Easy Homemade Bread Recipe
How do you bake your own delicious bread? Is it very difficult? I don’t like store-baked bread. If you think that the bread that is sold in the store is too tasteless, try to make it yourself. Of course, it will take a lot more time than going to the store. But if it really matters to you that the bread is fresh and tasty, you can try baking it in your kitchen.
Here is a recipe from a professional baker on how to make homemade sourdough rye-wheat bread. It is better to make bread on sourdough – the dough, which has been fermented for a long time, is easier to digest. This is due to the work of lactic acid bacteria that live in sourdough. This is how bread was made in the old days: from flour, water, salt, and sourdough.
Ready-made sourdough can be bought in a store. Or you can make it yourself, but it takes time – for a week you have to give sourdough 2-4 minutes a day.
How to Make a Sourdough Starter Yourself?
To make sourdough, you will need rye flour (you can buy it in any store near your home), clean drinking water, a jar with a lid of 0.3-0.5 liters, and an electronic scale.
The first step: mix 60 grams of water and 40 grams of rye flour in a bowl, then transfer it to our jar, where the starter will live. We close it with a lid and leave it to ferment in the kitchen at room temperature (ideally 24-26 degrees).
Second step. After 24 hours, we do the first feeding of our future starter. Essentially, we feed the flour to the microorganisms that live in the jar. Throw out 80% of its contents; in the remaining 20% add 60 grams of water and mix until homogeneous. Then add 40 grams of flour and stir again. Leave the jar at room temperature.
It is better to do the feeding in a separate bowl, and wash the jar at this time so that it always has transparent walls – then you can better observe the behavior of the starter.
At this stage, it is enough if you see a few bubbles, at the beginning of fermentation is weak – this is normal. Also, don’t be frightened by a pungent smell in the first days of starter production.
Third step. Keep feeding the sourdough for about a week – the exact time depends on the activity of the flour, the temperature of the room, and the quality of the water. Feed sourdough once a day for the first few days, then (as the number of bubbles increases) repeat this more often.
Feeding should be done when the starter in the jar begins to fall off, leaving traces on the walls. For example, on days 4-5 this may already be every 12-16 hours, and on days 6-7, the sourdough will start to fall off after 8 hours. If you notice that it has gained this speed, has about doubled in size, and has become airy like a soufflé, then the sourdough is ready.
Don’t be alarmed if your sourdough freezes on day 3 or 4. It’s okay, it’s just the microflora of the starter changing. Either way, keep feeding it.
The sourdough starter is made once. Then it should be stored in the refrigerator and used when baking bread. It is enough to store 50-100 grams of sourdough in the refrigerator without feeding it. In the fridge, the sourdough can stand for about a week. How to make your own bread?
Recipe for Sourdough Rye-Wheat Bread
Prepare the sourdough for kneading. If the sourdough has been stored in the fridge, you need to “wake up” it – to do this add 60 grams of water, and 40 grams of rye flour and leave in the kitchen for 6-8 hours. Then separate 50 grams of already active sourdough, and the rest again put in the fridge until the future kneading.
Now you have to put the sourdough, that is, “multiply” the starter. In the put aside 50 grams of sourdough, add 290 grams of drinking water at room temperature, mix thoroughly, add 190 grams of rye flour, and stir it again.
Leave the mass to ferment for 8-10 hours at room temperature, covered with a lid (you can use plastic containers). It is convenient to put the stew overnight or in the morning before work to knead the dough after it. If the okra has doubled in size (choose a container with a reserve) and has become airy like a soufflé (the structure can be carefully checked with a spoon), then it is ready.
Knead the dough. Take a large bowl. Pour some warm water into it, and dissolve 15 grams of salt. Add all the sourdough to the bowl and stir. Then add 175 grams of rye flour and 175 grams of whole wheat flour. Thoroughly mix all the contents of the bowl with your hands for 5-7 minutes.
Grease the form for bread (in stores sold forms of 2 liters) with sunflower oil.
Transfer the dough into the mold, smoothing the surface with wet hands or a silicone spatula. Seal the mold with clingfilm. Important: The dough should not occupy more than half of the volume of the mold! If you get more dough, it is better to remove some of it.
Leave the mold with the dough at room temperature.
After an hour and a half, check the dough – it should rise. If it has risen, turn on the oven – it should be at maximum temperature. Everyone’s dough will rise differently, it usually takes 2-4 hours.
Once the dough has risen to the edges of the mold, remove the foil, grease the surface with sunflower oil with a brush and place it in the already preheated oven. Then immediately turn down the temperature to 250 degrees.
Bake the bread at 250 degrees for 15 minutes, then another 15 minutes at 200 degrees, then another 40 minutes at 150 degrees. The total baking time is 1 hour and 10 minutes.
When the bread is ready, take it out of the mold immediately. Let it cool on a rack for a couple of hours. Now you can eat it!
