Baking GOOD bread?

[genifer]

Im looking for some tips on ways to make my bread a bit more... appetising. Ive done it before but cant remember the techinques I used to produce lovely fluffy bread. Lately my breads are coming out a bit too stodgy and dense. I dont have a bread machine so its all done by hand. What tips do you use to create a lovely fluffy loaf of bread..

[Jaxinator]

Just a thought, is the yeast too old? I've had dense bread when the yeast was sitting for a bit too long.

[genifer]

not sure, I bought it a few weeks ago so unless its been sitting in the shops for yonks, its reletively new...

[JamieCatheryn]

My techniques:

Take care that the water is warm but not hot when you add the yeast. Warm bath temp. Add half the flour and the sugar. If using part white bread flour part whole wheat, add white first. Let that moist "sponge" part rise a while first. Then add the rest of ingredients. Knead it thoroughly, I know there are no-knead recipes and folks who swear by them but everything I hear from professional bakers says knead knead knead. Be sure the dough sits somewhere *warm* to rise. My house is 63F, I have to turn on the oven for a minute, turn it off but keep the light on, and put the dough in there.

[columbusmomma]

Thanks for posting the recipe Catherine. I'm in the mood to try something new!

[Smokering]

Yeast that contains bread improver makes a big difference. So does letting the bread rise enough - I often run out of time or get impatient and bake the bread before it's doubled, but it really makes a difference when it's had that extra time to rise to great fluffy heights.

Use water from boiling potatoes or pumpkins. Add the salt after you've kneaded for the first 5 minutes and let the dough sit for a few minutes. (Don't leave out the salt, though, it makes a huge difference. Bread without it is just... blah.) Maybe up the fat content a bit? I use olive oil or butter.

And if your bread lacks pizzazz, add stuff! Mashed pumpkin or chopped rosemary or olives or raisins and cinnamon. Or roll it up Swiss roll-style with caramelised onions and cheese. Or top it with sesame or sunflower seeds, rock salt, garlic, paprika, coarse cornmeal... Stuff like that covers a multitude of sins.

[genifer]

Thanks guys!

Smokering Ill try your suggestions. This last batch was horrible! Ive made the same recipe before and it was light and fluffy. This was disgusting! Bland, stodgy, dense. yak (hang on like this one...:Puke).

Letting it rise twice then might help. I was impatient and only let it rise once. Also, I read somewhere that its normal for the dough to be sticky. I kept adding flour this time, that might do it to, mightn't it? It was worse with whole wheat flour, very hard to kneed actually.

Ive never seen yeast with bread improver in it. Ill look out for it. Do you know what that improver is? Can you get it seperately?