Simple homemade bread recipe | Jamie Oliver bread recipes (2024)

FAQs

What makes bread so light and fluffy? ›

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Milk changes bread recipes by producing a softer loaf, due to the milk fat content, which also gives bread a richer flavor. Bread made with milk browns more easily than bread made with water, as lactose or milk sugar will caramelize as it bakes.

In a nutshell, if you're buying basic, cheap sandwich bread, it's probably cheaper than you can make it at home. But if you compare two loaves similar to what you could make at home — one made with high-quality ingredients as opposed to one made with lesser quality ingredients — home baking becomes much cheaper.

All you need to do is mix a 330ml bottle of beer, 375g of self-raising flour and 3 teaspoons of sugar in a bowl with a spoon. Pour it into a bread tin, top with a drizzle of melted butter and bake at 180°C/360°F for about 50 minutes, or until golden and crisp on top.

Does Rising Bread Affect Its Texture? For a fluffy bread texture, the key is to let the bread rise long enough.

besides the nutritional benefits there are a few other good reasons to use egg in breadmaking. It makes the bread lighter and fluffier. The reason for that is the fat in the yolk that inhibits gluten formation just as any other fat would. This results in a looser dough that can expand and puff up more.

If you want delicate, soft, and tender baked goods, I recommend using oil vs. butter. Butter will result in a denser crumb and not be as moist.

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.

Both store-bought and homemade bread should freeze well, says Lisa Brooks, the chef and owner of Heart & Soul, a personal chef service. Her go-to method involves wrapping the bread in two layers of plastic wrap and then storing the loaf in a resealable plastic freezer bag before freezing.

Johanna Hartzheim, co-founder and head of product at Wildgrain, a bread and pasta delivery service, recommends eating homemade bread within three days but says it will last up to a week. "The bread will start to dry up and become a bit harder over time, but it takes much longer until it becomes moldy," she says.

What is the best beer to make bread with? ›

Lighter beers, such as lagers, ales and pilsners, will give your bread a lighter color, and mild taste that just about everyone loves. Darker beers like stouts and porters make a darker-colored loaf and have a stronger beer flavor. Hoppy beers like IPAs will give your bread a more bitter taste.

I adapted my Simple Sourdough Recipe and replaced the water for beer. I used 350g of Pale Ale (just because that is what came to hand first when I opened the cellar). I didn't make any other changes for my Sourdough Beer Bread Recipe - just a straight swap with beer instead of water. So easy!

I've had great results with leftover lager yeast. I include the slurry in the liquid portion of the bread. I put the liquid in a bowl of the flour and salt, stir only 1/3 of the flour in, cover, and let ferment 12 hours at 10C. In the morning I stir in and knead the rest of the flour, then rise at room temperature.

Bread boxes, if you have one, work great, but you can also use wax paper, a beeswax and linen bag, or even a dishcloth. A clean dish towel is one of Hartzheim's favorite options. "Plastic bags help keep the crumb (the interior of the loaf) soft but also make the crust soft.

Yeast feed on sugar and it's the gasses produced by yeast that causes the dough to expand and “rise”. More accurately stated though, it's the yeast that has the effect but it's a symbiotic relationship. Too little sugar will impede the rise by not having sufficient nutrient for the yeast.

If you don't knead your dough, your baked bread won't rise as high, and the overall texture and appearance will be dense. Properly kneaded dough promises a softer, fluffier, taller, and chewier bread.

Yes. Most bread doughs lose around 10% of their mass due to evaporation. This will vary by bread type, flour used, etc., but it's an okay guideline. Dough would loose water as its cooking which provides a significant amount of weight in the raw dough.