No chemistry degree here, that's for sure, my degree is in something completely unrelated, LOL.

People say that baking is an exact science, but I tend to swap, interchange, substitute and generally mess about with everything and it still usually comes out OK. I've never managed to make an edible loaf of bread with 100% homeground whole wheat and eventually just stopped trying, it becomes too involved and I lose interest. I don't really like the flavor of sourdough, so I gave that up too.

Bread is especially forgiving, though. It's flour/water/salt/yeast, but it's never the same twice, it depends on atmosphere, the age of the flour, the ambient temperature, all kinds of things. Somehow it still turns out fine most times, so as soon as you figure out how it should look and feel, you can make it right.

It can be as involved as you want to make it, or so simple that a 7 year old can handle it, which is how old I was when I started baking bread.

Just keep baking!

Annie

OMG....all this stuff just sounds so hard!!
People who want to make bread....please don't be discouraged....just mix it up....and you will have bread!!
On the chemistry bit...I had some pretty stiff chem classes, but they were inorganic....and I sure never took home ec nor cooking nor anything of the sort. I just bake....and it turns out pretty damn well, and over the years I have read, and watched and learned. But it all comes down to flour, water yeast....and salt.
Mix it up, let it sit for a while and bake it...Voila! !Bread!
I'm with annie on this....just do it!

I agree that if you just mix it up you'll get bread, but when the questions are asked, I think it's better to answer. And if you know about these concepts, and have an inkling what's going on in your loaf, if it doesn't come out well, it helps a lot!!

Yes, if you know what you're doing and learned at your mother's knee, it's easy. Pooh-poohing knowledge is not helpful, however. For people who don't know what it's supposed to be like, and who haven't had the best success, it's a lot harder than you make it out to be. The first thing is the right ingredients for the right task.

Get some Dough Enhancer and Vital
Wheat Gluten and have fun with your dough.

dcarch

Well, my quick bred was kinda blah. In these cases, the dh paraphrases Eileen on Seinfeld — “It just wasn’t carb-worthy.” I think it was the new recipe but now I see I shouldn’t have used my KA mixer. Still, hand mixing wouldn’t have saved it. Gonna stick with my old “spoon roll” recipe, and my standard overnight yeast bread until I see the next thing that catches my attention. Thanks, all, for the chem lesson.

MizLizzie, sometimes a recipe just disappoints us. I keep trying new ones all the time, even though I keep the old ones. The more I bake, the more successful I am because I learn which mistakes and substitutions I can get away with. I never use vital wheat gluten or dough enhancers, mostly because I just never have them on hand and it all turns out fine without them.

If I had to read all those things about bread I'd never bake any, my eyes glaze over about 3 lines in because it just doesn't interest me. Other people love that scientific point of view. (Think Alton Brown) Everyone is different and that's fine.

So, if you just want bread, LindaC is right, toss it in a bowl, stir it up, some recipes don't even require kneading. Bake it and it's bread, people have been doing it for centuries, long before scales and dough enhancers. Want to get "fancier"? Branch out into brioche or alternative grains or growing your own sourdough? Those are more involved and you need to know more about things like the layers of butter that melt and give you flaky croissants or gluten levels.

So, as I said, it's as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. The real trick is to just keep on baking, there really is no substitute for experience and the confidence you get by doing it. I tend to just jump in, I figure if it fails (which it does sometimes), I'm out a couple of cups of flour and some yeast, it's not like I messing around with anything that costs more than a few pennies.

Annie

My late mother baked yeast rolls and biscuits nearly everyday, and also either a pie or cake and always cookies. When I was growing up in KS, there were two kinds of flour available in the grocery store: Swansdown cake flour and all-purpose flour. She used the Swansdown for her cakes and the all-purpose for everything else. Her bakes goods were fabulous!

