The Basics of Bread-Making

We have all struggled to bake bread. Even after multiple times, the recipe somehow fails us once again. Different mistakes occur each time and somehow you never end up baking the bread right. This article will be a fool-proof guide to all the bread struggles and will explain how you can make brioche and normal bread just by a little more consideration at home.

Activating The Yeast

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It is extremely important that we activate the yeast. Activating the yeast goes by mixing some part of sugar and water. Stir in your yeast. The yeast will act on the sugar which will ensure that the yeast starts respiring. Activated yeast will bloom. Make sure that the water you are mixing in is warm enough. Cool water will just deactivate the yeast. You can also use pre-activated yeast, however, for much better outcomes always use yeast that needs to be activated. Some bakers also use fresh yeast which is another good alternative, however, it is difficult to measure and find.

Normal Bread

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Baking a loaf of normal bread isn’t that tricky, however, forming the perfect gluten by kneading the dough is the real challenge. Beginners avoid kneading the dough as it takes so much energy. This is a very common mistake as not kneading the dough enough will just deflate your bread. For normal bread, just add your yeast to the flour. Knead it with lukewarm until a dough forms. After you have reached the stage of dough formation, let it rest until the dough doubles in volume. Knead it one more time for 10-15 minutes and then let it rest. Transfer to a loaf tin and bake it for 60 mins at 180 C. For brioche, the major difference is that you just have to knead more and add in eggs. The eggs in the dough will aerate the dough and also make it extremely soft.