Bread Recipes That Fit Your Schedule — Any Schedule (2024)

FAQs

How can making yeast bread fit into a busy schedule? ›

Let the dough do the work.

You can take this to the extreme by trying a no-knead recipe – simply mix up the dough and let it rise slowly – usually overnight at least. Then come back and bake – you've barely had to do anything! You can try this method with my hands-off focaccia recipe.

Autolyse is a technique used during bread making that entails combining only the flour and water together, then allowing for a rest period before adding yeast, salt, stiff starters or any other ingredients to the recipe.

"Homemade bread stored at room temperature will have the best quality if used within three to five days," she says. "Commercially-prepared bread can be used within five to seven days.

Quick breads include muffins, biscuits, scones, cornbread, and quick loaf breads like banana bread and zucchini bread.

Because yeast does not divide much in bread dough (only 20-30% increase in cell numbers in 4 hours), what you start with is what you end up with in terms of yeast numbers. This can affect the bread by adding a "yeasty" taste if you put too much into the dough.

The proofing time for bread dough varies based on the dough's makeup (amount of preferment, flour choices, and hydration) and the temperature at which it's proofed. The dough should generally be proofed for around 1 to 4 hours at a warm temperature or overnight (or more) at a cold refrigerator temperature.

The Rubaud method is a popular method of hand mixing the dough. The Rubaud method develops gluten strength up front in the process. In the Rubuaud method, you gently lift and pull the dough in a bowl, mimicking the motion of a diving-arm mixer (or perhaps the diving arm-mixer is mimicking the Rubaud method!)

Autolyse is fancy word invented by a French baking instructor and bread scientist of sorts, Raymond Calvel. It means to let your dough rest (I give it 25-30 minutes) before kneading.

Unless you have a medical condition such as celiac disease, wheat allergy, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, there is no need for you to avoid bread! In fact, bread can be included as part of a healthy, balanced diet every day – yes that is correct, every day!

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.

How long should homemade bread cool before slicing? ›

It's important to allow bread to cool all the way, or until it's just barely warm, to complete the cooking process before cutting. Rolls will take only about 20 minutes to cool. Bread baked in a loaf pan can take as long as 1 hour and a large free-form loaf can take as long as 1 1/2 hours to cool.

The biscuit-method, also used for scones, is prepared by sifting together the dry ingredients including flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder, the fat is then cut into the dry ingredients, and the mixture is folded together with the liquid producing a dense yet flakey texture.

Eggs provide structure and help bind the ingredients together. Eggs also act as an emulsifier. By surrounding small particles of fat, the egg helps make the quick bread batter smoother, thus contributing to volume and texture.

Though it won't have the same color or crust of bread baked in an oven, you can use a traditional microwave to make a fresh loaf of bread whenever inspiration strikes. If you have a convection microwave, your results will more closely resemble oven-baked bread.

While yeast breads require time to for fermentation, quick breads use chemical leavening agents including baking powder and baking soda, which creates carbon dioxide rapidly and can be mixed and baked in a short amount to time.

Once reactivated, yeast begins feeding on the sugars in flour, and releases the carbon dioxide that makes bread rise (although at a much slower rate than baking powder or soda). Yeast also adds many of the distinctive flavors and aromas we associate with bread.

Yeast acts as a leavening agent, causing baked goods like bread to rise. It feeds on the sugars in bread dough, which results in the release of carbon dioxide as a by-product. This causes the dough to expand by creating bubbles within it.

Rising, or proofing, is the process by which yeasted breads achieve their structure and height. When active, yeast converts sugar and other foods into gas, which is then trapped by the dough. The same process can be observed in sourdough starter, which tends to rise in volume after it's been fed.