Knowing what you're doing cuts down on fails and makes it easier to get it right next time. If you'd rather just trial and error, that works too. That's how all the people who figured this stuff out got there... :)

Perhaps. I know I've followed instructions to the letter and have gotten epic fails and have done things like knead bread made with bread flour by hand (gasp!) and have it be fine. I did it for years and it always turned out and then I was informed by an "expert" here that it was impossible, she had prepared tutorials and assured me it could NOT work. I must be mistaken. Ahem. The only other place I ever saw that particular information was at the King Arthur website, and sure enough, the "tutorial" was copied and pasted directly from there. Of course, they were wrong too, I managed to successfully knead the bread flour based dough by hand for a decade or so, happily unaware that it was impossible.

As I said, to each their own. I read those long and involved explanations, and then read them again, and then read them again and never manage to absorb the information because I have to actually do something if I'm ever going to retain it. I'm better off spending that time doing instead of reading. (shrug) Some people learn by seeing, some by hearing and some by doing, that old visual vs auditory learning thing. That's the beauty of human nature, we're all different. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read the tutorials, if that's how you learn. It also doesn't mean that I'm wrong because I don't. I also don't want to scare off prospective bakers by tossing pages of "rules" at them. If I had to take a chemistry class to bake bread, I'd still be eating Pepperidge Farms, having reached my threshold of patience in about three lines.

So, there's nothing wrong with posting all that information, it's useful for some. However, people like me who would shrug and scroll past should also know that they can bake bread anyway, without actually having to become a chemistry major or obtain an engineering degree or, for that matter, buy special flours or other ingredients. It really is as simple or as involved as you want it to be.

Annie

For a home baker, it's really extraneous and perhaps confusing to some neophytes to think they have to worry about what family of gluten, gliaden or another is dominant in what flour.
It's really pretty simple....buy All purpose for most things...it will even work for cakes and bread.. If you really get into the bread thing, you may want to get some bread flour, but I find Montana Wheat all purpose is better than bread flour for bread....buy cake flour for cakes...if you want....but you can bake a cake with AP flour and unless it's an angelfood cake of a sponge cake you will never notice a difference. And if you want to make rye bread....why of course use rye flour.
There is no denying that freshly milled grains are better tasting.....but most of us don't have a mill and the rest don't want to take the time.
Don't ovr analyze...just do it!! I hear too many people say "I have to get up my nerve to try making bread...not sure I know how to work with yeast"...mix it up and bake it!

Sure, false information exists, and I have no way of confirming the accuracy of the reference material I posted. But, Annie, what kind of craziness is that? I've hand kneaded King Arthur bread flour and it rose just fine. It's really stiff stuff and can be hard to knead, but that just means you have to work harder. What's with them? I suppose they figure the sweet little ladies using their recipes are too frail and dainty to work the dough... (I tried to find it but couldn't.) I could understand if they said that about bread machine instant yeast because kneading dough that's trying to rise that fast can be a nightmare of stickiness...

I totally agreed with you about just baking, and said so up topic. That's a lot easier for someone who already knows the process to do successfully, however. I learned to bake from my mother from the age of about four. I know what to do if given an old fashioned "receipt" instead of a recipe. As an adult, however, I've found that the whole deal, especially yeast dough, is a big mystery to most people, and many fail spectacularly. I know how to feel whether my traditional doughs are moist enough, or properly kneaded. Beginners look at dough and are flummoxed.

I'm sure it's true that some people are put off by too much information, but a great many, especially those I've met whose moms were useless in the kitchen, do much better if you tell them why. Not so they can carry around chapter and verse in their heads, but so they can remember...the moisture content can have an effect. Maybe I need to change it.

The reason I posted all the info is that the thread starts "school me on flour" and the OP asked for information about different types of flour and how they're used. So I answered. I figured anyone reading, including the OP, would read and use just as much of it as they wanted. I don't understand why I should hold back the information I've been given which is highly relevant to the topic at hand any more than I understand why KA would hold back the idea that hand kneading dough is possible any time machine kneading is.

