help with home made bread please

I have been making white bread from scratch or the bread maker. I love it. The only problem is that it is crumbly and falls apart. Hard to eat a sandwhich that way.
Any advice on what I can do to make it more pliable?

thanks for your input.

Anyone?
No bakers here?

I'm here, and I'm an avid baker. Bread is one of the staples of life that is a joy to make in the kitchen.
My first bit of advice for you is to toss the bread maker in the garbage or sell it at a yard sale.
Pass that curse on to someone else and get some good bread pans.

Here's my recipe for basic white bread that always turns out light and fluffy with just the right elasticity. It comes out of the oven golden brown and without air pockets.

Ingredients

12 cups all purpose white flour (approximately)
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon table salt
3 tablespoons dry active yeast (no fast yeast)
4 cups hot water from the tap, not boiling water
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
1 tablespoon salted butter

Directions to follow in next post........

[edit on 14/3/2009 by anxietydisorder]

Arrrrgh! The suspense is killing me

I've been wanting to try my hand at bread making, just never got around to it. My mother made bread with the same consistency that nixie is describing. Trying to make PB&J with it was like trying to swallow a bottle of Elmer's glue. And I don't mean just the glue.

This could well be the incentive I need to give it a go myself, so thanks anxietydisorder! Now awaiting instructions...

In a large mixing bowl blend 4 cups of the flour, the sugar, salt, and yeast.
Blend together well with a fork.

In a separate pot combine water, shortening and butter.
A thermometer is needed now because the temperature needs to be 130 F as close as possible. Too hot will kill the yeast and too cold the yeast won't grow.

Once the temperature is right and the shortening and butter have melted you can pour it into the bowl that contains the dry ingredients.

With a hand mixer you need to beat this for at least three minutes at med/high.
Don't short the beating time, you need to break down the glutens in the flour for nice texture in the finished product.
If you mix by hand with a spoon go an extra minute and expect a sore arm, you really need to be vigorous beating the sloppy mixture together.


Next step is to mix in 6 cups of the flour 1 cup at a time. Use a large spoon and blend in each cup completely before adding the next. This is going to get very thick and hard to work, so at some time you'll need to get your hands in there to work the dough. You want it at a stage where the dough is starting to separate from the bowl and you can form a ball. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix it into the ball to curtail any waste.


Once you have a ball formed dust it with more flour so it can be handled without sticking to your hands. Then on a clean counter top dust it with about 1 more cup of flour and turn out the ball of dough. The flour you use on the counter is part of the original 12 cups listed in the ingredient section.


Now you get to do the hard work.....

Work the dough ball for at least 7-8 minutes by pressing down, folding over and pressing again. Dust with just enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands or the counter. Not too much or the finished bread will be heavy.
If you don't work the dough long enough you won't break the gluten enough for a nice light loaf.

Very lightly oil a LARGE bowl to put your formed ball of dough into.
Heat your oven at 400 for 1 minute only, just enough to get it warm, but not hot. Turn off the oven...
Place the ball of dough in the greased bowl with the smooth side of the ball up and very lightly oil or butter the top of the ball. Cover the bowl with a very damp cloth or towel so it doesn't touch the dough, this thing is going to get big so put it on the bottom rack and close the oven door.

Don't open the oven for at least an hour or a bit more to give the yeast time to grow.


Next post we'll move onto the other steps........



EDIT: I'm a fan of editing.....:shk:

[edit on 14/3/2009 by anxietydisorder]

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick, times up........

Remove the bowl from the oven and you should have a big swollen ball full of air pockets.
Remove the damp cloth and punch it down like a prize fighter going after the champ.

Turn the dough out onto the floured counter top again and work it for a minute or so to make sure all the air pockets and bubbles are out of the dough.
Go easy, you don't want to be too hard on the dough at this stage, you just want the carbon dioxide bubbles out of the dough, but give it a good pounding and a bit of work.

Let it stand and relax for a few minutes while you lightly grease the bread pans.
About 4 standard pans are needed.
A light and even dusting of flour in the pans will help in keeping it from sticking during the baking process.

Cut the dough ball into four equal sections, or three for larger loaves.
Form the sections into rough loaves so that they approximate the size of the bottom of the pans.
You can also roll balls and put them on a cookie sheet to make dinner roles if you want.

Pinch the loaves on the bottom to make a solid loaf and press them down to form fit the bottom of the pans. Make sure the dough reaches the corner of each bread pan.

Very lightly butter the top of each loaf before they start to rise again.


Once again turn your oven to 400 for only 1 minute, just to warm it up.
Place your bread pans into the oven for about 30 minutes until at least double in size.

VERY GENTLY remove the pans from the oven and place on top of stove.


Pre-heat oven to 375 F and center one rack to about the center or a little lower in the oven. Once the oven is up to full temperature gently place the pans in and close the door. DO NOT OPEN during the baking process.

Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown, and give the bread a little thump with your finger to see if they sound hollow. At that point they should be properly cooked through.

Remove from oven and let stand just a couple minutes.
For a soft crust lightly butter the top of each loaf, if you like it crusty just leave it alone.

Turn out of pans onto a cooling rack.
I use one of my oven racks because it's important to have air flow under the loaf for it to crust properly.

