My First Home Made Bread!

Never imagined in my life that I would be able to make breads at home. But the first time when I made it and it came out so very well and it gave me a lot of satisfaction.And guess what it is very, very simple to make bread at home. My parents had come over and they gifted me an Oven - thats what triggered it. The bread was the first recipe that came out of that and all of us had a lovely breakfast of Coffee, bread toast and poached eggs. Home baked breads taste similar to the ones that you can purchase outside, but you cannot beat their freshness and the smell that spreads around the house when you bake one feels. Toast them, put some butter and crushed black pepper and have them with your morning tea/coffee is an experience!

Ingredients:

• Plain Flour: 250-300 gms
• Yeast: 1 tsp
• Sugar: 2 table spoon
• Salt: 1 table spoon
• Milk: Half cup
• Warm Water: 3/4 th cup
• Honey or oats can be added optionally

Steps:

• Warm the water in a micro wave for 10 secs. You should be able to dip your fingers and should not feel hot.
• Add milk to the water and then add the yeast and keep for 10 mins.Yeasts are temperature sensitive. They dont get activated if it is too cold, whereas if it is too hot, then they will die.
• Mix plain flour, sugar and salt so that they form a uniform mixture.
• Then add the "yeast" water to the flour to form a dough. The dough shouldn't be too wet. Neither should it be too dry. Add some flour if the water content is high. If you poke the dough, it should bounce back. The dough holds the key behind soft, succulent breads. If you can master this part, you should be able to make super perfect breads.
• Let the dough rest for an hour. Cover it with a moist cloth. During which time you will notice that it has "blown up" to almost double its size.
• Hold the dough and you will feel that it is very soft and airy. Thats the result of fermentation of the yeast. There are air holes which get created.
• Press the dough once again to "push" the air out of it and give it a final shape - which will determine the shape of the bread.
• Again, cover the dough and let it rest for 45mins.
• Set the oven to 200 C and bake for 20 mins. The bread should start to become brown colour. I personally, increase the temperature for 240 C, and keep it at that
• temperature for 2 mins and the bread turns perfectly brown and crusty. Its outer layer must be crusty and brown, whereas from the inside it should be soft and
• airy.However, Ovens/OTG are unique in their behavior and the instructions which I have provided here might not necessarily yield the same result that I am getting.
• You may also refer to the recipe book that comes with the OTG.
• Live Yeasts  are available in bakeries. I made this bread with dry yeast which I purchased from Babarali Sirdar,New Market,+91 983 1111 793