The Basic Ingredients Required For A Fresh Loaf Of Bread

a fresh loafOur Bread Blog

For A Fresh Loaf Of Bread

Everyone wants a fresh loaf of bread – the beautiful smell…

Everyone loves a fresh loaf of bread – the beautiful taste…

But how many people who read this bread blog actually experience a fresh loaf of bread?

And we are only talking to the people who have actually visited our bread blog – what about the others who have yet to read this bread blog or who may not be interested???

Why Not Make A Fresh Loaf Of Bread?

When we tell people we are into making our own homemade bread people often respond by telling me that they wish they could bake their own homemade bread too but it just seems too complicated.

Our friends tell us they love having a fresh loaf of bread when they come to our house – and the fact they know it is homemade bread from a simple white bread recipe is nice too.

In actual fact baking our own homemade bread is the easiest thing you can do in the kitchen and this bread blog is here to help…

The Basic Ingredients Required For A Fresh Loaf Of Bread

Your typical white bread recipe is just made up from four key ingredients:

Flour
Water
Yeast
Salt

That’s it!

This is your simple white bread recipe to make your own homemade bread and you can say you found it here on our bread blog.

It sounds too simple – but we can make baking a fresh loaf of bread even more simple by providing you with our number one breadmaker tip – we have a Breadman TR-2500tr bread maker to do all the ‘hard’ work.

Okay, there are many different types of  bread you can make and you can make pizza bases, make your own buns and donuts and almost any bread based ‘stuff’ with a Breadman TR-2500 bread maker – but you can also do it all by hand if you have the time.

Each ingredient and step in the process of making bread serves a distinct purpose. Once you understand what role each ingredient performs and what is occurring in each step of the process you will feel liberated to experiment and create your own recipes.

There are even methods to cut out at least two of those basic ingredients (yeast and salt), but the end product is unlikely to come out tasting like a typical loaf of bread.

Understanding the Ingredients That Make Our Fresh Loaf Of Bread

Flour

There are a lot of different type’s different types of flour for bread making.

They may be made from different grains, from different types of wheat, bleached and unbleached flour, enriched flour, blended flours, whole grain flours etc but you can actually start with your basic all-purpose flour for bread making.

Don’t let all this intimidate you!

Realize that your standard grocery store has a blend of all-purpose flour that comes in a ten pound bag for under two dollars and is a good enough flour for bread making – it will produce an excellent fresh loaf of bread.

It is probably higher quality than the flour that many of the bakers throughout history have ever gotten their hands on and some of them are now in the history books for making bread … you won’t do too bad making your fresh loaf of bread from what you can get cheaply and locally.

For certain diets you may need to use specific flour such as spelt flour.

Flour forms the basis for your fresh loaf of homemade bread – for any type of bread!

No Flour = No Bread = No Fresh Loaf

A Fresh Loaf Of Bread Needs Water

You can probably find some of this around the house, can’t you?

Water activates the yeast and dissolves all of the other ingredients.

Adding more water results is a stickier, flatter loaf with less regular holes in it, like a Ciabatta but too little water restricts the expansion of the dough and results in a tight, dry, hard loaf.

Different Yeast Used To Make Bread

Basic Instant Yeast

Basic Instant Yeast (also known as Bread Machine Yeast) can be purchased from the grocery store and comes in little packets which are good enough for most of us who want to make bread at home.

Active Dry Yeast

Active Dry Yeast is also commonly found in grocery stores. It needs to be activated by pouring it in warm water prior to mixing it into the dough so make sure you read the back of the packet before adding it to your mixture.

What Does Yeast Do?

Simply yeast is what causes the dough to rise.

Adding more yeast will cause the loaf to rise more quickly but also be aware that adding too much yeast can affect the taste in your loaf.

A teaspoon or two of yeast per loaf is typical in most bread recipes. Remember you will need to be more exact when making bread in a breadmaker as the breadmaker recipies have been specifically written with the size of the breadmaker in mind.

And Add Salt

Table salt works well enough.

Sea salt tastes a little better and you may want to use sea salt if you have some, but it isn’t worth buying sea salt just for your bread baking, or at least not for your first fresh loaf.

Use whatever table salt you’ve got in your kitchen.

Salt retards the yeast and helps control the fermentation process. It also adds flavor that most of us like in even basic bread recipes.

These are the basic ingredients used when making a fresh loaf of homemade bread.

Additional ingredients add flavor or complexity to your bread.

Once you understand the way these four principle ingredients function you can look at any recipe and realize that the basic rules of how bread works don’t change.

There are many additional ingredients that can be used to make different types of bread, but to make a basic fresh loaf of bread using a white bread recipe and that tastes great you can stick to these basic four ingredients.

Making a fresh loaf of homemade bread is really quite easy. We hope you have enjoyed reading what we shared here on our bread blog and also hope you will share this bread blog with others and come back again soon – once you have made your own fresh loaf of bread.


now get to the kitchen to make a fresh loaf of bread… step to it

a fresh loaf

…make a fresh loaf today!