I have been frustrated these 2 days about my bread making attempts - 3 attempts to be exact. It all started when I saw this "soft like cotton sweet corn bread" recipe in Baking Cottage's blog (http://mybakingcottage.blogspot.com/2008/08/soft-like-cotton-sweet-corn-bread.html. It got me salivating and since I had half a jar of creamed corn frozen in my freezer and I don't know what to do with it, I decided "yeah, let's make some bread!" (Btw, I've never made bread before.)
But this project is frauded with obstacles and doomed to fail right from the start. Here's why:
Firstly, I cannot find 'bread flour', as stated in the recipe. I've seen it in S'pore, but here in Australia, they have plain flour, wholemeal flour, organic wholemeal flour...except straightforward 'bread flour'. I see 'Bakers Flour' and only found out later, if I'm not wrong, that THAT'S what they call bread flour here. But anyway, the flour comes in like 5kg size, and I'm not about to buy that much just for a loaf of corn bread. At least not yet, until I'm confirmed baking on a regular basis.
The closest flour I found was 'bread mix'. Now, I have no idea what's the difference between 'bread mix' and 'bread flour'. In fact, the other reason why my bread is doomed is my lack of knowledge in this science of baking. It was only after reading up later that I realised that there are actually so many different types of flour. Not only that, there's as many different types of yeast too! Now I'm really getting confused. There should be a degree course on this, if you ask me...heheh.
So after multiple trips to Coles and even Safeway, I still haven't found out which flour to buy. I read that I can use plain flour and add gluten to substitute for bread flour, but I can't find any gluten at the supermarkets. The staff there pointed me to the 'gluten-free' aisle when I asked him. I want 'gluten', not 'gluten-free', mate! In the end, I decided to buy a pack of bread mix to try. And that was only because I found they sell it in 600gm size at Safeway. All the other bread mixes comes in 2.4kg packs.
The next day, I eagerly tried out the recipe. The tricky part came when I had to measure 3g worth of yeast. The measuring scale I had is the primitive sort, and every bar represents minimum of 10g. How am I gonna measure 3g with it? Heck, I just simply scoop a little on the teaspoon and hope it's about 3g.
Here comes the next reason why I failed. In baking, you cannot 'anyhow humtum'. Exact measurements and sequencing is very important. Like a science experiment in the laboratory, there are chemical reactions taking place in that piece of dough, so if you put some things first and some things last, or if you put too much or too little, the results could be disasterous! And that is my problem. I'm not someone who is very precise. When I cook, I tend to alter the recipe to suit what I have in my fridge and my larder, taste, then add a bit of this, a bit of that to get the flavour. But in baking, you can't just do this.
Thus my 1st dough, which passes the 'windowpane' test, by the way, did not rise. After a long time, it's still tiny. I baked it nonetheless, hoping it will rise in the oven. It turned out to be a 'heavy prata'.
The 'flat' bread
I tried a 2nd time, this time adding more yeast. I followed the recipe to a T except I still don't have the equipment to measure 3g. Again, it didnt' grow. Why? Is it the yeast that's not working? Or the flour? Not enough liquid? Or the whole combination? Maybe I have to wait longer? All these questions are bugging me. Till now, I still don't have the answers. Anyone can tell me what went wrong?
2nd attempt - slightly better but still not good
Today, I decided, maybe this recipe just don't work for bread mix flour. By right, bread mix is supposed to be a convenient way to make bread and designed for the bread maker machine. Perhaps I'd 'disrupted' the formula by adding stuff like milk, eggs, butter. I'll just use the remainder of flour, add in water and yeast, according to instructions on the pack and throw in some corn kernels at the end. Surely I can't go wrong with this?
Well, my 3rd dough did grow, after a 2nd round of yeast/water and almost 5 hours of proofing. And the result after baking?
Finally, the 'soft like cotton' texture!
Success! At last. The texture of the bread is just nice now, with a nice crust. Everyone loves the taste of the freshly baked warm bread. We finished the loave in no time. I was about to give up on baking bread, there's just so much effort and it takes a long time. But now, I think I'll continue to do it. The time and effort was worth it. Maybe I'll invest in a bread machine and make my own warm bread everyday? Before that, definitely an electric weighing scale is my next purchase.
KK loves it!
1 comment:
btw, "loaf".
secondly, all bread recipes I encountered ask for yeast measured out in tsp (the standard baking tsp of course. but having said that, there's a difference between Aussie & US tbsp. 1 of them is 15ml the other 20ml) or "packets"..which is another 'industry' standard of 11g. So, perhaps u could try to look for recipes that don't ask for 3g?
To measure out dry ingredients, always shake it loosely into your measuring cup. Never shake your measuring cup to compact the flour. Tsp/tbsp need to be leveled with a knife unless it's "heaped".
Actually, all purpose flour works very well for bread as well. 1 thing u may want to try after awhile is to try substituting with some wholemeal/rye flour for more nutrition and fiber.
Milk & oil can be used in making bread. in fact, some oil will make the bread moist.
Found that soft bread is highly valued by asians & americans. Europeans tend to prefer heavy bread with more bite. I'm somewhere in the middle :) ..have to agree that the bread in finland is a lot tastier and more nutritious than those in China here!
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