Let it cool for an hour or more because it's still working a little in the center of the loaf. After that you can bag it in paper and go ahead and use it. If you want to freeze any of your bounty let cool for about 4 hours and wrap in plastic before putting it in the freezer.

Once frozen it will only keep for about 2 months before it becomes freezer burnt and too dry to eat.


If you have any questions just let me know.

Enjoy....

This looks good and not a lot of ingredients so i'm gonna give it a try. maybe buns first because i don't have pans, but I do have no stick cookie sheets.

If I remember how to post a picture i'll put one up of the finished bread.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Maybe a shorting problem.

How much are you putting in?

Roper

PS Bread machines rock.

reply to post by TravelerintheDark


It is hard work but good hard work, like gardening.
I tell you, nothing beats warm fresh bread with some butter out of the oven. A few minutes of heaven.

Hey Anxiety, thank you so much for all the information! I will certainly give it a try next weekend.

I actually didn't think the bread machine did too badly, lol. Other then it comes out like a box.

But just for curiosity sake, why is the bread crumbly as oppossed to being pliable? What ingredient is missing?

reply to post by Roper


it isn't just the bread machine. It is when I make it homemade too. I wonder if it is the flour. I use all purpose flour. Is there something else I should use?

Yes there is a bread flour. I use all purpose flour too.

Humidity can have an effect too.

Roper

Originally posted by nixie_nox

But just for curiosity sake, why is the bread crumbly as oppossed to being pliable? What ingredient is missing?

The problem is simply gluten.
en.wikipedia.org...

The glutenin in wheat flour gives kneaded dough its elasticity, allows leavening and contributes chewiness to baked products like bagels.

If you don't work the dough enough you won't get the elasticity you want.
You really need to get in there and kneed the dough for a long time. This isn't pastry you're making, you need to physically abuse it to make it come out in a way it wont crumble.

If your bread is too crumbly maybe you're not adding enough liquid like buttermilk or whatever you're using, OP. are you following the recipe that came with your breadmaker?

Ok, so after some research I bought bread flour, and that seemed to make a difference. The all purpose seemed to make nice hard bread, good for butter and dinner roll types. nice and crusty. The bread flour made it soft so we could make sandwhiches.

And you right about the wheat gluten anxiety. Becuase I bought bulk ap flour and I was like carp... now what?

but you can just add wheat gluten to make it bread flour, so I can still use it, and now have the option of both.

I actually enjoy kneading, though it is a work out and sometimes I wanna take shortcutes.


But while doing some research, I came across some interesting information. Apparently flour is different even from the southern parts of the us to the northern parts. Interesting read for bakers anyways.

flour

Traveler, if you ever try to make bread, let us know how it turns out. don't get discouraged if it takes a few times. It is a learning curve.


Thanks again everyone for all your info.

[edit on 20-3-2009 by nixie_nox]

Here is a wonderful recipe for Sourdough bread......

To make the starter:

1 cup of warm water
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons of instant potato flakes
1 package of yeast.

Make this starter and leave it out for 12 hours and then put it in the fridge.


SOURDOUGH BREAD

1. Must have 1 cup of starter to begin.
2. Starter stays in the fridge except for the 8-12 hours that you feed it.
3. You feed starter at least every 2 weeks but can feed every 3 days.
4. To feed the starter you need the following ingredients. Mix them and add to the jar of starter.
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp instant potato flakes
1 cup warm water
5. Let stand at room temperature for about 12 hours
6. To make the dough you need the following ingredients
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup starter
1 1/2 cup warm water
6 cups Pillsbury bread flour
7. Mix together and let stand for about 8-12 hours with a towel covering it.
8. Take the risen dough and pour on to a floured surface and punch the dough
9. Kneed it a couple of times.
10. Spray loaf pans with non-stick spray
11. Divide the dough and place in pans
12. Let dough rise in the pan for 6-8 hours
13. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes
14. Melt butter on top of warm bread....................ENJOY!!!

Cooking is an art.
Making bread is a science.

reply to post by anxietydisorder


We do a lot of baking in our household, but we never use hot water from the tap. Hot tap water can contain lead leached from pipes and solder. Cold tap water is safer, and can be heated in a kettle on the stove to the proper temperature.

Originally posted by Charis
reply to post by anxietydisorder

 

We do a lot of baking in our household, but we never use hot water from the tap. Hot tap water can contain lead leached from pipes and solder. Cold tap water is safer, and can be heated in a kettle on the stove to the proper temperature.

Charis, no offense meant, but I am just gonna clarify your statement. As I am a water tester for a living.

newer homes have pvc piping, so sauder isn't a problem. If you do have metal pipping, not a bad idea to get it checked.

lead sauter was supposed to be stopped being used sometime ago. I think late 70s, early 80s. But some shady plumber still use it to save money.

the faucet purifiers, if maintained correctly, do a pretty good job of removing lead.

And you also have to be careful even of cold water, if the water has been sitting overnight, it can still leach out the lead, so it has to be run for quite some time.

Older homes,don't get water out of the spicket first thing in teh morning,let it run.

that being said, bottled water adn filtered water is just probably gonna make your bread taste better without all the minerals, chloride, fluoride, etc.