This Is How You Bake Your Own Bread!

If you want to bake your own bread, you should avoid baking mixes and bake delicious breads with just a few ingredients.

One reason for having your own bread could be that you want to know what you are eating. This is not the case with baking mixes, but only if you really add every single ingredient yourself. Baking your own bread isn’t as complicated as you think, try it out!

Why bake your own bread?

Why should you bake your own bread when you can buy fresh bread everywhere? Well, the reason is simple: to be in control of what you eat. The EU stipulates that certain additives must be declared. But the industry is always one step ahead in order to sell you long-lasting, always juicy bread that is full of additives that do not yet have to be declared.

As soon as an additive has to be declared, the next substance that is not yet on the list is used. Such substances that you would never use when you bake your own bread: (genetically engineered) enzymes, humectants, crust formers, flavors, preservatives. ..

Either you buy your bread in a health food store or in an organic bakery (such substances are generally prohibited there), or you bake your own bread.

Do i need sourdough?

German bread (and also that in Austria) gets its classic, sour taste from sourdough (or from acidulants in industrially produced bread). Sourdough takes time – and industry no longer has it. The dough pieces that your baker bakes “on site” come from abroad and have no time for sourdough in the freezer.

It’s the same with baking mixes that your baker uses. The dried sourdough in it provides flavor, but without the necessary time it cannot improve the digestibility of the bread and act as a leavening agent. Sourdough is a way to bake bread without adding any other raising agents, because the lactic acid bacteria it contains form carbon dioxide, which loosens the dough.

If you want to bake your own bread and have no experience, you should start with yeast first. If you succeed in doing this, you can make sourdough yourself and use it to bake your own bread as an advanced bread baker. Our recipes are therefore without sourdough.

Italian focaccia

The focaccia is the typical Italian flatbread, which goes well with grilled meat, vegetable dishes and salads. It is very easy to make and only needs a few ingredients:

• 550g wheat flour
• 350ml lukewarm water
• ½ cube of fresh yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tbsp olive oil

Dissolve the sugar in the water, then stir the yeast into the water. Let the mixture stand for a moment, then stir in the salt. Then press a hollow in the flour into which you pour the yeast water.

Then knead a dough with a dough hook or hands by working flour from the outside into the moist center of the bowl. When the dough is smooth, knead in the olive oil until it is completely incorporated into the dough. The longer you knead the dough, the better!

Cover the dough in a place that is not too cool and wait for the dough to double in volume. It takes about an hour. During this time you can coat a baking sheet with olive oil and sprinkle with a little semolina or flour and preheat the oven to 20 ° C.

Knead the dough well again and shape it into a flat cake on the baking sheet. Let it rest again under a cloth for about 15 minutes and then leave your imagination free when you season the bread to taste. The classic way is to make dents in the dough with your fingers, sprinkle olive oil in it and sprinkle the bread with coarse sea salt before baking.

Alternatively, you can sprinkle herbs on the flatbread, olives, cocktail tomatoes, rosemary needles, … Anything that tastes good is allowed! Bake your own bread for about 20-25 minutes. Good Appetite!

Beginners mixed bread

If you’re starting to bake your own bread, this sourdough-free bread is a good place to start. You need two different types of flour:

• 500g flour type A (e.g. wheat flour)
• 500g flour type B (e.g. rye flour or spelled flour)
• 700ml lukewarm water (or a little more)
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 cube of fresh yeast

As in the recipe before, mix the sugar, salt and yeast with the water and let it stand for about 5 minutes. Then knead the yeast water under the flour as described above and  let the dough stand in a not too cool place for about an hour, covered, until it is twice as big as before.

Preheat the oven to 200 ° C and knead the dough again. Fill it into a baking pan (box baking pan, for example) and let it rise for another 20 minutes. After 60 minutes of baking time, immediately fall out of the mold and let cool on a wire rack.

It’s that easy to bake your own bread!