Making your own bread can sound daunting, but is really quite easy! You just need to know a few simple tips to make sure your bread rises to great heights, and doesn’t flop! Consider this a breadmaking 101 class on how to make bread for beginners – you got this!
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Breadmaking 101: Bread for Beginners
Whether you’re making your own bread for the first time or have tried your hands at it several times already (with hits and misses), you know it can be a bit daunting, and there’s so much that can go wrong.
Well guess what? Here’s a quick breadmaking 101 class and some tips for making bread for beginners. Read on to discover the 5 most common mistakes people make when baking their own bread, and make sure you’re not making them.
Related recipe: The Best Homemade Mayonnaise (Plus Two Fun Variations!)
5 Mistakes you could be Making While Making your Own Bread
1. Adding Too Much Liquid
While following the homemade bread recipe will get you through this one in most cases, remember that the ideal quantity of water or liquid you’ll need to prepare your dough is only that much that you’ll need to create a ball of dough that cleans the bottom of the bowl.
The best way to make sure you do this right is to keep adding liquid slowly. Gradually add liquid into the dough mixture, instead of all at once when you’re making your own bread.
2. Forgetting to Score the Bread
Wait what? Yes, you read that right. Scoring the bread before you bake it is actually an important step that a lot of amateur breadmakers tend to ignore.
These lines at the top of the bread aren’t just for the aesthetic appeal, but also help the bread release the gas properly and help the loaf rise to its full potential.
3. Not Proofing the Dough Enough
Proofing is just a fancy name for the final resting stage of the dough. This is the stage where you let it rise completely before you pop it into the oven. It is also the most crucial stage of breadmaking, and if you do this one wrong, you’re basically risking ruining your bread.
So how long should you ideally proof the dough when you’re making your own bread?
Well, when you poke the dough with your finger, and it rises back up almost completely, but not entirely, that’s when you know it is done.
4. Not Creating Steam in the Oven
Steam is a super important element that needs to be remembered while baking bread.
Creating steam in your oven will ensure that the bread has that perfect crust chewy crust and is light and airy from within. Best of all, there are several ways to create steam in an oven. Just pick one as per your preference and go for it!
5. Being Impatient
Breadmaking is an art of patience. One of the biggest mistakes you could make while doing it is being impatient.
When you’re making your own bread, stick to the timing mentioned in the recipe. Pay attention to the number of hours your dough has to rest for, the amount of time it needs to be in the oven – you get the drill.
Just follow each step of the breadmaking process in the exact way as the recipe tell you to, and you should be fine.
Easy Recipes to Make Bread for Beginners
These delicious recipes are a great practicum for breadmaking 101. There is truly nothing like making your own bread. Once you have the hang of it, you’ll want to try all kinds of bread recipes! Your house will smell crazy good and you’ll save money on food too!
This is my favorite bread loaf pan. It is so sturdy, will last a lifetime, and heats evenly to make the most delicious homemade bread!
Try these easy bread recipes out:
- Easy 4-ingredient cheese bread
- Faster no-knead bread recipe
- Whole wheat olive bread
- Easy focaccia recipe
- No-knead cinnamon raisin bread with pecans
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These are great tips! I especially second the last point: it is SO EASY to underproof your bread because you’re just too excited to get it in the oven. I always have to remind myself to slow down and let it all grow at its own pace!
Lol love that you have to remind yourself too! Sometimes I’m like, it looks high enough (but really I know it could use another half an hour to be even that much better!) 🙂
These are such good tips. I’m not sure if I’ve ever baked a real loaf of bread! I would love to try it, though. There’s nothing like fresh bread with butter. Thanks for sharing at the TFT party!
Thanks Pam! I love making bread so much! If you want to try an easy bread recipe, this one is awesome: https://www.thecuriousfrugal.com/faster-no-knead-bread-without-dutch-oven/
Can you OVER proof your bread?
Hi Rebecca! Yes you can! If you leave it too long or it’s proofing in too hot of a room for too long, the bread dough can overproof. It will be floppy and can spill out over the loaf pan instead of rising nice and high.
I’ve made. 3 breads in the paste week and we didn’t like any of them. I was looking for a artisan airy, crusty bread and I keep getting heavy breads. Help. First two I used all purpose flour and third bread flour.
Hi Jean! If your yeast isn’t super fresh, it can prevent the dough from rising enough and results in a dense heavy bread loaf. Another thing that can happen when making homemade bread is not having a long enough rise time. If your place is cooler, or it’s a cooler time of year, you might need to increase the rise time. Something I do when my place feels a bit chilly is put the bowl of bread (covered, always!) to rise in the microwave. Don’t turn the microwave on, but close the door with the bowl inside it. It provides a warmer place for your bread dough to rise, which results in a fluffier lighter homemade bread. Good luck!
When you speak of proofing is this after it has risen for a number of hours and you have taken the sticky risen dough and rolled in flour until the sticky is gone.
Hi Jean! Proofing is when you let the bread rest and rise. If there are two resting times, it is the second one, and you don’t want to roll or squash out all the lovely air pockets that are made during the bread rising stage. After proofing/rising, you want to put the bread in the oven to bake – that’s the next step.