Hi Bold Bakers, I heard from a lot of you that you want to do more bread baking in 2020,
like sourdough, more no knead doughs, and just other basic bread recipes. Now I am all about
this because I love bread making. But I thought it's really important before we get stuck into it
that we cover some of the seven most common bread making mistakes so you don't make them in the
future. So let's get started with number one, weighing your ingredients accurately. Now this
is really important when it comes to bread making because it's all about precision. You know from
my recipes, I do cups, grams and ounces because I come from Europe and we use grams and ounces.
The thing about grams and ounces is they're way more precise. So get yourself a really inexpensive
weighing scale. So you always have it for bread making. When measuring in cups, your volume can
vary and with bread making, we really want to be like exactly precise. So tip number two, I say
this often, don't let salt and yeast come in direct contact with each other. So when you're
putting your ingredients in the bowl, put salt on one side of the bowl and put your yeast on the
other side. You can mix them into the flour and then after that they can be mixed together. Just
make sure that they don't go in one on top of the other because the salt will kill the yeast.
Tip number three, inaccuracy adding too much water. Now this is a common mistake and I'm
going to tell you how to avoid it. When you're mixing up your dough when you're adding in your
liquid, only add in enough liquid until your dough forms one ball and it cleans the bottom
of the bowl. So at the end you've got a clean bowl and you've got a ball of dough. You don't
want it to be too soggy, otherwise your bread is really difficult to work with.
Tip number four, not covering your dough at all stages. Now this is really important.
In case you didn't know, dough and air are actually not best friends. You want to keep it
covered with cling wrap or some sort of cling film and then put a tea towel over it. You don't want
your dough ever to be exposed just to the air because it can form a skin. If your dough forms
a skin, it's really difficult for it to proof and it can ruin your bread dough. So from the moment
you mix your dough until you're shaping it at the very end, I want you always to keep it nice
and covered. Tip number five, inadequately proofing your dough. Now some people get a little bit
afraid of proofing. They don't know what to look for and I'm going to tell you. So what you do is
that you push your dough and if it bounces back kind of slowly, it's proofed and it's ready to go
into the oven. If you overproof a dough for too long, you don't have time to get it into the oven.
The end result will be that your dough is very flat. So you just want to make sure that you
don't overproof it. Another sign of an overproofed dough is that if it's covered in cling wrap and
you peel it away and your dough sticks to the cling wrap, that is overproofed. Tip number six,
failure to create steam in your oven. Now bread loves steam and I'll tell you why. It gives it a
shiny crust, number one, but it also makes it really chewy. So for the first 20 minutes or so
of baking, you want a lot of steam in there with your dough. There's two ways you can do it. You
can put a baking tray in the bottom and have hot water in it and that will create steam as your
bread bakes. Or you can get a spray bottle that's just for water and you can spray the dough and
spray the oven and then shut it really fast and that will also create steam. So those are two
really good options. Tip number seven, do not let the heat escape during baking. Now I can't
stress how important this is because bread loves a good hot oven. So my rule of thumb is for the
first 20 minutes, stay away from that door. Don't open it. Just peek through the window and let the
bread do its thing. In the first few minutes, your bread goes into the oven. It allows for something
called oven spring and it makes your bread pop and rise really nicely. If you open that door,
that ain't going to happen. So just leave it be. Also, if you keep on opening the door,
you will end up with a soft crust and you don't want that. Now that you know the seven
most common bread making mistakes, go forward and make killer bread. Thank you so much for
watching. I really hope you found this useful. Stay tuned for more bread recipes to come.
I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.
