Bread Galore @ BITC

I betcha missed my rantings about my baking classes, so here it goes! We've moved on and baking bread now, which is fun buns *pun unintended*

Bread making is an art and requires precision and patience. The process is pretty simple: mixing, shaping and rounding, resting, cutting and moulding, resting, proofing, baking and finally EATING :)

Basic White Bread

If you think you need a sufficiently stocked pantry in order to make a beautiful loaf, you're wrong. The basic ingredients required to make bread are yeast, flour, salt and water. Other ingredients are added to enhance the flavours, textures and nutritional value. 

Simple White Bread

Although only 4 ingredients are needed, each ingredient plays an important role and should be added in correct proportion. Salt, for example, helps strengthen the gluten and regulates the gluten formation, resulting in a consistent rate of fermentation. In addition, salt also enhances the taste of the bread, try eating salt-less bread...yuck! Yeast is an important ingredient in bread making as it helps drive fermentation. By metabolizing the sugar, it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide which causes the dough to rise, resulting in a fluffy and soft goodness.

Photo by Scott Phillip

Apart from ingredient proportion, the condition of ingredients and proofing environment are also significant. The temperature of the water affects the final dough temperature and the formation of gluten. Furthermore, an appropriate proofing environment helps increase the activity of yeast and carbon dioxide production, decreasing our waiting time.

Isn't it amazing?! How the Europeans managed to create such divine product from simple ingredients like yeast and flour? That's all for now folks! stay tune for more bread action :)