Bread's 4 Essential Ingredients

For me breadmaking is therapeutic....it can easily provide you satisfaction seeing the yeast becoming active and foamy in the warm water. When the dough doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl, you will feel relieved knowing the gluten has actually worked. The soft and elastic dough while you kneading it with your bare hands makes you very happy because you are more that half way through before having some freshly baked breads on the table for breakfast. I like making bread and seeing my children eating the bread that I made...just priceless.

The Bread Bible by RLB listed 4 essentials ingredients in making bread - unbleached wheatflour, water or other liquids, yeast and salt. It is simple, isn't it? So talking about flour, what type of flour to use in making bread? The simplest way of choosing the flour is...look for a bread or strong flour. Bread flour or strong flour is normally used interchangeably, so what is strong flour? It is a flour with a protein content between 12%-14%. Another type of flour that can be used is unbleached all purpose flour with 8%-11% protein. You can check the amount of protein at the back or side of the packaging. 

If you are using normal plain/all purpose flour for a recipe that calls for bread flour, just replace:

1 cup bread flour = 1 cup plus 1.5 tablespoon all purpose flour

Other ingredients that are commonly used in bread is sweeteners such as sugar or honey or maple syrup, and fat such as butter and oil.

Basic Ingredient - Tepung / Flour

Hari ini mari kita buat assignment. Saya nak bercerita tentang tepung. Pada hujung minggu lepas, adalah seorang hamba Allah ni ber'sms' dengan saya dan bertanyakan apakah maksud 'All Purpose Flour' sebab dia kata nak buat kek. Jawapan saya senang saja...pi beli tepung gandum cap bluekey atau cap sauh.  Tapi kalau nak kek yang dihasilkan lebih halus dan sedap, maka kenalah gunakan Cake Flour. 

Tepung ni ada beberapa jenis dimana ianya dikisar (milled) untuk berlainan jenis kegunaan. Kandungan protein dan gluten di dalam tepung menentukan tahap keanjalan tepung itu sendiri. Lagi tinggi kandungan protein, semakin tinggi keanjalan tepung itu dan semakin kukuh struktur produk yang dihasilkan.

Dari pembacaan buku-buku yang tinggi melangit dan berat nak mampus kat rumah ni(over exaggerated sikit..) , di bawah ni saya ringkaskan beberapa jenis tepung:

Table 1: Jenis-jenis Tepung

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Jenis	Kandungan Protein	Kegunaan paling sesuai
Tepung Kek (Cake Flour)	5% - 7%	Angel food cake, chiffon cake, sponge cake
Tepung Pastri (Pastry Flour)	7% - 9%	Pie crust, tart dan seumpamanya. Boleh juga diguna untuk biskut (cookies)
Tepung naik sendiri (Self Raising Flour)	7% - 11% (ditambah baking powder dan garam)	Hanya untuk resepi yang menggunakan tepung naik sendiri
Tepung pelbagai guna (All Purpose Flour)	7% - 12%	Paling sesuai untuk biskut yang dicampur oat atau chocolate chips dan boleh digunakan untuk pastri juga
Tepung Roti (Bread Flour/High Protein Flour)	12% - 15%	Segala jenis roti - Jangan sekali-kali guna untuk kek ye

Main Source: The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet

Selain dari yang tertera di atas, ada juga tepung-tepung lain di pasaran contohnya tepung biskut (cookie flour) yang mana kandungannya sudah dicampur dengan tepung jagung untuk merangupkan biskut, tepung halus (superfine flour) sama saja dengan cake flour, tepung beras, tepung pulut, tepung jagung dan banyak lagi tepung. Tak muat la pulak page ni nak tulis. Lagipun saya pun jarang gunakan tepung lain selain dari yang di atas. Kuih tradisional ni saya memang hampeh, so tak pernah lagi beli tepung beras ke tepung pulut ke. Hopefully bila saya dah dapat periuk kukus idaman, insyaAllah akan cuba pula kuih-kuih tradisional.

Okay, kepada yang bertanya tu, jadi tahulah serba sedikit jenis tepung ye. Saya pun tak lah arif sangat, ini setakat yang saya baca dan eksperimen sendiri saja. Pernah la main bantai guna tepung yang mana ada sebab nak buat soft cookies sebab tepung biskut dah habis, tetiba dia naik gebu macam kek so hasilnya kurang sedap.

Satu lagi, sangat-sangat penting baca resepi dengan teliti bila buat kek. Sebab kek ni macam kita belajar chemistry, ok. Salah formula salah ukur bahan, melotup makmal dibuek eh kang. Tapi baking tak lah sampai meletup. Owh...nak citer satu lagi kena baca betul-betul:

1 cup flour, sifted

1 cup sifted flour

Lain maknanya ye...Yang pertama tu,  measure 1 cup dan ayak. Yang kedua tu, ayak dulu baru measure 1 cup.

Harap kawan-kawan dapat manfaat.

Basic Ingredient - Buttermilk and such...

1 cup (240ml) Buttermilk equals to:

a) 1 cup sour cream or,

b) 1 cup plain or low fat yogurt or,

c) 1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar plus enough milk to make a cup and let stand for 5-10 mins

The above substitution is interchangeably used in baking if one recipe calls for buttermilk or sour cream as one of the ingredients. These subs are supposedly making your cake more tender, moist and fluffy. 

I have tried all of the above and I have settled for one only... BUTTERMILK.

Buttermilk do wonders to baking produce...it is by far the best ingredients to make a nice and fluffy baked products. Put it in chocolate cake...yummy!, put it in waffle or pancake...it comes out very very fluffy like the Despicable Me's Agnes' unicorn and  I'm gonna die too!!!! :)

This is my most trusted Buttermilk brand, Paul's...an Aussie halal product. I also regularly use its thickened cream in my baking.

Basic Ingredient: Yeast, sugar and salt

Ok...the title feels like a bit of academic, don't you think? Yes and no...
Yes, because I need to share a thing or two theories from what I learned during my many experiments.
No, because this is actually a thing that I encountered this afternoon when I was talking to a fellow colleague. She was saying, hey your bread looks really nice and fluffy but mine was hard and I also having a hard time with the yeast because I always kills it, probably water is too hot.

Here is the facts:
1. Yeast + sugar = ALIVE
2. Yeast + salt = DEAD!

Yeast eats SUGAR and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol as it grows and multiplies. You know what?...the alcohol produced by the yeast is actually the element that gives the bread flavour. Yummy!!!

Normally and of course to my convenience, I am using rapid rise or dry active yeast. This type of yeast, we do not have to dissolve it into warm water and it save yourselves from mass murdering them!!! :P
Just whisk it with the flour and sugar before adding liquid into it.

Just a note, if you really wanted to test whether your yeast is active or not....dissolve one teaspoon of yeast and 1/4 tsp sugar with 3 tbsp of LUKEWARM water ok...not hot water...orang kata suam2 kuku like your own body temperature. It is active when it bubbles after 5 mins, if it does not...you probably killed them already.

SALT....from most of the books that I read and some notes given by my son Naim after watching too many cooking shows and food science programs, yeast will die when it comes into direct contact with salt. So it best to add it after you mix yeast with the flour and sugar.