There’s nothing comparable to a warm slice of artisanal bread smeared with butter – pure bliss. Yet, crafting your own bread isn’t always as delightful.
Lucky for you, various fantastic gadgets and applications exist to elevate your bread-baking prowess, and I’ve experimented with many of them. Thus, if your New Year’s resolution involves mastering the craft of perfect loaves – sans a bread maker – you’ve arrived at the correct location.
These tools and applications won’t instantly transform you into a bread virtuoso. Perfecting the craft of bread making requires time and practice, and until then, you might produce a few sunburnt tiger loaves, squishy bloomers, and baguettes dense enough to be used in warfare.
However, they will handle some of the tasks for you by proofing, kneading, and slicing your homemade bread – along with offering inspiration for your next culinary creation. So don your apron, it’s baking time…
1. App Inspiration
Let’s begin with the fundamentals, shall we? If you’re looking to craft bread but require recipes or inspiration, numerous cooking websites and apps are available, but a select few shine particularly in the realm of baking and bread.
3 Quick Bread-Making Tips
1. Proofing Perfection
When utilizing the proofer for a simple white bloomer, I set the minimum to 30 and the maximum to 30.1, then placed my dough (in a bowl covered with cling film) in for no less than two hours. Once the dough has doubled in size, remove it, allowing you to easily fold the proofer away into a cupboard. Alternatively, you can refrigerate the risen dough overnight to enhance its flavor!
2. Kneading Your Dough
For kneading white bloomer dough in the Aucma, I activate it for approximately five minutes at setting two.
3. Don’t Weigh the Bowl!
Ensure that you place your bowl (or whichever container you’re using to weigh the ingredients) onto the scale first, and then zero it out, so the bowl’s weight isn’t included with your ingredients.
First up is Rise, an application ideal for those eager to learn how to craft sourdough bread. While some recipes can be accessed for free, the primary features of this app are available through a reasonably priced subscription: $3.99 /£3.99 / AU$5.99 monthly, $14.99 / £14.99 /AU$29.99 annually, or a one-time payment of $19.99/£19.99/AU$22.99.
This app not only offers a plethora of sourdough and other bread recipes, but also the paid version allows you to set reminders for feeding your sourdough starter, access recipes contributed by other users, and estimate how long your dough should rise based on variables such as hydration, salt, and temperature. However, if you’re just starting, there are free resources available for creating a sourdough starter and techniques for folding and shaping dough.
If sourdough isn’t your primary focus, take a look at Kneady. This is also a subscription platform, but 50 recipes are freely accessible, including options for boules, ciabattas, baguettes, and much more.
Kneady Pro’s subscription fees can be a bit perplexing, but the current deal is £1 (approximately $1.27 / AU$1.98) per week for three months, £1.61 (around $2.05 / AU$3.18) weekly for one month, or £0.58 ($0.74 / AU$1.15) per week for a year. This grants access to over 500 professional recipes, numerous baking guides, and even the opportunity to ask the recipe authors any queries you might have.
2. Precise Kitchen Scales
You have your recipe, and now it’s time to measure everything accurately. This may seem elementary, but in my view, a quality set of kitchen scales is essential for bread baking and any other cooking you undertake.
While conventional kitchen scales can suffice, electronic models are frequently more precise and eliminate the need for recalibration. If your electronic kitchen scales are slightly off, it may be a good idea to consider a replacement or to check the batteries.
Fortunately, a decent set of scales won’t break the bank, nor must they be exceedingly fancy. I suggest the Accuweight 201 Digital Kitchen Scales from Amazon, which have an RRP of $24.99 / £11.99 / AU$29.44 and will serve you well.
Measuring your ingredients
incorrectly will have a significant influence on your dough, rendering everything else considerably more challenging.
3. A kitchen mixer equipped with a dough hook attachment
A kitchen mixer isn’t mandatory for bread making, but if you have a recipe that demands kneading dough, a mixer with a dough hook attachment simplifies the process considerably.