls (this recipe makes 2 loaves). Here's the trick to get your bread to come out right. You need to roll out the bread into a rectangle, and then roll up into a loaf, like you would when making cinnamon rolls. Lightly slice top of bread to get diagonal cut look when baked. Let loaves rise (I put my loaves on separate cookie sheets) for 20-25 minutes. Bake on 350* for 20-25 minutes, until top of loaves are golden brown. Let bread cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Note: I make 3 smaller loaves, and they are big enough!

Gump’s Bread Variations:

For a garlic and herb loaf:
3tblsp. butter, melted
1/4 tsp. ground savory
1/4 tsp marjoram
1/4 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp chopped fresh garlic
mixed all that up with the melted butter and spread on the dough before rolling it

This recipe works great for making cinnamon rolls! Brush rolled out dough with soft butter, sprinkle heavily with brown sugar and cinnamon, roll up dough, cut 1-inch slices for rolls, bake as above.

Wintercat, as I said, exact measurement never works with bread, there are too many variables including your flour. that'll even vary depending on the growing conditions for the wheat.

If you've made bread before, you'll know how it should look. If not, I'd add a cup and a half of water, and see if the dough holds together. Add more if needed, too moist is better than too dry. If your dough stays together with no dry bits, you're good to go.

Annie

My pizza dough was a little moist and sticky and it continued to rise quite a bit while resting in the fridge, after being on the counter for two hours. I used a recipe that called for 1/4 cup of water less than identical recipes. It didn't come together so I added water until it formed a ball. Should you continue to knead and sprinkle with flour until all stickiness is gone? There were still a few sticky spots inside the ball, but I put it to rest (proof?) anyway.

When I tried to stretch it into a circle, it was so soft that the center got really thin. I had read not to overwork the edge because you'll lose the gases that give it air pockets. So to get it into my mouth, I had to fold it and get under the droopy pointy part--now that's NY pizza! I'm going to try adding semolina flour next time to give it a little more flavor.

This is fun! So many times I saw a good recipe, but then I saw yeast as an ingredient, so I didn't bother copying the recipe.

Tonight I'm making homemade corn tortillas. I decided to try making them after realizing how easy and good homemade refried beans are.

Thank you to those who are contributing recipes! I'm going to have a hard time deciding what to try next!

may, sometimes if you are fighting with your dough it helps to just leave it on the counter for 10 minutes or so and give it time to relax, then spread it out.

Mine is usually a little sticky, I plop it onto the pan and then rub my hands with olive oil to work the dough, that way I don't have to add flour to work with it. A wetter, or more "slack" dough usually gives me the bigger holes I'm looking for.

Annie

No, it wasn't combative but very loose. I used to buy store-made dough and roll that out cold before I knew about letting it warm up. I also just found out the other day about letting it rest so the gluten relaxes.

That's a good tip to oil my hands. I'll do that with the ball I'm using later this week. Thanks, Annie!

Our library doesn't carry ABin5m (new edition coming out soon), but I reserved a few others. Peter Reinhart, who I know is known for his pizza, and one called Flour Yeast Water Salt.

I'm also going to spend hours on The Fresh Loaf website!

This post was edited by may_flowers on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 17:53

Peter Reinhart has some very detailed instructions, but just reading them makes my eyes glaze over, LOL. Some people really enjoy that, but I'm too impatient. You may really enjoy all the explanations, though.

You might also look for "Beard on Bread" and one of my favorite bread books is by Bernard Clayton.

Incidentally, Grit magazine has a pretty good description of the no-knead bread at Grit.com. Yeah, the old farming newspaper turned magazine, they have a quick and simple dutch oven bread recipe.

Annie

Annie, many thanks! Such a useful and reassuring tip, too - not only for the NYT bread, but for bread making in general. Now I'm far less apprehensive about making bread at home.

The only bread I ever made was the no-knead rye bread from KAF this past Saturday. The dough didn't look very promising and I was pleasantly surprised it actually turned into a loaf of bread. Nice bread too - only smells too yeasty to my taste. The NYT has only 1/4 tsp yeast so it's unlikely to smell too yeasty.

