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First of all, thank you for reading this absolute beginner topic :)

I want to make bread at home. To be specific, I used to live in Germany and ate a lot of this type of bread:

screenshot

It's called Zwiebelbrot in Germany.

I also have something like this.

screenshot

For the very very, absolute beginner, what do I really need to make bread at home?
Do I need a bread-maker machine, or is my kitchen already enough for this task?
Are there any tip that you want to give me on my first bread adventure?

RESULT:

First of all, gather all types of stuff from (mamas) kitchen :D

gather stuff:D
Mix everything youghly, drop an egg on it
egg bomb:)
In a pan, easily fry some onions
onion :)

After that, mix everything together, add the onions:
add1 add2 add3 add4

After that, knead everything WILDLY (notice the blur on my head:) :
knead1 knead2 knead3 knead4 knead5 knead6

The final result should look something like:
final1 final2 final3 final4

SUMMARY:

My FIRST try ever to make bread, I'm so proud:)

I'm so proud

After that, the raw product was:

Raw

The finished product:)

Baked

and the grande finale:)

grande finale 1 grande finale 2

Thank you very much :)

Community
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Herr
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    Note that if you haven't worked with dough yet, you should probably start easy, a standard white bread at 60% hydration if you are kneading with mixer and 50% if you are kneading by hand. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_percentage) After you have made that, you can start with zwiebelbrot (recipes for it go to up to 100% hydration, and it is hard to work with such dough). – rumtscho Nov 27 '11 at 11:05
  • Good job! :---) – Mien Nov 27 '11 at 20:09
  • @HerrKaleun: If we ever get a Cooking.SE blog, I think you've just written the first article. Congratulations on your first bread! – derobert Jan 09 '12 at 16:23

3 Answers3

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To make basic bread, including Zwiebelbrot, all you need is a place to mix and knead ingredients (clean work surface or large mixing bowl), a warmish place for rising, and an oven with reasonable temperature control.

For the onions you need a small pan, and a stove top. Or you can do them in the oven too!

Therefore, your kitchen looks fine.

Making bread is not difficult, or hard work. The effort and time required for kneading bread is way overrated. Also have patience, allow the dough to rise properly.

Expect a few failures; search the net about any failures, if you have them.

Use a marker pen on the oven dial when you find the right temperature (The calibration of the dials is usually not very accurate).

For Zwiebelbrot, you can cook the onions in a shallow tray or light pan in the oven while waiting for it to come up to temperature for the bread. Make sure you cool the onions before spreading on the dough. A simple way is to spread them out on a spare metal oven tray for a few moments first.

apaderno
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TFD
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  • Wow thank you:) will any recipe do the trick? How "long" should such a venture take approximately? THANK YOU!:) – Herr Nov 26 '11 at 23:52
  • Try a few, see which works best. They should all be much the same. A local recipe from your grandmother etc. often works well. It should take 20 minutes (not including rising and cooking) when you are good. Take your time to learn – TFD Nov 27 '11 at 01:08
  • You don't really even need a warm-ish place for rising, it'll rise just fine at room temperature (even if that room is 65°F), it'll just take longer. Keep the dough covered (with oil-misted plastic wrap, for example) to prevent it from drying out. – derobert Nov 27 '11 at 08:33
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In terms of equipment the one thing you may not have is a dough scraper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dough_scraper

I recommend one of the really cheap flexible plastic ones. These are good for the first stages of mixing the dough, scraping dough out of the bowl and partitioning the dough if you want to make rolls.

Other than this, a large bowl, a flat surface and a kitchen scale (weigh ALL ingredients) are all that you need.

Most recipes should work. I also recommend using this method for kneading dough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdtUR-XTG0&feature=related

You don't have to knead as long as in the video to get a decent result. It's cleaner than the more typical method of using the heel of your hand and you don't have to add excessive amounts of flour which makes it easy to get a good result every time.

Once you have the basics down, variations are pretty easy.

Megasaur
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Don't forget to cover your bread when it rises. You can do this with a towel, this prevents the bread from drying out.

Wouter
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