Taste in bread

[Semon]

My bread doesn't have much taste.
How do I get it to taste better.
White Bread
Ingredients:
100 ml warm water. 84.5gr
100 ml warm milk. 84.5gr
2 tablespoons sugar.
8 g dry yeast.
2 medium eggs.
500 grams of white flour.
1 teaspoon salt
20 ml vegetable oil.1 1/3 tbl
For a golden brown crust:
1 egg + milk.

 

[pepperhead212]

I use mostly whole grain flours in my breads, and, when I'm not in a hurry, I make a rye "sponge", with the water and yeast, and let it rise for at least a day, sometimes 2 or 3, before continuing with the bread. And when doing bread in the same day, I often use buttermilk or yogurt (somethings I always have in the fridge) for the extra flavor and tang. And I almost always add some caraway, and maybe some nigella seeds. And the sugar component is almost always blackstrap. As you can tell, I'm a rye bread addict, mostly because of the increased flavor.

 

[Badjak]

100 ml water equals 84.5 gr?
There is something not correct there.

Your recipe looks to be for a very soft bread, with the milk, eggs and oil that is added.

A bit more robust would be
500 gr Flour
65% water : 325 ml or gr
1.5 - 2% salt: 7.5 - 10 gr
3.5 gr instant or dry active yeast

I would start with that.
Then when you feel more comfortable, reduce yeast and increase rising time
Then start looking at biga and poolish snd sour dough.

I mainly make sourdough bread and pizza and whenever I don't, I find the bread/pizza a bit boring

 

[taxlady]

100 ml water equals 84.5 gr?
There is something not correct there.

I was going to comment about that too.

 

[Semon]

100 ml warm water. 84.5gr
I don't have a way to do ml so I tried to convert to gr
My wife is not crazy about sour dough starter in bread.
I looked on line and some said not enough salt and let it rise more.
I did that to day and not any difference.

 

[taxlady]

100 ml warm water. 84.5gr
I don't have a way to do ml so I tried to convert to gr
My wife is not crazy about sour dough starter in bread.
I looked on line and some said not enough salt and let it rise more.
I did that to day and not any difference.

But, that's not right. 100 ml of water weighs 100 grams. 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram.

 

[Badjak]

But, that's not right. 100 ml of water weighs 100 grams. 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram.

This!

And milk is a little heavier...

 

[dragnlaw]

Can't comment on the ml to gr's - but definitely milk is heavier than water.

Only suggestion I can make is to add some other kind of flour. I used to do 2 Tablespoons of Whole Wheat plus 1 Tablespoon of Rye.
It's not really enough to throw things out of balance but if you're worried it might just subtract the 3 Tablespoons from your regular flour. This I've found, gives it just enough extra boost of flavour without going all the way to Whole Wheat bread, which is not a particular favourite with me.
You could also switch out the oil for butter.
and last but not least, try increasing your salt from 1 to 2 teaspoons.

good luck!

 

[jennyema]

That’s a recipe for an enriched soft bread like Challah, with the milk, eggs sugar and oil.

Try a general bread recipe with just flour, water, yeast and salt.

 

[jennyema]

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

artisanbreadinfive.com

No-Knead Bread Recipe

Here is one of the most popular recipes The Times has ever published, courtesy of Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery It requires no kneading It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques

cooking.nytimes.com

 

[Semon]

{And milk is a little heavier...} What would that do?
{Try a general bread recipe with just flour, water, yeast and salt.}
Trying that to day.

 

[dragnlaw]

{And milk is a little heavier...} What would that do?
{Try a general bread recipe with just flour, water, yeast and salt.}
Trying that to day.

Changing ml (volume) to gr (weight) does not work between different objects.
A pound of Feathers and a pound of Rocks are both one pound.
But a pound of Feathers might = 15 bags.
and a pound of Rocks will probably only = 1/4 of a bag.

Water and milk are not actually that vast a difference but the fact remains they are not the same.
So it is very possible to not have enough milk - or too much water.

 

[blissful]

We like whole wheat bread, flour, water, yeast, and a T of orange juice concentrate. The orange counteracts the bitter that some whole wheat has. Bread should be a blank slate of good texture to hold the topping, sandwich, or soak up the goodness.

 

[gerardj]

{And milk is a little heavier...} What would that do?
{Try a general bread recipe with just flour, water, yeast and salt.}
Trying that to day.

in a straight swap, 1 pint if milk for 1 pint of water, it will make a dough very dry, hard to work.
milk contains a lot of solids.

 

[gerardj]

My bread doesn't have much taste.
How do I get it to taste better.
White Bread
Ingredients:
100 ml warm water. 84.5gr
100 ml warm milk. 84.5gr
2 tablespoons sugar.
8 g dry yeast.
2 medium eggs.
500 grams of white flour.
1 teaspoon salt
20 ml vegetable oil.1 1/3 tbl
For a golden brown crust:
1 egg + milk.

'not much taste' and "taste better" are very subjective .
For me, I'd replace the oil with x2 butter(or more) and get closer to pain de mie.

 

[dragnlaw]

On the other hand, if you do not have a measuring cup, either imperial or metric... do you have a coffee cup? Your standard coffee cup is approximately 1 cup.
The liquid called for in your recipe is 200 ml (1/2 water 'n 1/2 milk). 200 ml is just over 3/4 cup. A bit more will just mean you have to add a bit more flour as you are kneading.
I've mis-measured on occasion and it has not been a disaster.

gerard, he is not swapping, he's just trying to measure.

 

[blissful]

No matter how perfectly you weigh your ingredients, your flour will have different amounts of moisture which means your recipe will be slightly off. The last thing to add is the flour. Start by putting in 50 grams or a cup or 1/2 cup less of flour than called for.

Then as you make your bread it takes TIME for the flour to absorb the liquids, so at first it seems very wet, but 20 minutes later it is not very wet. Baking takes TIME because flour takes time to absorb the moisture.
It also takes time for the gluten to start turning into the long strands of glue that holds the bread stable.

I've never put dough together in less than an hour and most times I take more time. I put it together in the kitchen aid mixer, mix, let it sit a half hour, then knead and add flour, let it sit again. If you put in too much flour then when you come back to mix it is already a hard dough with too little moisture. At the end of mixing/kneading, your dough should be pretty strong to knead by hand. It can't be rushed. Then, it takes time for a final rise as well.

 

[dragnlaw]

'not much taste' and "taste better" are very subjective .
For me, I'd replace the oil with x2 butter(or more) and get closer to pain de mie.

funny you should mention 'pain de mie'. I'd heard so much about it, then when I tried it (twice now) all I could think of was how ruddy sweet it was. Didn't taste like proper bread - at least to me it didn't!

 

[gerardj]

I'm going back to bed.

 

[dragnlaw]

WAIT gerard! it's not midnight yet!