Baking your own bread

Bread dough is somewhat different to handle than, for example, cake dough, but it is still well suited for novice cooks and offers even professional cooks more than enough scope for experimentation.

What should you keep in mind when baking bread, and how can you get delicious, fresh bread out of your own oven?

What makes bread dough special?

• Most bread doughs contain real yeast.
• Like baking powder, this ensures that the bread rises, but this happens during a resting phase that every bread dough needs.
• Yeast is easy to use nowadays; it is simply added to the bread dough, which is then usually left to rest for several hours or overnight.
• Many bread doughs need warmth for this, so they are placed covered in a bowl on the radiator.

What is pleasing for many amateur cooks and bakers is that bread dough is generally very flexible.

It can be used with additions such as:

• yogurt
• Together
• flowers
• Vegetables

can be refined, or have their basic consistency altered compared to other types of flour.

All of this changes little about the bread dough itself or its preparation.

However, the types of dough can certainly vary:

• Unleavened bread
• leavened bread

Unleavened breads are flat breads, as they do not require any leavening agents.

The basic ingredients are flour or crushed grain and water.

Flatbread is considered the oldest and most common type of bread worldwide.

Sourdough breads become nice and fluffy thanks to a leavening agent.

They are divided into three types of dough:

• Sourdough bread
• yeast dough bread
• Bread with baking powder

In our photo gallery you can learn how to prepare bread step by step:

More important information, tips and tricks on the topic of bread baking!

Bread maker - is it necessary?

There's pretty much every type of machine available for the kitchen.

Those who don't want to do that don't even have to cook themselves anymore; a collection of cutting tools, mixers, and automatic cooking pots could do it.

Bread machines are certainly practical for lovers of homemade bread, but who do not always have the time to adjust the oven exactly right or whose ovens are often already occupied with other things.

However, they are only worthwhile if you regularly bake your own bread.

The best way to try it out is with the oven, as it can bake bread just as effectively as a bread machine specifically designed for that purpose.

Important: Resting time of the bread dough

• Resting time? It probably isn't that important! At least that's what many novice bread bakers think, and then they're surprised when their bread doesn't rise.
• In some recipes that prescribe a resting time for individual ingredients, this is sometimes not really that important, but only ensures that it becomes even better.
• It's different with bread; it must not be shortened or even omitted entirely.
• The reason is the yeast contained in the bread dough.
• Unlike baking powder, it doesn't only work through heat during baking, but makes the dough airy and fluffy beforehand.
• This takes some time, and the yeast cannot make up for this time by baking it in the oven.
• Some bread recipes are already trying to use baking powder, as it doesn't need a resting period; however, such breads always taste somewhat different than the classic bread dough version with yeast.