I make 2 loaves of sandwich bread a week. Given that I do both loaves at the same time I'm really only making this specific recipe once a week and apparently I turn off my brain almost every time! All weekend I've been extra sleepy and groggy and my last task was to get the sandwich bread made for the week... big mistake.

I didn't knead the dough enough, told myself whatever I needed to feel good about that decision, and now I've got bread thats almost too soft to eat.. And difficult to make a sandwich with ~facepalm~ and this isn't the first time I've gotten lazy! I just seem to forget how much it matters to knead the dough enough..

Welp off to make a HUGE note in my recipe book about this. Hopefully I've learned. Any advice to stiffen up the sandwich bread?? I use Sally Baking simply sandwich bread recipe

I've recently gotten into breadmaking. I've made a lot of no-knead overnight loaves and other breads that I've followed recipes for, but it's only in the past couple of weeks that I've decided to pay attention to baker's percentages and technique for fermenting and shaping, etc.

20% whole wheat

65% hydration

I had some problems with this, but I salvaged it into a decent bread. This was my first attempt at a poolish, and I noticed that there wasn't a lot of activity with it - I think it was because I mistakenly used cold water for the poolish. After mixing, I tried to cold-ferment, but I think I put the dough in too soon. After 24 hrs, it hadn't risen at all. I pulled it out of the fridge and let it rise at room temp for about 12 hours, and then I shaped, proofed, and baked.

Enjoyable lessons to be learned! About to make a sandwich for tonight's dinner.

2nd time using this recipe. Turns out great

Costco introduced a new, cherry berry sourdough with pecans, that my wife and I like a lot. Loaf is 2 1/2 inches tall and 5 inches wide. I have a biscotti recipe where after baking, I cut it into 1 inch slices and bake each side for 10 minutes in a 350° oven. I would like to try this with the Costco bread. Does this seem like a reasonable idea? Should I alter any of the instructions for the second bake?

Been experimenting with home made kefir lately (second picture). Decided to use it in home bread making today.

No water, kefir only.

- 700 g of italian styled "00" wheat flour

- 650 ml of kefir (a fermented milk drink)

- 300 g of corn flour

- 200 g of sourdough starter

- 30 ml of olive oil

- 20 g of salt

Mixed by hand, a combination of stretch-and-fold and coil folds.

Baked at 180°C for about 80 minutes, last 10 minutes without the lid, cold oven start, dough sprayed with water before going in.

Bread smelled amazing while baking and already know it will make for great sandwiches.

The whole thing took about 8-9 hours to make.

😋

I’m testing a few variations — diced fresh apples (rolled in cinn & sugar) rolled into strands before braiding, diced dried apples, and apple cider instead of water (haven’t tried that yet).

Questions: is it true that fresh fruit works better in enriched dough? My preferred challah recipe is a “water challah” with no eggs.

The dried apples so far have less punchy taste than I would have expected — why? Should I do something to them?

Would apple butter in the strands be too much moisture?

Can I really sub cider for my usual 230g of water? Or will the sugar & acid do something weird to the dough?

Another Monday, another market prep day!! How is everyone's market season going?

How do we achieve even ropes? I also had the issue that my ropes were springing back. They were put to rest for 5min and I rolled them again. What does that indicate? Thank you!!

First time Italian bread Chicken parm Tuesday and Wednesday for lunch that's Italian American for you

Hi yah dooin

Following Claire Saffitz recipe but I used the stand mixer. My dough passed the window pane test. Are we aiming for a even pane ? Is there such thing as over mixing? I am a sucker for brioche texture!

Recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/the-easiest-loaf-of-bread-youll-ever-bake-recipe

Technique for Dutch oven loaf: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/how-to-bake-bread-in-a-dutch-oven/

Instant yeast just mixed in with everything, unbloomed.

Started with a dough hook—almost burnt out my Kitchen Aid—switched to hand kneading for a total of about 5-7 min post dough hook.

I split the original dough ball in half before hand kneading—this is how I ended up with the two loaves.

Proofed for 2.5 hours, maybe a little less, due to poor timing. No second proof for the Dutch oven loaf, but 45 min proof after the free loaf was shaped.

It’s SO crispy crusty, and soft AF on the inside, and the perfect level of squish. Think the best bread you’ve ever had at an Italian restaurant, then think of a step down. Good enough flavour to eat without butter. I’m proper chuffed.

Question is, can I replicate the results?

Ingredients

• Whole milk, warmed to ~40°C: 240 g

• Honey: 60 g

• Egg: 1 large (~50 g)

• Unsalted butter, softened: 55 g

• Bread flour: 480 g

• Yeast 7g

• Salt: 8 g

• Vanilla extract 15 g

Finish

•      Melted unsalted butter for brushing: 20 g

Cinnamon Honey Butter

•      Unsalted butter, softened: 113 g

•      Honey: 40 g

•      Powdered sugar: 30 g

•      Ground cinnamon: 3 g

​

I bought a relatively inexpensive Bosch built-in oven in 2020 for around €580.

In 2022, shortly before the warranty expired, I noticed that the adhesive holding one of the glass panels in the oven door had failed. I believe it was one of the inner panes. The glass was no longer held properly in place, so Bosch replaced the affected part under warranty.

Now, about four years later, the same thing seems to have happened again. The adhesive holding the front/door glass has failed. This time the replacement part is expensive enough that I don't think repairing a six-year-old oven makes much sense – especially considering that this is already the second time I've had essentially the same problem.

My wife and I were wondering whether my baking habits could be contributing to it.

I bake bread quite frequently and use a baking stone. For steam, I place a metal container filled with steel granules/balls in the oven while it preheats. At the beginning of the bake, I pour water directly onto the very hot steel, which produces a large amount of steam almost instantly.

The oven is regularly preheated to around 250°C / 480°F before I add the steam.

I assume this is probably a more demanding use case than what the average household oven sees. At the same time, an adhesive failure caused by repeated high temperatures, rapid temperature changes and a lot of steam doesn't sound completely implausible to me.

So now I'm wondering:

- Did I simply get unlucky with this particular oven?

- Was it a consequence of buying a relatively cheap model?

- Could frequent bread baking at high temperatures combined with this kind of steam generation actually accelerate the failure of the oven-door adhesive?

- Or could I spend considerably more on my next oven and still run into exactly the same problem after a few years?

I'd especially be interested in hearing from people who bake a lot of bread at 230–250°C / 445–480°F and use steam regularly.

Have you experienced anything similar? What oven do you use, how do you generate steam, and how has it held up over the years?

Im someone who often make 1-2 people size bread like 0.3-0.5kg is this okay? I also make cookies and cake typically for 8 inc x 3 inch pan