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5 Tips for Homemade Bread Your Family Will Fall in Love With
With so many people staying at home during the pandemic, cooking has become a popular activity. Trying out new recipes and brushing up on cooking skills has created a surge of new cooks in the kitchen. At Josey Young & Brady Realty, our real estate agents are noticing a renewed interest in Atlanta homes for sale that offer well-equipped, functional kitchens.
One popular cooking trend that's making a comeback is bread baking. Even people with little cooking experience are baking homemade loaves of wheat, sourdough, and gluten-free bread from scratch. All you need is a few simple ingredients and a little patience. Here are 5 tips for baking the perfect homemade bread for your family:
- Use the Right Ingredients
When baking bread, you only need four main ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. You can use white flour or wheat flour, as well as dry or wet yeast. If you're making sourdough bread, you don't need commercial yeast. You can use a sourdough starter, a live fermented culture, which acts as a natural leavening agent. All of these ingredients can be found in local grocery stores. - Gather the Right Equipment
Once you have your ingredients, gather the right equipment from your kitchen cabinets. You'll need a large mixing bowl, bowl covers, measuring cups, a flat wooden surface, an oven thermometer, a stand mixer, a cooling rack, and loaf pans. A bench scraper is also helpful for keeping your countertops clean and lifting and folding sticky dough from the work surface. - Prepare the Dough
Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well with your fist in the center of the dough and pour in water, as well as milk, butter, and sugar if desired. To mix the dough, you can use an electric stand mixer with a dough hook or a wooden spoon to mix the dough by hand. Either way, the dough needs to form a ball. Once this is done, transfer the dough to a floured wooden surface where you can knead the dough for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy. - Let the Dough Rise
Once you have mixed and kneaded the dough, transfer it into a large bowl that's been lightly brushed with olive oil. Place the dough in the bowl, cover it with a damp towel, and place it in a warm, dry place. The dough needs to sit and proof for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the dough has almost doubled in size. Dough rises best in temperatures of 75 degrees or higher. The yeast needs time to rise before baking the bread. Cutting this time short will result in a flat, unappealing loaf of bread. - Bake the Bread in the Oven
When the dough is fully proofed, transfer the dough into a loaf pan. Put the pan in a preheated 200-degree oven and bake the bread for about 30 to 40 minutes. If you added butter or milk to your dough, baking time may take a little longer. For best results, you should use a digital cooking thermometer to make sure your bread is baking correctly. When the bread is fully baked, it should have a light, golden brown top. Before slicing the bread with a serrated knife, let it cool on a cooling rack for 10 to 15 minutes.
For more information on buying or selling a home in the Newnan area, contact JYB Realty today. We can help with all of your real estate needs.