Baking - Bread (part 1)

Bread-making class is fun!

Ever since as a child, I dreamed to be a baker of bread one day, it was when I passed by a bakery shop that I saw how the bakers knead their bread.  Since then, I aspired to make bread on my own. But as I grow older, and as influenced by my father, I didn’t pursue baking as a course when I entered college, (I recently graduated by the way; I finished up Bachelor of Science in Geology. – So yeah, I’m a geologist-aspiring baker! Hihihihi).

Since I have a long rest before I could take up the licensure exam on my profession – (more time to review what I learned in college), and being bored and all, I decided to try and pursue my childhood dream so as to keep myself busy, and not just stay at home and do nothing besides reviewing, internet surfing, watching movies and the likes, and not going out of the house except when I’m training in tennis (which is every weekend). And so, I decided to take up baking class. And maybe after, I could get a sideline job as a baker – or if fortunate have a bakery business! (I hope I could practice what I have learned – so far!)

Two days ago, I started attending bread-making class in TRC – a government based livelihood center for business and small entrepreneurs. Their office is now located in EDSA, Guadalupe Nuevo, Makati City. We started with learning the basic ingredients of bread, first of all, Flour, there are 4 kinds: Bread flour, Soft flour, All Purpose flour, and Cake flour.

The bread flour is the standard flour used in baking bread. It contains 13% protein, highest of all the flours, and has high water absorption quality. You can only make bread in this type of flour – also known as Hard Wheat Flour.          

The soft flour contains 8.5% protein and has lower water absorption quality. It is used to make biscuits, cakes, and cookies – also known as Third Class flour.

The all purpose flour contains 11.45% protein with fairly high water absorption quality. It is an all around flour which used to make bread, cookies, cakes, and biscuits – also known as Pastry Flour or Family Flour.

The cake flour on the other hand, has 7% protein and has the lowest water absorption quality among the 4 types of flour. It is used to make cakes and cookies – also known as Special Flour.

In making bread, we are not to be limited in using just one type of flour; we can also blend 2 types of flour and still produce a nice quality of bread.

The second basic ingredient is Yeast, the leavening agent use to mature the dough. There are 3 kinds of yeast: Instant yeast (doesn’t need to dissolve in water – use 1% and ferment in 3hrs), Active dry yeast (needs to be dissolved in water + sugar – use 2% to ferment in 3hours), and Fresh yeast.

The third basic ingredient is Salt, used to control proofing of dough and to unleash the taste of the bread; there are 3 kinds of salt: Iodized salt (recommended), Rock salt, and Industrial salt (second recommended).

And the fourth basic ingredient is Water! There are four types of water that we can use in baking our bread: Rain water, Sea water, Tap water (recommended), and well water (groundwater). But if you have more funds you can use distilled or mineral water.

Alas, the main ingredients of French Bread!

Next, we learned about the enrichment ingredients. First, is Sugar, used to soften the dough, usually 20% max (basic), there are 3 types: White sugar (recommended), Brown sugar, and Powdered sugar (used in making gracing or icing).

The second enrichment ingredient is Shortening, used as lubrication, and the higher the shortening used the smoother the bread. There are also different types of shortening that can be used other than Shortening itself: Butter, Refrigerated margarine, Baker’s margarine Vegetable lard, lard, Pork oil, Cooking oil, Corn oil, Soya oil, Olive oil, etc. oil.

The third is Egg, which is used as moisturizer to the dough. We can only use chicken eggs and no other eggs! A piece of egg is equivalent of 50 grams - 20 grams egg yolk and 30 grams egg white. Depending on how many eggs to be used, one must deduct the total weight of the eggs from the total weight of liquids to be used.

And fourth is Milk. There are two types – Milk powder and Milk Liquid. Milk powder includes: Skim milk, Butter milk, and Whole milk. While Milk liquid includes: Evaporated milk, Condensed milk, and Fresh milk. The milk adds flavor and nutrients to the bread.

Now, from the basic up to the enrichment ingredients, we can now make a quality baked product!

And lastly, we discussed about the optional ingredients - Food color which gives color to the bread, and the Additives or Preservatives. There are two kinds of additives/preservatives: Calcium propiolate – which is added to the dough (about .38%); and sodium benzoate – which is added to the filling (about .38%). These additives extends the life of bread for a couple of days, added from their original normal bread life without these preservatives, which is practical when engaged in commercial bread business.

So that’s our ingredients! It will be up to us what combination of ingredients we will use to make our bread.

But before that, we must know that there are three kinds of bread: Lean bread, Soft bread, and Sweet bread.

Lean bread uses 1 to 10% sugar as well as shortening (French bread/Vienna bread, Pandesal/poorman’s bread); Soft bread uses 10 to 16% sugar as well as shortening (loaf bread, soft buns, hamburger buns, Spanish bread, raisin bread, mongo bread), while Sweet bread uses 16 to 20% sugar as well as shortening (cheese bread, soft monay, sweet pandesal, sweet dough, ensaymada).

Now we are ready to make some bread! J