More Easy Bread Recipes - Gwen's Nest (2024)

FAQs

How do you make homemade bread more dense? ›

To make it dense, you want a short rise. Skip the punching altogether; rise once, then shape, proof in the pan, and bake. Don't use a pizza stone or a preheated pan, these will give you large holes. Reducing the amount of yeast, in my experience, will make a denser bread.

If you're looking to ramp up the taste of your favorite bread recipe, we recommend adding a bit of fat. A fat like butter, olive oil or coconut oil in small quantities will help your bread achieve a higher rise and it will also boost its flavor by tenfold.

Bakers combine yeast, some of the flour and water to create a sponge that can be allowed to ferment from 30 minutes to several hours. After fermentation, the bread making process proceeds as usual. Longer fermentation gives bread stronger flavors.

You can also put hot water in a heat-safe dish and place it on the floor of a cold oven (or on a lower shelf). The steam and heat from the water will help the temperature rise just enough that the yeast is active. The steam will also assist in keeping the surface of the dough moist so it will stretch as it rises.

All it takes is a small amount of dough enhancer per loaf to create a much lighter and fluffier result. Using a dough enhancer like Vital Wheat Gluten works to improve the texture and elasticity of the dough and elongate the strands of gluten. Doing so allows more room for the gas in the dough to develop and rise.

Well it's simple, bread flour has an increased amount of protein or more gluten which results in a lighter, fluffier dough which produces a less dense finished product. All-purpose flour can be used for bread but bread flour is always better if your goal is a “fluffier” bread.

Topping bread dough with seeds and grains is a simple and effective way to increase the nutrition, flavor, and texture in a baked loaf of bread. Most of us have experimented with mixing seeds, nuts, dried fruit, and even other grains into bread dough.

Butter, technically a dough enrichment, tenderizes bread dough and limits gluten development, yielding a softer, more tender crumb and a richer flavor. The butter in this sourdough babka dough makes the interior tender—and delicious. Photo by Maurizio Leo.

Sweeteners such as malt and honey are used to add flavor to bread dough. Malt, which is available in powder and liquid form, can be added to almost any bread. It's important to use a nondiastatic version, though, as diastatic malt has active enzymes, which, in excess, will make dough extremely sticky.

Once reactivated, yeast begins feeding on the sugars in flour, and releases the carbon dioxide that makes bread rise (although at a much slower rate than baking powder or soda). Yeast also adds many of the distinctive flavors and aromas we associate with bread.

What happens if I add extra yeast to bread? ›

This can affect the bread by adding a "yeasty" taste if you put too much into the dough. General amounts of yeast are around 1 - 2 % of the flour, by weight. Too much yeast could cause the dough to go flat by releasing gas before the flour is ready to expand.

Keep the bread dough covered to protect the dough from drying out and keep off dust. Place your rising dough in a warm, draft-free place in the kitchen while it's rising. Too much heat will speed up the yeast activity, and too much cold air will slow it down.

Rising: Most bread recipes call for letting the dough rise twice. If you prefer (or need - i.e., pizza) a dough that will have larger bubbles after it is baked, let it rise just once but to somewhat more than double in bulk. If you want a very fine textured product, let it rise three times, e.g., brioche.

Yes! If a recipe calls for proofing bread dough overnight in the refrigerator, it can be proofed on the counter at a warmer temperature for a shorter period. Rather than placing the dough in the refrigerator overnight, leave it covered on the counter for 1 to 4 hours until it's ready to bake.

Heavy as in a dense solid crumb? Whole grains will do it, if you add them in amounts of more than 40% or 50%. You can experiment by subbing out different percentages until you get a result you like. You can make 100% whole wheat or whole rye loaves that are deliciously dense and chewy.

Strong flour has more protein and gluten and gives an overall heavier feel to the bread, both in weight and texture/taste. If you are already using strong flour consider using less yeast, this will cause the bread to rise less and be heavier, but this may make the taste and texture less pleasant.

All purpose flour has a lower protein content, resulting in lighter, shorter breads, which makes it an ideal flour for cookies, cakes and more. All purpose flour contains less gluten than bread flour. The higher content of gluten in bread flour makes it ideal for airy, chewy bread, rather than dense bread.

If it's cold in your house, your dough will be sluggish, so you'll want to find a warm spot for it to rise. When you control for temperature — the temperature of the dough and of the room — you can get your dough into the Goldilocks zone for optimal fermentation.