Knowledge is always better than ignorance. Someone who isn't ready to use it today, might be glad to be able to find it a year from now. Why should we assume that someone who posts here regularly is a sad little dear whose poor little noggin is incapable of deciding for herself which information she wants to bother with?

Linda, I heartily disagree. I make many kinds of breads with many kinds of flour and it does make a big difference in the final product. You can use AP for everything and get bread, but you won't get the same kind of bread as the recipe was for if it is meant for a different flour, and if that's what you were aiming for, you'll have a semi-failure every time. Better to know there are other kinds of flour for other purposes, and think maybe you had the wrong flour, than to think it's your fault for not being good enough and just quitting.

plllog, I agree, some people love all that information, some don't even intend to bake bread and they like to have it for whatever purpose. I don't think it's a wrong or bad thing for posting it. Gardenweb used to have their FAQ and tutorials on things from bread baking to photography were there for easy access for those who wanted to brush up or find information they knew they had seen but couldn't locate. Having all the information available is a very good thing, I think, and I don't believe you need to change it, I just want people to know that it isn't hard.

I do feel that those who could be overwhelmed with all those "rules" might be intimidated. (I feel the same way about people who are learning to can, BTW, I try to avoid telling them they need HazMat suits or that they are going to kill someone. I do explain the possibility of food borne illnesses and the necessity of tested techniques) I do not think that everyone who comes here with a question is a beginner or inexperienced, but some are. I also get the feeling that those of us who just do it without ever caring about the chemistry of it are pooh-poohed and harumphed sometimes. I don't care why mixing two substances creates a specific action, only that they do. So I want some information, but not necessarily an entire lesson. Not that I remember anyway. I went through the entire Master Canner and then the Food Safety courses, TWICE, and I still have to look up the numbers when I'm thinking Ph, because I just don't retain that information. Heck, I don't even remember my Mother's phone number. I'd worry about my age except that I've never been able to remember numbers, even when I was young. I know I'm not the only one, so if I had to read and remember all that information, I just wouldn't bake.

Now, the King Arthur Flour "can't knead by hand" thing? I have no idea how they came up with that or why, and of course, I can't find it again. I know I challenged them on it and perhaps others did too. However, I specifically remember it because it was my tip-off that all those "personal tutorials" that were "painstakingly prepared" were simply copy-and-paste plagiarism. I don't have any problem at all with using information that's already available, but I do have a very large problem with claiming that information as my own when someone else did the work, even if it is all available via Google. I'm still sorry I never called her out publicly on it. (sigh)

I also agree that using different flours for different applications will produce the optimum results. However, most people don't have the space or the desire to keep 17 types of flour and most won't use an entire container before it becomes stale. That even includes me, and I bake something nearly every day. So, will a cake made with cake flour be light and delicious and possibly perfect? Yes it will. Will the same cake made with all purpose still be delicious, especially topped with dark chocolate ganache? Oh yes, it definitely will. So, if I'm baking that cake for something very special and I want it to be perfect I'll spring for the cake flour. For Sunday with my family I'm just going to haul out the cornstarch and make my own with all purpose. For a bake sale at school that needs a pan of cupcakes? That's not even going to get the cornstarch mix and they won't get ganache either, they're going to get a cake made with all purpose flour and American buttercream made with Hershey's cocoa, LOL, and the 5th graders will happily pay 25 cents each and scarf down a couple. It's still as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.

Annie

....and if your bread dough is too heavy and stiff to knead....add more water!!
My great grandmother owned a boarding house after she was widowed for the 2nd time. She baked bread every day, and cookies and biscuits, and angelfood cake. She had but one kind of white flour. She sifted it 3 times before she even measured for angelfood cake...and her bread was a typical white bread, made with half milk.
And the Italian Deli down the street when I was a kid made the best Italian bread....they didn't know giladen from gluten but they knew they got their best flour from Italy and it also worked in their home made lasagna noodles and ravioli.
Years back, someone I know who was associated with a small ( at that time) craft brewery was researching and doing a seminar for other brewers on the origins of beer making. They found that the ancients Sumarians or Phonecians or whatever, made the first beer of record by soaking their bread and heating and straining the resultant liquid. The next step was finding out how they made their bread. As you might expect it was made by mixing a variety of grains ( they found examples of ancient bread to analyze) with water and allowing to ferment and the natural yeast to grow and then baking.
The point in all this is we know that they were malting their grains and that the sugars in those grains developed the alcohol. But they didn't know and they still made beer! Just as we now know that certain wheat grown in different places has a higher content of one protein or another and will give slightly different results, but Gold Medal or King Arthur mixes them all together for us and we get uniform results.

