Absolute novice here. Been wanting to ditch supermarket bread for ages. Now partner has kidney disease and friends are diabetic so I’m here to lurk and learn.
Buttermilk white bread (and variants) with Active Dry Yeast
No-knead bread (Lahey, Bittman, etc.) with ADY
Pains Levains with sourdough
Ciabatta, pizza, etc. with sourdough and poolish
Baguettes and Pains d’epis with sourdough and poolish
I continue to make all of the above with the exception of No-knead as I now want to handle the dough more, not less. I’d start with something like Buttermilk White Bread (from Beard on Bread) which is tres simple and can be pulled off in 4-6 hours on one day. If you’re a visual learner you might want to check out the Bake with Jack YouTube channel. He has produced many simple lessons for beginning bakers with commercial yeast and sourdough methods explored. And DO search the Fresh Loaf archives and recipes to build your knowledge-base.
In truth I’d been baking croissants for a number of years before I got into lean (eg not enriched with eggs, butter, etc.) breads, but the production is a bit more like pastry development and doesn’t require the in-depth understanding of gluten development, elasticity, extensibility and timing I’ve since acquired.
Jane,
My baking evolution kind of went like this:
I continue to make all of the above with the exception of No-knead as I now want to handle the dough more, not less. I’d start with something like Buttermilk White Bread (from Beard on Bread) which is tres simple and can be pulled off in 4-6 hours on one day. If you’re a visual learner you might want to check out the Bake with Jack YouTube channel. He has produced many simple lessons for beginning bakers with commercial yeast and sourdough methods explored. And DO search the Fresh Loaf archives and recipes to build your knowledge-base.
In truth I’d been baking croissants for a number of years before I got into lean (eg not enriched with eggs, butter, etc.) breads, but the production is a bit more like pastry development and doesn’t require the in-depth understanding of gluten development, elasticity, extensibility and timing I’ve since acquired.
Welcome and good luck,
Phil