WinterCat, the more you make bread, the easier and more natural it becomes.

You can often cut down the yeast in your dough, although it takes much longer to rise. Only experimenting shows me which recipes do well, some are really good, others are spectacular failures. You have to be willing to "sacrifice" that flour/water/yeast mixture if you are going to play with it. Fortunately it's relatively inexpensive.

You can also mix up your favorite bread dough and just put it in the refrigerator, the long slow rise helps the flavor with less of the apparent yeast overload. That can be baked the next day or a couple of days later. Our own Ann T does that regularly and it's a way to guarantee fresh bread even in the middle of the work week.

My family like a rich, eggy, yeasty and slightly sweet dinner roll. I tend to like the lean doughs without added egg or oil and crunchy crusts.

I've often said that taste is not objective, it's subjective. You have to do what you like. Oh, and I always break that rule about not cutting hot bread. It's almost a guarantee that I'm going to take off the end, butter it and eat it, right out of the oven.

I will admit that the texture is better if you let it cool, but I just don't have that willpower. (grin)

Annie

Winter, 1 fluid ounce is 30 ml so 1 5/8 cup is 390 ml. You can probably round it to 400 ml - for bread one usually adds about the right amount and then adjusts if it seems too wet or dry because the moisture in the flour can vary.

For artisan bread you want a wetter dough so it can seem pretty sticky when you first mix it. One thing to do is to let it rest for about 20 minutes and the flour will absorb more of the water so what seemed like a sticky mess will turn into a dough you can work with.

May, bread allows a lot of attitudes. One can get very scientific, opinionated and perfectionist about it - don't let it scare you off that some people on the web do. There is also a lot of leeway in what will make a good bread.

The KA or a bread machine is very helpful in making bagels because that uses a drier dough. The wetter doughs are pretty easy to mix together by hand (though it's very convenient to throw all the ingredients into the bread maker on dough setting and let it do the work.).

Annie, I'm guilty of that too - and I haven't noticed it making much of a difference to the texture - I often bake two loaves so one does get to cool untouched and the other gets a slice or two stolen because the hot bread tastes so good with a slice of good cheddar.

Annie and Cloud - Thanks! If I weren't at work now, I'd probably be off to the kitchen to mix some dough.

Can't wait to have another go. It IS fun, and I like it that bread seems to be such a living thing.

I'm going to try this recipe in the next few days, then on to bread! If you're not from the NY/NJ area, you may have never tried crumb cake. I hope this recipe is the real deal! I've made another version with a non-yeasted sour cream batter, but it's not the same as what we bought at the bakery. You need the less sweet and rich yeast dough to complement the crumb topping. The bakery also formed the dough into buns, which we bought by the piece. I'll attach the link to the blog where I found it.

German Crumb Cake

Batter:
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup, plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature (this is very important)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup butter, melted

Crumb Topping:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

In a small saucepan, heat buttermilk until warm to the touch. Be careful not to let it boil, or get too hot (over 115 degrees) or it will kill the yeast. Stir in sugar and yeast. Set aside for about 5 minutes to proof the yeast. It should start to get foamy, which means the yeast is working.

Add lemon juice to yeast mixture and let stand until curdled, about 1 minute. In a large bowl, add 3 3/4 cups of flour and salt. Add yeast mixture, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer on low until just combined, then continue beating on medium until dough is silky and elastic, about 5 minutes. Dough will be very sticky. Leave dough in bowl and sprinkle with two tablespoons flour. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Pulse together topping ingredients in a a food processor until many large clumps form. Transfer to a bowl and chill, covered, until ready to use.

Grease a 13x9-inch baking dish. Stir down dough, then spread evenly in the prepared baking dish.

Sprinkle dough with half the crumb mixture, then cover dish with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft free place at warm room temperature until almost doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. (OR place in the fridge to do this second rising overnight.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle remaining topping evenly over the cake and bake 50-60 minutes, until topping is golden brown. Cool cake in pan on a rack until barely warm, then dust lightly with confectioner's sugar and cut into squares.