For all you out there who want to make bread but are "scared", just do it! Get a big bowl, put a cup of very slightly warm water in it....not hotter then you sprinkle on your wrist to test a baby's bottle. Add a heaping teaspoonful of yeast....doesn't matter what kind....and a teaspoon of sugar and another of salt....mix it up and add flour....all purpose is good....and stir and keep adding flour until you can't stir any more. Mush it together, put into another oiled bowl, cover and let it sit on the counter for about an hour....more or less.....then pop it into the refrig over night...or for 3 days. Remove from refrig and allow it co warm up for about 1 1;2 hours...mush it into a sort of a mass and put it onto a floured sheet pan...or a round cake pan or a pie pan or whatever. allow to rise for another hour and bake in a preheated 350 oven until nice and brown....BOOM! Bread!

We got a Jacques Pepin DVD from the library and have been enjoying watching him. He made a Soda Bread, no yeast required. Baking powder instead. It looks and sounds like a perfect bread for people that have never made bread and may not have yeast in the house.

Oh, I loved all the bread comments. Does anyone have a good, tasty recipe for rye bread? I have a grain mill and some rye berries and wheat berries. I can also use plain ole white flour. My last attempt at rye bread was a bust, for whatever reason. Well, I guess it was probably because I used ALL rye flour. Looked like a hockey puck but didn't taste too bad. I didn't want to deal with it so I crumbled it up and threw it out in the feed bunk for the heifers. They scarfed it right up. :>)

LOL, Anna, my cows would love it too, they'll eat Little Debbie powdered sugar donuts, they don't even require homemade!

So you want a rye bread recipe with a lot of rye flour? Or a soft and puffy dark loaf? I have a friend who spent time in Germany who likes a loaf I make, dark with espresso and cocoa, from King Arthur Flour: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/russian-black-bread-recipe

Jewish rye? Dark rye? Caraway Rye? I think I've made them all with varying degrees of success, LOL, but I do love rye bread. I also make a rye "creampuff" type thing that I fill with corned beef and sauerkraut as a "Reuben" kind of appetizer.

Annie

Soft and puffy dark loaf would be good. As would the rye creampuff thing. Thanks.

From my friend Ann...delicious!!

From the Kitchen of Ann Straight

Swedish Rye Bread (5 loaves)

2pkg dry yeast

1 cup warm H2O dissolve these three ingredients

1tsp. sugar

(meanwhile)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup whiter sugar

1tsp. salt (scant)

1/4 tsp. fennel seed

1 cup shortening (I use oleo)

1/2 (scant) molasses

4 cups warm H2O

(combine this), add yeast mixture

Stir in 4 cups Rye Flour

Work in 8 or more cups of white flour (I use 10 cups)

The dough should be soft, but of course it should be workable

Knead for 5 minutes

Mix well--cover and let rise in warm place until double--- stir or punch

down

Dump out on lightly floured counter

Divide into 5 sections---shape

Place in greased pans--let rise

Bake at 275 -300 degrees until done

My notes....takes a little more flour while kneading....and needs to bke an hour or more. It shoudl pull away from the sides of the pan a little....if ti's not done, it will collapse when you try to slice it....so better to over bake than under bake.

