Hello to everyone,

I am another new member here, having just joined a few days ago. I recently dicovered this site--fantastic information and amazing photos. Very generous members.

I am very new to bread making, just started February of this year.  I am also a novice cheese-maker (I just read the Introduction post of Peter from New Zealand and I am envious of his milking goats and cows--!). I am interested in making bread in an artisinal fashion, using the hands a hundred percent. I think bread making can teach very valuable lessons, especially if done slowly and with patience. We have very good bread over here in all the regions, so the bar is very high...

I have a very basic kitchen as a workplace, as I imagine the other members here all had once upon a time. I have very basic rudimentary equipment, but since I like doing things by hand, the absence of a stand mixer doesn´t really bother me. I do, however, have very good access to a 14% protein flour and fresh yeast is always available and easy to find.

I made this barra de pan a few days ago. Everyone knows it as a baguette, I suppose the French name has a better international projection. I worked up to this after having tried basic white loaves and the round rustic types (we call them "hogazas"here). I find the baguette type to be quite tricky to master. This was my fifth (?) try and my own recipe after trying other recipes and reading up on the subject for weeks and gleaning information from different sources. I was quite happy with this one, although I still want it to improve. Please do comment and tell me what you think...I would love to hear what the experienced ones have to say. I have a long way to go and I appreciate any help I can get.

Well, happy baking to everyone and hope to hear from you soon!

Carlos

Hello,

I am a beginner home bread baker. I have understanding of the basics of bread baking using hand mixing/kneading and bread machine cycles. I have owned a bread maker for the last 10 years and, after putting the machine away for the better part of 7 years (because I got tired of baking the same bread all the time), I decided to bake again.

I found a delicious-sounding recipe in one of my favorite bread cookbooks --Beth Hensperger's The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook. In the section called "Sweet Loaves" the author has "Mexican Chocolate Bread." The first time I tried the recipe, the end result was a brick! It did not rise. My Breadman bread maker does not have the "sweet bread" cycle the recipe recommends. So, I programmed the machine for the "batter bread/cake." The dough was batter-like and it did not behave like the other dough I was familiar with.

The recipe calls for a total of 1½ cups of liquids (1 cup of milk and ½ cup orange juice), and 2 large eggs. There are 3½ cups of bread flour called for; ⅓ cup light brown sugar (or piloncillo) and ⅔ cup grated Mexican chocolate Ibarra brand (whose main ingredient is sugar). 

The rest of the ingredients are: 4 TBSP unsalted butter, ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 TBSP + 1 tsp gluten, 1½ tsp salt, 1½ tsp instant espresso powder, 1 tsp ground cinnamon and 1 TBSP bread machine yeast (or 2½ tsp SAF yeast).

Before attempting the bread a second time, I sought advice from a professional baker's blog and she advised to make sure I obtained a soft and smooth (not runny) dough. But the problem I encountered again was that the dough was runny and sticky and even though I followed her advice to program the machine for "basic" the kneading did not look like regular dough (not soft and smooth). So, what I did was to add flour to obtain a soft and smooth, and not sticky dough. This time the bread rose, but because I ended up adding approximately another cup (or cup and ½) of bread flour, the dough was too large for my machine's capacity so I shaped it and baked it in a large oval casserole dish (11"X8.5"X2.5"). The final rise filled the dish's dimensions completely and once baked (60 min. at 250 deg. F) the bread had mushroomed to twice the volume of the baking dish!  The flavor was very good though.

This is what I am looking to finding out from anyone out there with experience:

If I stick to the recipe, should I decrease the liquids, and by how much, in order to obtain a soft and smooth dough? I don't think this is a recipe for a batter chocolate bread.

Or should I just add another 1½ cups of bread flour and later divide the dough in half and bake them in regular sized (8"X4") loaf pans?

I have the feeling that adding the additional flour does tone down the flavor, which I think would be incredibly chocolaty, cinnamony and sweet like sweet bread would be.  This bread reminds me of a cup of hot Mexican chocolate: rich, thick, spicy and sweet. The bread I got the second time around is nice, but not in-your-face rich and spicy.

Thank you and I look forward to reading your advice!

 Gloria H.

Help! I am having very little success with my current baking attempts. All products have been edible, but none have turned out how I planned.

Problems:

My dough usually rises really, but then when I go to bake them, they either fall or don't rise to their full potential.

My whole wheat sandwich bread came out with a hard crust...I had just baked a loaf with a crunchy exterior about 5 minutes prior, could any leftover steam have caused this hardening? 

 I cannot for the life of me score an unbaked loaf!

Potential Issues:

I am working with just my hands as I have no machine. Because my dough has been pretty sticky and hard to work with, I don't knead it a lot. 

 I've been using single packet yeast, because I don't want to invest in a whole jar or bag when I'm moving in a month.

 I am so disheartened when I see these beautifully risen loaves, and I just can't seem to succeed. 
Any thoughts or suggestions?

I have never baked a loaf of bread in my life. I am 53 years old. My mom still makes delicious Irish soda bread. But it is my brother who lives in Costa Rica that has inspired me to finally bake some bread. I am the type of person who would never be satisfied just baking a loaf of plain white bread every weekend. I tend to max out everything I do (I started running a few years ago to get in shape and lost 42 pounds inside of 6 months). Then I started drinking beer and stopped running only to find that the 42 pounds came back with a vengeance. DUH!