My note: Make sure you leave large chunks for the crumb mixture. The top should not be smooth like the blogger shows in her photo. The photo I found on the internet has as much crumb as cake, which is how I remember it. I'm sure this photo is of the sour cream version. I'm tempted to increase the crumb topping by one half.

Here is a link that might be useful: crumb cake

Yum, may, that looks delicious. I'll be interested in how it turns out.

Annie

I have a question about the above recipe. It says to stir the 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. of sugar and yeast into warm buttermilk. Shouldn't I just stir in the one tbsp? It only needs to feed the yeast, right? I'd add the 1/2 cup in with the wet ingredients.

I agree, May, those instructions are confusing. I'd stir the yeast and 1 tbls of sugar into the buttermilk and add the 1/2 cup with the dry ingredients.

Actually, though, I don't think it would really make any difference, as long as you get it in there.

Annie

Thanks, Annie. You have been sooo helpful!! That's what I did. The dough has been proofing for an hour and hasn't risen yet. I put it into the oven on the proof setting after awhile. Biting my fingernails! It was nice and springy when I was mixing it though. My pizza dough rose right away.

If I wanted to use half the dough for sweet buns, would I just roll them into equal sized balls and let rise again in a baking pan? Also, when I let dough sit in the fridge for a day or two, do I just take it out and let it warm up and then shape it? My leftover pizza dough went a little wild, so I wasn't sure if I should have punched it down while it was sitting in the fridge.

OK, now I'm going to bite my fingernails with you! I do hope it rose, and that the liquid wasn't too hot, because that will kill the yeast.

As for rolls, I'd divide the dough as you need it and go from there. If you let dough sit in the fridge you do need to just take it out, shape it, let it rise. I find some doughs, especially the wetter ones, are easier to shape when cold. Others I shape and then put in the refrigerator, I have a cinnamon roll recipe that I mix, shape, refrigerate then take it out the next morning, let it finish with the rise and bake it.

I've definitely had dough rise in the refrigerator far more than I expected, so that pizza dough wouldn't be unusual, at least not for my kitchen, LOL.

Annie

I still have fingernails! It didn't really start rising until after 2 hours! I put a pan of hot water in the oven with it, and that helped. I wonder if buttermilk isn't a great liquid for dissolving yeast. The buttermilk was almost as thick as yogurt.

I used half for the crumb cake and tried to shape the other half into balls for buns, but I could see it was too wet and would just meld together. So I put the other half in another pan and sprinkled coconut on top. I'm going to try to recreate what we called coconut buns growing up. They are glazed after baking.

I'm letting them rise overnight in the fridge. I think they'll be all right. I just hope they taste good! I'd hate to waste all that butter, sugar, etc. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If it's anything to be proud of, I'll take photos. ;)

How could it not be good, with all that butter and sugar.

OK, now my fingernails are safe.....

Annie

It worked! It didn't rise much while it rested in the fridge overnight or on the counter for 2 1/2 hours this morning, so I really thought it would be a dud.

Here's the coconut coffee cake that I made with half the dough. I didn't really have enough dough for the size of the pan. The buttermilk flavor really came through on it, which I wasn't expecting. The crumb cake was better and looks like the above photo. It was a cross between a sour cream coffee cake and a yeast coffee cake--very moist and light, but not what I remember buying from the bakery as a kid. I don't think buttermilk is the right ingredient for German crumb cake.

I think I only panicked about 5 times on my yeasty journey. So I should be able to improve upon that. ;)

may flowers,

There's a large difference in the many types of German coffee cakes but my Mom (German-Russian) made her's with yeast and sour milk (not sour cream). When the milk went "bad" we knew there would be coffee cake for breakfast! :)

/tricia

So German coffee cake is the product of frugality! Did you ever leave the milk sitting out "by accident"? ;)

My opinion is that I could have used whole milk and added the lemon juice to curdle it.

May, that looks pretty darned good to me, yum.

I also think you coldl just add lemon juice or vinegar to make "sour milk", although my Grandma often sued milk that had gone "off" a little to bake various cakes, cookies and pastry.

I'm sure you're going to try again, since you had such good luck this time!

Annie