Yeah, but Annie, if you use King Arthur flour (AP or bread) in my mother's challah recipe, you'll get bread, but it'll be heavy, the crumb will be different and the flavor will be off. That was my point. If you know that there are dozens of different flours with different protein contents, you'll be able to say, "Hm. Must be the wrong flour," rather than saying, "I'm hopeless and shouldn't even try." I'm not saying to memorize lists. Just know about the concept and where to find the info to support it.

I have read and loved all the responses. I will confess, I am kind of a seat-of-the-pants cook — once I try a recipe, I immediately begin tweaking it and flinging in all manner of things. Probably a third of what I cook is thrown together, but I do often get asked later for the recipe and then can’t half recall what I used, which makes some folks think I’m one of “those” cooks. (A neighbor still thinks I’m refusing to give out my carrot cole slaw recipe because — well, damn. It’s cole slaw. With some carrots — on that day, anyway. I have just been making it all my life, and if I want carrot or green pepper or kohlrabi in it, that’s what I put in it, ya know? But she’s like — how MUCH vinegar? I dunno. Maybe 2 tablespoons? Just slop some in until it tastes right.) So I get that a lot of cooks like to wing it. But I do appreciate the science of flour and welcome everyone’s patience. Other than your basic biscuits, cornbread, Yorkies, and dutch oven loaves, bread baking has never been my forte but I do want to learn more. And then wing it. LOL. So thanks again. This will be a great archive thread, btw.

As I said, plllog, if it's "special" and I want a specific result, I'll spring for a specialty flour. However, I've recently discarded some 000 flour Elery bought from Amazon for pizza dough two years ago (He did make ONE pizza with it), a bag of P.A.N. that I bought for arepas which I never made, and a bag of home grown whole wheat that I ground, didn't use and it got stuck on the back of a shelf and forgotten....about a year ago. There just isn't room to keep all those different flours without some of them going rancid or stale and with just two of us there's not enough baked goods to use them all up, no matter how often I bake. And did I ever figure out the difference between P.A.N. and cornmeal? Nope, but I know they aren't interchangeable in arepas because all the recipes are very specific about that ingredient. Do I need to know? I guess not, as I never made them, LOL.

MizLizzie, if you're looking for some good bread recipes you'll find some here, and if the search function fails you (as it does most people), King Arthur Flour's website has some good ones. Funny how a flour company can bake bread. (grin)

Annie

lindac.............scant 1/2 WHAT of molasses? 1/2 teaspoon? Tablespoon?? 1/2 cup???

Trying again....seems all didn't make the copy and paste thing...

Swedish Rye Bread (5 loaves)

2pkg dry yeast

1 cup warm H2O dissolve these three ingredients

1tsp. sugar mix water yeast and sugar

(meanwhile)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup whiter sugar

1 tsp. salt (scant)....she says scant...I just go whole hog and put in the whole teaspoon full

1/4 tsp. fennel seed....I can't believe that in all that dough 1/4 tsp of anything makes a difference....but it does!

1 cup shortening (I use oleo).....again Ann's directions, I never have margerine in the house, so I use half butter and half crisco

1/2 cup (scant) molasses....again the scant is Ann's direction...I just use the whole half cup

4 cups warm H2O

And here's a recipe for the opposite kind of rye bread. Years ago, my neighbor's Swedish mother wojuld come to visit and make this fabulous bread and give me a loaf. I asked for the recipe....and was told no recipe, she just does it. so next time she came, I went over to watch and as she put stuff in to the bowl, I measured it....most of it! This is the result....sorry about no measurement for the rye flour, but it really depends on how big your "medium" potatoes are!

Here's the Rye bread I promised. Makes 6 loaves.

Cook 4 medium potatoes (peeled), drain saving the water and put through a

sieve (or mash)

proof 2 pkts of yeast (or 3 1/2 teaspoons) in 1/2 cup warm water with a t.

of sugar.

Mix 4 c. of buttermilk, 3/4 c. dark molasses, 1/4 cup of

shortening (she used Crisco, I use butter) and 1 t. baking soda and

1T.salt.

