Bread making weather?

[snowyskiesau]

Winter arrived at my place overnight, 4° this morning!
I was awake at 5:00AM so decided to get up and bake some bread.

Using a Jamie Oliver recipe (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/basic-bread-recipe), nice and simple and works everytime - well nearly every time.
It's amazing the difference the weather or the brand of flour makes to the end result.
I bought some fresh yeast the other day that turned out to be anything but!
Back to the dried yeast which works a lot more reliably.

Still cold but at least it's no longer dark.

EDIT: Here's the result.
The smaller loaves have a soft top but the base is crusty, the large loaf is the opposite. Maybe the size/shape of the loaf tin?
The missing portion was breakfast with scrambled eggs. Almost makes up for getting out of bed so early :)

[Robson Valley]

I've made my own bread from scratch for 15(?) years. Very few weeks when I didn't get that done. Store bread stinks. I suggest that every pan shape and size has its own cook time and temperature. I developed my own bread formula. In the conventional loaf-shaped pans, 43 minutes at 375F, turning end-for-end at 20 minutes. On the baguette pans, 27 minutes at 325F, on the French Bread pans, 35 minutes at 350F.
Have always worked with dry yeast, Fleischmann's comes in 227g jars. That's as big as is commonly available up here.
I believe firmly that you have to pay attention to the flour temperature. While my kitchen in winter may get up to 20C, where I store my flour is only 12C. Makes the yeastie-beasties unhappy.
Seems also to apply to my own formula scratch (yeast) pizza dough. Cold is OK for fruit pie crust (6 apple pies tomorrow.) Same for scratch pasta dough which I usually cut, wrap and freeze.

Yeah, you're right: baking on a rotten cold day is a comforting thing to do. No better than 2C and windy here now. 15-20cm snow over the next 48 hrs.

[China]

Home made bread is world away from shop bread and it is so simple few cups of flour and some water, throw the switch and three or so hours later you have bread

[Robson Valley]

China, I could not agree with you more. "Big Store" shop bread stinks when toasted. That is a suspect disappointment. Why does it stink?
I figured: why not? People have been making/baking bread for thousands of years with no more technology than a bowl, a stick and an oven. How hard can that be?
Honestly, I want to build a back yard, wood-fired oven for bread.

I had a very abstract job (bio prof.) not much to show for a week's effort of "pearl casting." Bread was Friday evening. A bit of a Zen thing, kneading the dough. It wasn't difficult, it smelled good and the baking went well. Maybe 15? years now. Just a regular weekly thing that I do.

The cool part is that if someone demands my time (at the wrong time) I can claim that I have bread "on the rise" and tell them to call again in a few hours. HAHAHA.

[damian]

Bread making is a religion for some. Flour, water, salt, yeast but innumerable techniques and circumstances go into a great loaf. Virtually everything matters from temperature and humidity, kneading technique, choice of flour...

Shop bread uses "improvers". Funny the french an italians managed superb bread without "improver"...sigh...

Supermarket bread uses a whip and single rise system and preservatives.

Mine has been a disaster these last few years and I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the problem.

Unconventional but I bought some circulon cast aluminium non stick bread tins a while back. They were on special so I thought what the heck. Marvelous things. They brown the sides and bottom nicely and require NO greasing and just a wipe afterwards. AS nice as any proper bread tin I've used.

[Robson Valley]

The first bread that I made could have been used in the Olympics discus event.
Don't feel bad!

A common Culinary School textbook is Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen. Must be the 6th/8th edition by now (I have #5).
The one major key thing I learned? Measure the flour by weight, not by volume.
1C fluffy flour = 150g 1C packed flour = 170g (did this 10X)
So for my bread formula, and everything else, 1C flour is 160g.
I use 800g flour, as fast as I can shovel it into a bowl on a scale.
Makes 2 nice loaves, all I use in a week.

[damian]

I always weigh everything to the gram and my bread used to be fine. The more I think about it it started going downhill when I started using kiala organic flour. Not saying that's the problem but might be time to try another brand.

Sorry took so long to respond. Been busy....