The first step of handmade bread - kneading and fermentation

Home-made bread not only tastes delicious, uses high-quality ingredients, but is also healthy. However, making bread is the most time-consuming and physically demanding task in baking. Just kneading the dough alone has put many people off. But the sense of accomplishment of making your own bread is also extraordinary.

According to different bread recipes, the materials used will be different, but basically the general bread kneading process can refer to the following steps:

1. Use the ingredients within the recipe. Dissolve the yeast in half of the warm water (if the recipe uses 120 grams of water, use 60 grams of water to dissolve the yeast).

2. Weigh the flour, sugar, salt, milk powder and other dry ingredients and mix well. Then add the water in which the yeast has been dissolved, the other half of the water, the beaten eggs and other ingredients except butter.

3. Knead the dough vigorously and place the dough on the chopping board. The dough at this time will be very sticky and the surface will not be smooth. But keep kneading and don't add flour easily.

4. If the dough sticks to the chopping board, you can use a plastic scraper to scoop up the scraps of dough stuck to the chopping board and knead them into the large dough again.

TIPS 1: If fresh yeast is used to make bread, the yeast must be dissolved in warm water before the yeast can be activated. If you use quick dry yeast to make it, in principle you can omit this step and add the dry yeast directly to the flour, because the quick dry yeast can be used directly without going through the activation process. However, to be on the safe side and to allow the yeast to fully exert its activity, it is recommended to dissolve the quick dry yeast in warm water before use.

TIPS 2: Different flours have different water absorption, so it is not recommended to add the water in the formula all at once, but to increase or decrease it according to the actual situation of the dough. This is why not all the water is used to dissolve the yeast.

TIPS 3: The dough will be very sticky at the beginning. The plastic scraper is a very useful tool to help us shovel the dough off the chopping board.

TIPS 4: It is recommended to use plastic or metal chopping boards. First, they are less sticky than wooden chopping boards. Second, the material of wooden chopping boards is easy to breed bacteria, and repeated kneading on them is relatively less harmful. health.

5. As you knead, the dough will gradually become elastic and the surface will become smooth. Moreover, with the formation of gluten, the dough will begin to become less sticky.

TIPS: There are many ways to knead dough by hand at home. You can knead it, throw it, or pull it, but the purpose is the same, which is to stir the dough quickly and continuously to allow gluten to continue to form.

The methods you can choose are as follows: 1. Choose a table that is about waist high, put the chopping board on the table, lean sideways and quickly knead the dough with your hands, and put your body on your hands. Use the strength of your waist and body to knead the dough.

2. Throw the dough. It does not work for all doughs. Some doughs that are hard or particularly thin are not suitable for this method.

6. After kneading to a certain extent, try to stretch the dough. The dough at this time is not easy to stretch out very thinly. If you stretch it a little thin, it will tear out a lot of holes. At this point you can add butter.

TIPS: Butter will block the formation of gluten, so we first knead the dough until the gluten is formed to a certain extent, and then add butter, which can make our kneading the dough easier. This method It's called the "post-oil method." However, if you add the butter at the beginning, it will spread more evenly throughout the dough. So, there are pros and cons to each. However, kneading the dough by hand at home is very labor-intensive, and it is recommended to use the post-oiling method.

7. Add the softened butter to the dough, and knead the butter into the dough vigorously.

8. The dough will look a bit "horrible" at first. But as the kneading progresses, the butter will gradually be absorbed by the dough.

9. Keep kneading and the dough will become smooth and elastic again.

10. Test the strength of gluten in a timely manner. Carefully stretch the dough to see if it forms a thin film.

11. Look at the situation in the picture. At this time the dough can form a thin film. However, the film is not particularly tough and is still relatively easy to break. The cracked holes have an irregular shape rather than a smooth round shape. At this point the dough has reached the expansion stage. If you are making most sweet breads and prepared breads, you can stop kneading the dough at this stage. For example, honey bean Mexican, cheese and meat floss buns, hot dog buns, etc.

12. After kneading to the expansion stage, if you continue to knead the dough, the dough will reach the complete stage. At this time, the dough can be stretched out into a very tough film, which is not easy to break even if you poke it with your fingers, as shown in the picture.

13. Even if the film is punctured, the ruptured hole will appear as a very smooth round hole. Complete dough can be used to make most types of toast. Such as high-end milk toast, cream white toast, etc. After kneading to the complete stage, do not continue to knead the dough, otherwise, if you knead it too much, the gluten will break, the dough will lose elasticity, become sticky, and break when pulled. If you use over-kneaded dough to make bread, the bread will be small in size, rough in holes, and taste bad.

14. Put the kneaded dough into a large basin, cover the surface with plastic wrap or a damp cloth, and place it at room temperature for the first fermentation.

15. The fermentation time depends on the temperature. If the temperature is high, the fermentation time will be short. If the temperature is low, the fermentation time will be long. At about 28 degrees, the dough can complete fermentation in about 1 hour.

16. Criteria for judging whether fermentation is complete: When the dough ferments to 2-2.5 times its original size, dip your fingers in flour and poke a hole with the top of the dough. After pulling out the finger, if the hole where it was inserted neither collapses nor shrinks, but remains in its original shape, fermentation is complete.

17. Squeeze the air out of the fermented dough, divide it into the required portions according to the requirements of the formula, and let it rise at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Then, according to the specific conditions of each formula, It’s been shaped, fermented for the second time, and baked.

TIPS 1 I have not listed the time required to knead the dough to each stage. Because the kneading time varies depending on the actual situation, the type of dough formula, the moisture content, and the strength and speed of kneading. As we often communicate, some people take an hour to knead it, while others only need ten or twenty minutes.

TIPS 2 This article is a step-by-step diagram of kneading dough by hand. In order to save labor, many students have purchased a bread machine or chef's machine to help knead the dough. The process of using mechanical kneading is roughly the same, and the same method can be used to detect the dough film.

After kneading the dough, quickly start making your ideal bread!

Kneading dough is a strenuous task, but it can not only make fragrant bread, but also allow the body to fully exercise and burn some calories along the way. Kill two birds with one stone.

If someone asks you: Why are you not fat after making so many snacks?

You can answer: Just knead the dough!