If you ask me what is the single thing I like to cook the most, I’ll answer in a blink of an eye: Bread!
It might be because I’m a full time home based web designer and software developer and just like bread, my work needs its pauses which are perfect to bake bread along the day, but it could as well be because bread has essentially only 4 ingredients and has the ability to enrich itself with almost anything under the sun you can put on it.
Bread exists in practically all cultures around the world, is staple food in many, and has some very interesting nutritive properties. Whole wheat bread is even healthier and, when properly done, absolutely delicious.
Contrary to popular belief, bread is easy to make and is not time consuming if you can alternate it with other tasks. An excellent bread might take hours to make well, but most of the time, you don’t need to do anything, you can just turn your back to your activities and come back to it when it is done. The truth is that all added up, making a fine bread can take less than 30 minutes of your time.
The secrets of bread
- Bread is made of four basic ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast. There is no need to put in anything else, but it is possible if you want;
- Bread grows better with cold water than warm water because it grows slowly and this help to increase the strength of its texture;
- You need a pinch of salt even for sweet bread because the salt helps create elasticity for the dough;
- You need about 600ml of water for every 1Kg of flour. Although you might be tempted to put extra flour because it is easier to work, a very moist bread dough makes better bread.
- You don’t need sugar at all in any bread, unless you want to make it sweet. The yeast can get all the sugar it needs breaking the flour into it.
Home made Whole Wheat and Bulgur bread
This recipe will take about 4 to 5 hours to be completed, but you don’t need to work more than about 30 minutes on it, the rest of the time the dough will be resting or cooking. You must prepare the bulgur the day before and we are going to use extra water for the bulgur.
Ingredients
- 1kg (35 oz) of whole wheat flour
- 1 cup of Bulgur
- 25g (1 oz) of salt (aprox a teaspoon)
- 900ml (30 floz) of water
- 25g (1 oz) of fresh yeast or equivalent measure of dry yeast
Directions
- Boil 600ml (20 floz) of water with the salt, turn off the heat, add the bulgur and leave overnight with a cover;
- The following day put 150g (5.2 oz) of flour with 100ml (3.3 fl oz) of water and the yeast in small pieces;
- Mix well but gently until it starts to become sticky and less liquid, you can use a wooden spoon or your hands here;
- Cover with a wet cloth and let it grow for about 30 minutes, until doubles in size and becomes fluffy;
- Use the wooden spoon or your hands to mix it again
- In a big bowl (or in the table, if you want to be traditional) put the rest of the flour as a mountain and make a hole in the center;
- Add the rest of the water to it (300ml or 10 floz) and the mix of yeast;
- Work it gently but firmly for about 5 minutes by stretching the dough and folding it again, add the soaked Bulgur in the process;
- Put in a bowl and cover with a wet cloth, let rest for about an hour, it should more than double in size;
- Work the dough again, make the loaf, put on a bread tray (or any tray that you like);
- Make deep cuts to the surface to allow it to expand as it grows and let rest for another hour;
- Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 oC (340 oF) for 40~50 minutes.
A word of caution
Although very moist, by working the dough, it should become extremely elastic and reduce its stickiness to the hands and everything else. In fact, you shouldn’t even need to grease the tray because of it, but if you are new to bread baking, you might want to lightly grease the tray before putting the bread on it. Until you feel you’ve learned to make a dough that is very elastic.
Making bread is easy, the thing with bread that scares people is that great bread requires a bit of instinct and you need some practice to become a master baker, but getting some bread done is fairly easy. The sooner you start, the sooner you will become a master baker.
Have a lot of fun and bon apetit!
5 Comments
I love baking bread on long snowy days. Heck, I love baking bread all the time! Thanks for visiting my blog. Much appreciated
Wow, that’s an awfully good looking loaf of bread! I never would have thought about adding bulgur to the bread mix — I bet that gives the bread a great texture.
@Maryann – Baking bread is always great. I do it all of the time and buy very little of it.
@Ric – This is one of the best breads I’ve ever made but using bulgur has been common in my breads. You can also add sesame seeds or chopped sunflower seeds together which is very tasty!
I can’t have enough of these seeds.
Oh, and one thing you forgot to mention…there is absolutely nothing like the aroma of baking bread filling the house with heavenly scents.
And I didn’t know that bread doesn’t require sugar. I always thought the yeast had to have a little. I think I will try this bread. I only wish I had a gas stove. It always helped with the rising to put it in a gas oven (just enough steady warmth from the pilot light).
@Sue –
Absolutely!
Two beliefs about bread are that you need sugar and that you need warm water. None are true, you do need sugar, but the yeast can get it from the flour.
And you don’t warm water either, if you are patient enough, you can use ice cold water and let the bread grow at room temperature. It will take longer, but you don’t kill the yeast on the meantime and the dough can have better elasticity… bread is all about an elastic dough.