Afternoon Tea Week: Making White Bread

Day 2 of our afternoon tea week. Yesterday we served up some traditional homemade recipes for scones. Today we look at making some basic and easy bread making. Tomorrow we will look at sandwich fillers

Let’s go!!

Basic White Bread Recipe

Use plain white flour, preferably strong ‘bread’ flour.

For ore 2 lb/1 kg loaf, two 1 lb/J kg loaves or 18 rolls use the following quantities:

1/2 oz/15 g fresh yeast or 2 level teaspoons dried yeast plus 1 teaspoon sugar;
1 1/2 lb/675 g plain of strong flour;
1 level tablespoon salt;
1/2 oz/15 g lard

Prepare the yeast: If you are using fresh yeast, blend It into 2 pint/4.5 dl warm water For dried yeast, dissolve 1 teaspoon sugar into 3 pint/4 5 dl warm water, then sprinkle the dried yeast on top and put aside until frothy (about 10 minutes)

The abbreviation ”dl” stands for deciliter. The deciliter is equivalent to . 1 litre.

Short-time bread

There is no doubt that bread lakes a long time to make. You must ensure that you will be available to attend to the dough for at least 2-3 hours after you have started making it. You can, of course, arrange the rising and proving (second rising) times to fit conveniently into your own routine, but what if you need bread in a hurry?

A modern method of making bread and buns has been evolved and the time it takes, including the making and the baking, has been cut to under 2 hours. A slightly different recipe should be used. Extra yeast is needed, and sugar should be added to plain recipes when fresh yeast is used. Use fresh yeast whenever possible as dried yeast takes longer to rise.

If you wish to adapt your own recipes, use the following proportions:

Plain white and whole wheat bread: Use 1 oz/25 g fresh yeast and 1 (25 mg) tablet ascorbic acid to each 1) lb/675 g flour.

Enriched doughs: Use 1 oz/25 g fresh yeast and 1 (25 mg) tablet ascorbic acid to each 1 lb/} kg flour.

Special tips

As speed is all-important when making this dough, it is essential that the ingredients and the room be kept warm. In fact, make sure that all the ingredients are warm before you use them. This helps the yeast to work quickly. The liquid in particular should be at about blood heat. This is sometimes difficult to assess, but if you mix two-thirds of the liquid cold with the remaining one-third at boiling point, the resulting temperature will be about correct.

Add the ascorbic acid to the yeast liquid. The tablet will dissolve more easily if you crush it first.

Rising; This is reduced to 5 minutes for plain doughs. 10 minutes for enriched doughs. I find that this stage can be omitted if time is at an absolute premium.

Proving: Like other doughs, short-time dough must rise until it has doubled in bulk and springs back when pressed with a floured finger. At room temperature this will take about 45-50 minutes. In a warmer place such as an airing cupboard this will be reduced to about 30 minutes.

Baking: Bake as you would normally, according to the recipe.