Add 3/4 c. brown sugar and 3/4 c, of the potato water. Add enough

rye flour to make a dough ( still able to be stirred, but getting pretty

stiff).Add the yeast mixture and mix well Add enough white bread flour to

(as Mrs. Faust said)work it up, That is until it is stiff enough to knead.

knead about 6 to 8 minutes, let rise till double, punch it down and shape

into loaves. this works best in bread pans due to the long cooking time--if

you don't have 6 bread pans, just "free form" the rest and maybe take it

out of the oven a little sooner. Butter top of loaves and raise until it

almost cracks on top (this is a very heavy bread!) Bake 350 for 1 1/4

hours. mrs Faust used to divide the dough in half and add about a t. of

anise seed to -one half of the dough--I like it--almost like a tea bread..

Good Luck--I'm getting hungry just reading the recipe--it's really a

fabulous bread!

MizLizzie, I mostly cook that way too. It is possible to bake improvisationally as well, but you have to be more mindful of basic proportions. As Annie and Linda have been saying, just mix it up and bake it does work--if you just want a passable product. It's getting something specific that takes more finesse and the correct ingredients. One of the reasons I started milling my own flour is so I could have less of those thrown out when they got too old adventures Annie mentioned. It's also noticeably fresher for whole grain (the part that goes rancid is removed from white flour). I do keep Gold Medal AP and Better for Bread, KA unbleached AP and Swansdown cake flour, always, and mill my own whole wheat, rye, and other grains.

For cake, if you put in a basic proportion of flour, sugar, eggs, liquid and don't forget some baking powder (inexact amounts work so long as they're around about what you should be using), and if the batter looks like cake batter and tastes like cake batter, if you bake it, it will be cake. And if the batter tastes good, and you don't over bake it or bake it too hot, it'll taste good. :)

Improvisational bread isn't as easy. Yes, flour, water, and yeast, but getting it to be nice takes more method. Once you've mastered a few bread recipes, however, you can tweak the heck out of them, though it's easier making one change at a time and being aware of how those changes affect the structure. But if you have a recipe that has a variation for adding seeds to the dough, and you want to use toasted sesame seeds rather than caraway, you can use the same method and just adjust the amount of seeds for flavor and volume (i.e., I'd probably use the same number(-ish) of seeds, rather than the same volume to get a nice flavor and texture).

I disagree....I think it's lots less demanding of an exact recipe for bread than for cakes or cookies or...
I think In my easily 60 years of baking bread, I may have tossed maybe 4 loaves...and half were because I forgot to add salt....and the others were because for some reason I forgot them in the oven and they got very brown....VERY brown!!
Why do you keep both AP and unbleached AP flours?

I think I bake much more specific breads than you do, and that's probably the difference.

The AP and unbleached AP are for different applications. Unbleached isn't nice in cakes. It's too heavy. But I prefer AP for bundt cakes or dense cakes with fruit or something in the batter, and use Swansdown for flyaway cakes, like chiffons or delicate layer cakes. For most cooking purposes, I use unbleached, and also for white pie crusts and general baking with a breadier texture, including biscuits and pancakes. Hm... to my list, I should also add that I always have Wondra (fine barley flour) for sauces and flouring pans. I should try milling my own, but I don't think my mill is fine enough. This differentiation isn't necessary, mind you. I can tell the difference, but it's not like it's huge.

Why do you use the unbleached in pie crust, pancakes and biscuits?

Nothing scientific. I prefer the unbleached philosophically because it's not so heavily processed, and some sources say bleaching chemicals remain in the flour. I'm not really fussed about it. I've tried making whole grain cakes but to me it's just not cake (I do prefer to use whole grain in pancakes, though, if there's some milled.) If I were feeding it to kids daily, I'd either stick with the whole grain and find a happy compromise, or just make other sweets, but since cake is special around here, nowadays, I like it to be the real, good kind, so I use bleached. At the same time, the unbleached King Arthur, which is heavier than the bleached Gold Medal, has more flavor and ... not tooth, but something... and makes really nice short things. I find that the bleached flour in biscuits give them a gummy mouthfeel that the unbleached doesn't. The differences are pretty subtle between different APs, and it might be more about KA vs. GM than unbleached vs. bleached.

