Home and Hand Made Bread Basics

Bread is one of the commonest foods in the world. It has been in existence even before the birth of Jesus Christ. Its prices has continued to rise over the ages. Bakers even go on strike over price related issues sometimes. The cost of a typical loaf of bread is between $3 and $5 in some countries. And even more in some economically ravaged countries.

In the developing countries banned chemicals like bromate and saccharine are even used. It is considered safer and cheaper to produce your own bread from home. Neighbors will buy bread from you. You will have a ready market when demand grows. A 50kg bag of flour can make about 100 loaves of large size bread with a handful of other ingredients.

The required ingredients are wheat flour, yeast, salt, sugar, milk, water, oil or fat and maybe an egg or two, depending on your chosen recipe.

There are some quick bread recipes that are great alternatives to making homemade bread loaf the old fashioned way. When the demand for your bread grows to about one flour bag per day, you can use a bread maker (worker) that will do the work for you for an agreed amount of wages per month.

Planning is very essential in bread making. You must choose a basic recipe if you are a newbie. Plan you production batches in advance. Read through the recipe over and over again to familiarize yourself with the ingredients as well as the process. Get all the equipments and ingredients ready at hand. Pre-measure your ingredients. Keep records of the timing required.

Bread making is a science and an art. It has formulae in recipes and creativity in the processing and designing. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature before you start. Yeast likes a warm environment and must not be exposed to air before usage. The measuring of dry and wet ingredients is of utmost importance to create a tender, tasty loaf. Dry ingredients are measured into one mixing bowl while wet ingredients are also measured into another mixing bowl before they are finally mixed together in the process of production.

When all your ingredients are mixed, you will then knead the dough by sprinkling little quantity of dry flour on your kneading table and dipping your hands in the flour so that the dough doesn't stick to your hands or the table top.

Kneading is necessary to develop the gluten in the bread dough, mix in air for rising, and distribute the ingredients so the yeast can feed. The yeast feeds on the sugars in the dough, and creates a fermentation process, which enables the dough to rise properly.

One of the mistakes in bread-making is not kneading the dough long enough. You have to knead the bread between 8-10 minutes.

After you have done kneading, form the dough into a ball and set in a greased bowl. Cover and let rest. Your dough will need to sit for 1-2 hours to rise. Make sure your kitchen is warm to aid the rising process.

At the end of this time, uncover the dough, punch it down, and shape the dough into how you want it to be when you bake it, Put it into the greased baking pan and cover it for another rising or proving session. When it is has risen, put the baking pan that contains the dough into the pre-heated oven for baking. Once your bread is done, let it cool completely before slicing.

Advantages in making your own hand made bread:

·         It is a way of doing physical exercise for me

·         You will make your home made bread under proper hygienic conditions

·         You will eat delicious fresh and hot oven produced bread

·         You will be eating bread at a reduced cost

·         It is also a way of providing job for yourself and family members

·         You can grow from hand made to machine made bread

·         You will stick to your best recipe that will also be loved by your customers

·         Designing bread loaves will become fun for you and many more

You can make loaves of bread in two different ways.

1.     You can make it from scratch by hand. 

2.     You can also use a bread making machine to make the dough for you.

The second yields fast results, but seems to lack that "homemade" quality that comes from kneading and seeing the loaves take shape from your very own hands.

Bread designs will be discussed in subsequent write ups.

Benson O. Adepiti,  

http://hotbusinessnuggets.blogspot.com