A staple food of North Africa, Middle East, Europe; prepared from the dough of flour kneaded with water and made by the process of baking… confused? I am talking about the most loved food and the national breakfast of people, Bread. And in this health freak scenario, I would definitely like to go with brown breads, which is made from the wheat flour.
Brown bread dough is kneaded as per the recipe provided, rested and then knocked before putting in a bread mould to proof and then baked at the right temperature, followed by cooling and slicing. I always think of baking bread at home, but let me make it very clear, it’s not that easy as it seems. After having a look at the ingredients and the recipe, I really hold on to the thought of not making it. There are various varieties of flours and so is the variety of preparations, which always puts me in dilemma of giving it a try or not.
Preventions have been always better than cure, and for the thing you are trying for the first time, it’s always better to read the subjected matter before investing your time in it. Maintaining the temperature while baking, kneading the dough properly with perfect proofing time to make the bread lighter and have a good net formation, is what you should keep in mind while baking brown bread.
Now many of you might be thinking that how is white bread different from brown bread. Although that’s quite obvious that it’s color is brown that’s why it’s called brown bread, but there are other differences as well. Firstly, Flours used in both the breads is different, one uses refined flour other uses whole wheat flour in combination, secondly, brown bread has more earthy taste, and thirdly, brown bread is more dense than white bread due to higher fibre content.
After having this much information about the brown bread, I finally decided to give it a try once, and I seriously did not want to be wrong in any of the steps, and for that I asked for some tips and tricks from Chef Vikram Arora, Executive Sous Chef, Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, and he suggested that, to judge that the dough is rightly kneaded, dough once kneaded properly will have a shine, use little chilled water to knead the dough to have little delayed proofing for better net formation. He also said that, if you don’t want to bake the bread same day, you can keep the dough just after kneading into the refrigerator, follow the rest of process same.
To avoid your hard work going in vein, here are few things which one should keep in mind while making brown bread at home.
- Weigh the ingredients accurately
- Use room temperature ingredients except water
- Do not rush at any step of the making the bread, let it take time required at every step
- Let the bread cool completely before slicing
I personally love to have a buttered slice of bread or a veggie sandwich at breakfast, and for that, I am too lazy to bake the bread after every loaf is finished. For that I asked the chef to suggest some things to keep in mind while buying the brown bread from the market, which are
LOOK OUT FOR THE LABEL:
- Check for the flour name written on the label, is it whole wheat flour or refined wheat flour or enriched flour. Only buy if it says “Whole wheat flour”.
- Check if it says Added Caramel Color, if yes, do not buy.
- Check production date and use by date