I could make do with just the Gold Medal AP for everything I bake, and as has been said up topic, it would all work from the technical standpoint. I just do find that the flour affects the flavor and texture more than enough to keep several kinds and if I have to put some in the compost because it wasn't used up fast enough, I can live with that. I also like Caputo 00 for pasta, but that's a small bag and I don't keep it around. Learning to make good whole grain pasta is on my to-do list anyway. The flavor of my whole wheat pizza has spoiled me for all other crusts. I still like the puffy, yeasty charred white that you get at a really good pizzeria (or some folks' outdoor wood fired pizza ovens), but it also has that gummy in the mouth thing I don't care for, and it's the yeast and char that have the flavor, rather than the flour.

I have also made a whole wheat pizza crust that was really, really good. And I make chocolate chip cookies with all WW flour and couldn't tell the difference. Well, ok, maybe a teeny, tiny difference. They were good.

Pillog: will you share your mother's challah recipe? (I'm assuming it's a favorite)

If you're willing to commit to using high quality powdered saffron and not using butter (baking sticks (100 Calorie per ounce margarine) or veg shortening only. Butter makes it heavy and slimy), as well as using the correct flour, send me a private message with your e-mail and I'll send it to you. You can monkey around with it all you like--a cousin did and made all sorts of bread--but if you don't make it as stated it's absolutely not the same thing and must be acknowledged as your own thing.

Sigh. I've been through it with a lot of people. Very few are willing to make the real deal and then whine because it's not the same. Or they whine because it takes a long time. I don't think you're a whiner, of course! Just that's why I always start with the warnings. The instructions are pages long for the inexperienced. If it still sounds like something you want to try, just let me know.

Ah, pages long recipes for the inexperienced.............sounds like my Gramma's Fasnach Kuechli recipe.

Plllog, Thanks for the offer. I could handle the ingredient list, but the "pages long" would put me to sleep.

Edited to say: Sorry for the spelling; I did think it was two ll's and an i, but didn't intend the w !!

LOL on the autocorrect. If it helps, that's three L's, no i. :)

I'm sorry I don't remember how much bread you bake. If you're very comfortable with it, I can make you a one page version. There's no file card version. :)

I think I might like the one page version. After all, I have tackled Kouign Amman and it turned out pretty good. :>) Still refining my technique and since I only make it once a year.............LOL I cannot afford the calories more than that. I make it at Christmas time.

Anna, send me your e-mail address, and remind me if you don't get it (I still need to write the trimmed version). If you'd like to trade, and happen to have your gramma's Fasnach Kuechli written down in any form (I'm not scared of pages long!), I'd love to try it. :) (If you can make Kouign Amman, perfected or not, the challah will be no big deal. :) It's bread. Just not a universal recipe and a bit fiddly.)

I admit I have NOT made Gramma Fasnach Kuechli...........I have not had a whole freekin' day to devote to it. LOL

I "tried" to send you a message with my email............did you get it?

Received. It's okay about the Kuechli. I may not have a day for it either. I try to do a new fried dessert for Hanukkah every year. Last year I did sonhos ("dreams" in Portuguese) but only a small group got them, so I may repeat for the party. :)

I seem to be the type that is always up for a challenge and the challah sounds like one........I started brewing kombucha and even made my own SCOBY. :>) I have not had time to try either of the rye breads above. Perhaps when my lasagna supper for church is over......it's this Sunday and I am making ALL the lasagna..........7 half-sheet pans worth. Too many people make crappy lasagna, and I have NEVER brought any home in the pan from a church dinner. We're having garlic bread too........Gads, I am getting off topic. Sorry............(slinking off to the corner.......)

