Bread & Yeast Tips

Beginner's Tip: Lots of things can effect yeast. A few nights ago I was thinking of adding nutmeg to a loaf. I had to look up 'does nutmeg kill yeast'. I was informed that it doesn't but it might retard the growth. So not as bubbly a texture.

Beginner's Tip: Don't be afraid to step out of the bread machine pan. I have osteoarthritis so kneading bread is a literal pain for me most of the time. I use the dough setting on my machine religiously. I'll bake them in the oven.

Beginner's Tip: Check thrift stores for a pizza stone. You already have the desire to make bread. Make yourself a pizza. It's a step up in the difficulty level but well worth it.

Beginner's Tip: Bake other kinds of bread dough on the pizza stone besides pizza.

Beginner's Tip: To get a more hardy crust wet your hand and rub the outside of the dough ball or loaf before putting into the oven.

Beginner's Tip: General trick someone taught me about cooking oatmeal raisin cookies. Don't soak the little dried sphincters in the eggs, soak em for an hour or two in imitation vanilla before you want to bake with them.

This serves two functions, it gives the raisins some extra moisture so they don't dry out to beef jerky when you bake the cookies. It also adds a flavor boost to the raisin. I use this when I make yeast based cinnamon raisin bread. Few little if any alcohol in the vanilla is free and a few drops won't make much of a difference.

Beginner's Tip: See the Italian Herb Bread for the work around of making some nice garlic bread smells waft through you place. It's better to spray with a no stick cooking spray *butter or olive oil* but you can also slick up the top/outside of the ball/loaf and then proceed to sprinkle your garlic onto the surface.

Beginner's Tip: Bagels are easy to make, you put them in boiling water for a little bit each side, paper towel them off and then bake. You can put honey in the boiling water to give the crust of the bagels a nice sweet crust.

Beginner's Tip: If you have your water heater set for a decent temp that stings your hands when it get really going, at least in every place I have lived, that is about where you need it to be to put right in the bread pan.

If you're getting decent yeast rise consistently you can just trust your water heater.