The Next Steps
Episode #10 of the course Introduction to bread making by Alice Morgan
Greetings! Yesterday, we finished the last day of new material with a history of pizza and a recipe for making your own dough. Today, let’s wrap up by talking about some new directions you can take for future bread-making projects.
Substitutions and Additions
As you become more confident with your baking, I encourage you to experiment with ingredients. There are so many kinds of flour, including spelt, almond, amaranth, coconut, rye, rice, buckwheat, and more. These flours all have different qualities that can change the texture or taste of bread. Some of them, like coconut, will allow your gluten-free friends to enjoy your creations as well.
You can also experiment with adding ingredients to your dough to make new, more complex flavors. For instance, you can add cinnamon, raisins, and brown sugar to the sandwich bread recipe to get sweet dessert bread, or add dried herbs and cheese to the pizza dough for an extra burst of flavor.
New Techniques
Finally, once you feel more comfortable with these basic bread recipes, you may want to try some advanced bread-making techniques! Let’s go over a few.
Braiding. Braiding bread is a simple way to dress up your bread and impress your friends and family. In this method, you divide your bread into long, ropelike pieces and braid them together for an intricate beautiful look. You can give it a try with a sandwich bread recipe.
Decorating with Stencils. If braiding your dough isn’t fancy enough for you, you might want to give bread stenciling a try. By using a stencil, you can create many beautiful patterns on the tops of your loaves with a bit of paper and some spare flour or cocoa powder.
Sourdough. Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to try sourdough bread. If not, go out and find a loaf immediately! Sourdough has a distinctive tangy flavor. It’s made with a commercially purchased sourdough starter and involves letting the dough slightly ferment before baking.
I also encourage you to try new kinds of bread from all over the world. In this class, we touched on recipes from a variety of countries, but there are so many more to try. Japan has milk bread, Africa has injera, South America has arepas, and that’s just to name a few.
That’s the end of our Introduction to Bread Making course. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a little about bread making in the process. I also wish you the best of luck and hope that your loaves always rise and turn out warm and delicious each time you bake them.
Happy baking!
Recommended reading
Flour Power: Your Definitive Guide to Baking with White, Wheat, and More
Injera | Flatbread from Northeast Africa
Homemade South American Arepas
Artisan Bread Stenciling: Five Simple Steps for Beautiful Designs
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sourdough Bread
Recommended resource
Here’s my favorite international recipe blog.
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