Where do you get a half sheet cake pan that's deep enough for lasagna?...( also off topic)

I don't remember where I got my first one......probably some specialty baking store. I just bought 2 more this summer because I don't like the end result when I baked dinner rolls in it............they get too brown and I know it's the pan. These 2 new ones I got from the "Webstaurant Store". I was wanting a stainless steel one 2 inches deep; I had to settle for 1 1/2 inches, which will be fine. It will hold a whole batch of lasagna, no problem

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Brand%20Terms&utm_term=%2Bwebstaurantstore.com&utm_content=Webstaurant%20terms%201 

You don't have to be in food service to buy from them.

You have to do a search, I didn't have time to go to the specific page. That is the home page.

Lasagna in a pan that's 1 1/2 inches deep? Can you even get 2 layers with that? At church I use 2 inch deep pyrex, and that's pretty shallow....at home I like a 3 inch deep dish.
How does the baking go? There are a bunch of big steam table pans at church that I have always been afraid to use for a casserole, being afraid that the edges would be dried out before the middle was done.

I use the pound box of lasagna noodles............it makes 3 layers; 6 noodles long x 3 "high/deep"...........whatever. The same goes for the Nescos. I make my sauce with 2 quarts of tomato juice and use 2 pounds of ground beef and 1 pound of ground pork. Don't forget the cheeses.........LOL I've never had an issue with spillage or "boiling over" during baking. The Nescos take a bit of "minding'', tho. I put a little water between the insert and the roaster bottom; not much, but it seems to help take away some of the "dry heat" thing. I also use those insert liners so cleanup is a breeze. I've found that you have to be pretty conscious of getting sauce around the edges, or I do have a bit of drying out.

Yes, I know..........this does not involve bread (but lasagna noodles are made from wheat flour, right????). lindac..........here is my lasagna. The supper went great, we ran out 5 minutes before the designated "stop" time of the supper. I think that 7 pans was the magic number.

Looks yummy....that pan has to be deeper than the 1 1/2 inch deep sheet pans I am thinking of....and decidedly smaller! Will that fit into a Nesco? Because the ones I am thinking of would no way go into a Nesco roaster....at least the ones at my church!!
Do you also have a layer of ricotta?....that would be waaaay easier than the forty-million 9 by 12 glass casseroles I currently use! We have lots of oven space and a warming drawer on each stove....wondering if those steam table pans would work? But not willing to experiment on some poor folks!

No. The 3 half-sheet pans have to be baked in the oven. I didn't take a picture of the Nesco inserts. I just layer all ingredients in the insert the same as I do the pans; they're pretty much the same size...........6 noodles laid the same way as the half sheets. 3 layers. Noodles, sauce, cottage cheese, mozzarella, and some grated parmesan, in that order. I detest ricotta.

AnnaZ, I'm not crazy about ricotta either, although my husband loves it. I use cottage cheese in my lasagna too!

I just made pasta too. Using good old King Arthur AP flour instead of the semolina the recipe called for, LOL, and my Atlas pasta machine. I have the KA attachment but it's unwieldy to use, I like the Atlas better.

I made some smaller "pappardelle" and some larger lasagna noodles, which went into the freezer for Christmas lasagna, but I didn't take pictures of the larger noodles.

I made a Pane Bianco to go with the pasta, also with AP flour, using the recipe from the King Arthur flour website. They called for bread flour but I didn't have it and the AP worked just fine. I also used AP flour this summer when that same bread recipe won me a Grand Champion ribbon at the county fair.

I also made an apple cake, again using the same AP flour. It turned out well too:

Yes, I made pasta, bread and cake, all using the same AP flour and they all turned out fine. My critics were two other Cooking Forum members, Peppi and Sherry (sheshebop), and they agreed that all items turned out well. As a result, I stand by my original assessment that I'd buy specialty flour if I were baking something for a very special occasion, but for everyday use, AP works just fine for most things.

And speaking of keeping things that don't get used, I just found a jar of that pizza seasoning for bread from King Arthur Flour stuck in my cabinet. Expiration date 3/16/16. (sigh)

Annie