If you are someone that has been bored in lockdown and you are looking for ways to occupy your time, then you may have taken up baking. Lots of people decided to give baking a whirl during the lockdown and there was actually a shortage of baking products all around the world as everyone was going mad for cooking banana bread. Though everyone was getting involved in baking, this does not mean that everyone was being entirely successful. Baking is a precise science and even adding a gram of the wrong ingredients can completely ruin the texture of anything that you make.  

 

Though it has been made for thousands of years, bread is also extremely difficult to make. Nowhere in the cookbooks among all of the bread puns does it say just how temperamental bread is.  If you have tried to make bread in the last few months, then you have probably have had to deal with your loafs collapsing and everything just going wrong, which is extremely common in the world of bread baking. The last thing you should do when things go wrong is given up, as you can always try again and do it better the next time around. If you are looking into trying again then you may be looking for some useful tips to help you get by. Here are our tips on how to bake the perfect loaf of bread the next time you give baking a go.  

 

Yeast 

People forget just how important yeast is when it comes to baking bread and some people forget that you even need yeast at all when baking bread. There are several types of yeast that you can choose from when it comes to using yeast in your bread. You can use fast-acting dried yeast, fresh yeast, and active dried yeast. Depending on the kind of bread that you are making, the recipe will tell you exactly what kind of yeast you should be using. Be sure to not ignore the specified yeast as you could ruin the entire recipe for yourself. 

When you have got the right yeast, make sure that you care for it properly. Many people believe that yeast is one of those things that you only need to buy once and leave in the back of the cupboard for when you need it.  In actual fact, most yeast can only keep for a couple of months and after that, it won’t work the same and will not make your bread rise as you would like it to. Another very common mistake that people who are new to bread make is not knowing how to store fresh yeast. People that are new to the world of bread making often think that all yeast can be stored in the same place, however, you should know that if you want to use fresh yeast it should in fact be stored in the fridge and only has a lifespan of a couple of weeks. 

 

Give your dough time  

Another very common mistake that people make when they are trying to cook bread is rushing. Bread is something that needs to be treated with care and so you should do what you can to ensure that you are not rushing the recipe. Once you have made your bread dough, this dough will need time to rise. We recommend that you let your bread rise overnight so that you get the best possible results and an airy loath that you can be proud of. If you are someone that doesn’t have the time to wait for the bread to rise, we recommend that you make sourdough bread as this needs no time to rise and is a brilliant option for someone that is new to bread making.  

 

Measurements 

With anything in baking, you need to make sure that all of your measurements are extremely accurate. Baking is often considered to be somewhat of a science and with any kind of science, you have to make sure that you are being as accurate as you possibly can. We recommend that you not only use measuring cups but get weighing scales so that you can weigh out your overall mixture.