Thank you to The Fresh Loaf, from a newbie!
I started to bake and cook more intensively (happily!) a year and a half ago when I moved to the UK with my husband. I didn't bake bread often though, as my experience with it, just the basic white loaf, has not been encouraging - very inconsistent results, hard crust, dense and chewy ... Sigh ... Until l chanced upon a video through this site and with the slap and fold method I managed to bake a little loaf that had a beautiful crust!!! Well good enough for a newbie like me! I really learnt a lot from this site and do hope I am able to apply what I read from what everybody has written :
I now hope to improve on the 'texture' as it is still a tad little too chewy than I'd like, though still better from my previous attempts. Any tips on making it more 'airy' are welcome and appreciated : ). My goal is to master a basic white loaf before I dare venture into the more complicated stuff. Fingers crossed!
I started baking bread a bit over 45 years ago with white bread. My first loaves were nothing to write home about but I kept at it. I get more pleasure from it now than I did when I started, and that was a lot. I worked from Beard on Bread. No TFL. No videos. I wish for you the amount of pleasure I get from bread baking and that your pleasure increases as you get better at it.
Thank you for the encouragement! I will persevere : ). I looked up Beard on Bread and wow, after all these years, his book is still selling very well. I am baking another little loaf tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it.
I just started back bread baking today and my first bread loft was dense and chewy too : ) basic white loaf,
I know I under proofed it a tad and the dough was a little tight. But I am happy to be back and I'm glad you are having fun also.
Scott
Here's another happy baker, scott312! The second loaf turned out better, I was so thrilled! I proofed it a little longer, albeit based on its feel than by time, thank you for your advice. I thoroughly enjoy slapping and folding, learning from numerous viewings of Richard Bertinet's video. Besides the loaf, I tried a variety of other shapes to practise. Fougasse aesthetically failed but palatically passed by the husband : D
I was at Waterstones' hoping to glance through Beard on Bread but I couldn't find it. I shall look for it again on a day when I am not in so much of a rush : )
Looking forward to Friday when I make another loaf.
I got my SD starter going in SF from Clayon's Complete Book of Bread - first edition 1973. Never learned to bake bread very well until a couple of years ago and finding TFL - now.... it only gets better. So welcome and
Happy baking.