Thread: Fresh baked bread!

What do you call it?

I love to bake but do not have the opportunity as often any more as I have a family member that has been diagnosed with celiacs disease (allergy to gluten). I take the opportunity to try working with new flours like rice, sorgum, potato, etc.

I think that fresh baked bread is almost ingrained in our DNA as it was such a staple food stuff for humans for so long.

+1 on the fresh bread being like a fine straight razor!
+1 on sourdough I have one that goes bask five years and have some in the freezer, just in case.

Thanks for sharing!
Tom

I love fresh baked bread. There is nothing better than hot fresh bread with some great butter or a great cheese.

I used to bake bread a lot when I had time. I even once made my own Sourdough, but I forgot to feed it everyday and I ruined it.

Hmmm.....I think that will be my project this weekend. Bread!

oh man, fresh bread? Not even a need for butter, it melts in your mouth like butter. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Sigh, looks like I'm headed to a bakery tomorrow

Just took a couple loaves of sour-dough out of the oven.

AWESOME!!!


Strange, suddenly I feel a growing hunger.......?

An old, pitted and worn beyond restoration straight makes a very nice bread slasher. The thin sharp blace makes a nice clean slash across the soft dough.

I love fresh baked bread. We got a bread machine as a wedding present, and I used it a few times, but then got the urge to try and make real sourdough.
I've never looked back. I have a few sourdough starters that I just love. 1 is from San Fransisco, which I consider to be such a special treat. The other I have is from Bahrain. It's a very unique sour taste and a nice change.

I use either one to make just about all my breads. Here are some of mine, and my families favorites:

Cheddar Jalapeno - My family loves this, and will kill me if I don't make it for family functions.

Rosemary and Kalamata olive

Sundried Tomato and fresh basil

Roasted garlic and Parmesan

Pesto - This is another family favorite

Rye - Believe it or not, sourdough starter makes some of the best Rye bread.

And of course, just straight Sourdough.

It can also be used to make a killer pizza crust.

The method I use take 3 days from start to finish for a batch of dough, but it's sooooooo worth it!

I have some in the fridge ready to get started, so I'll take some pictures when the loafs come out this weekend and post them.

Here are some pictures of the bread that I baked today. My wife and son didn't even give me chance to take pictures of the loaves before they cut into them. The 2 smaller loaves are Sourdough and Garlic/Parmersan.
The bigger loaf is Rosemary and Kalamata Olive.

I sure waved with the lumberjack axe in front of the carpenter when starting this thread!
Way to go, Mgarbell! Love the zipper-like pattern on the bread!

May I be so bold as to ask for the recepie for the jalapeno/cheddar bread, sounds extremely tasty!

The recipe I use is based on sourdough that I make using starter. The starter I use is like batter, so keep this in mind. I'm sure that you could use just about any bread recipe and add the cheese and peppers to taste.

Day1: Create firm starter
2 cups bread flour
2 cups starter

Combine into ball and knead just enough to mix together. Dough should not be dry at all, so add water as needed.
Cover and let sit at room temperature for 8 hours.
Refrigerate overnight well covered.

Day 2: Create dough

All firm starter from day 1 (take out of fridge set out for 1 hour to warm up to room temp)
2 cups water
6 cups bread flour
1 Tbs salt
1 tbs sugar

Mix all ingredients together to form dough and knead until it passes the windowpane test.
Cover and let sit at room temperature for 4 hours.

Divide dough into 3 - 4 pieces

For Cheddar/Jalapeno bread I add about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, depending on size of loaf. Of course, feel free to add as much as you can knead into the bread. I usually dice up 2 medium sized Jalapeno peppers for a 2 pound loaf, but this is to taste as well.

Knead all ingredients together and form loaf. I use bannetons to hold my loaves, or bread pans, but either way, I put them in a large plastic bag and sit them at room temp for 3 hours. I then knead them again for about 1 minute and reform the loaves. Let them sit another hour in the bag.

Refrigerate over night in the plastic bag.

Day3:

I bake them this day at 450 for 30-40 minutes depending on size, rotating once midway through. I also fill a steam pan in the over with a cup of hot water when putting the loaves in initially and also spray the walls of the over with a squirt bottle to create extra steam.

I know it's hard, but the bread tastes the best when it's fully cooled.

I realize this is a lot of work for bread, but the actual work time isn't that great, and the bread is worth it. Again, like I said, you could just add the cheese and peppers to just about any other bread recipe and it would taste pretty good too.

Another option is to sprinkle some of the cheese on the top of the loaf just before baking. It's gets all crunchy and tasty that way!