Baking can be defined as cooking food by using a method of prolonged dry heat instead of thermal radiation. One of the items that is commonly baked anywhere you go is bread. In the process of baking, heat is transferred from the surface of the item baked gradually towards its center. When the heat passes the dough and batter, it transforms these ingredients to a firm and dry crust with something soft and moist at the center.
When you want to bake something, you need to be equipped with the right equipments and baking tools. You will need a set of measuring tools with high quality. One of the best investments that you can make in baking is buying liquid and dry measuring cups. You will also need some parchment paper, oven thermometer, rubber or silicon spatula, icing spatulas and whisks. You might also want to prepare your bakery trays so that your cooked pastry can have somewhere dry to rest on. You can also use the bakery trays when you are preparing cookies, biscuits or other items that need to hold their shape. For efficiency in the kitchen, bakery trays facilitate in holding merchandise ready for transport inside the kitchen. When these are in use, you can stack them in a corner.
After considering the tools that need to be prepared when baking, you are now ready to bake. Here are some simple steps in baking your first bread:
- Measure or scale all of your ingredients. Experts recommend that you weigh both the dry and the wet ingredients. Use the baker’s math formula. After measuring the ingredients, you must line them up according to when it will be used to facilitate easy baking.
- Combine all of the ingredients into dough. You must evenly distribute the yeast and all of the ingredients through the dough.
- Allow the dough to ferment. Fermentation refers to the process wherein the yeast works on the starch and sugar in order to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Fold the dough so that the carbon dioxide produced from fermentation will be expelled. This is also done to relax the gluten a bit and in order to have an even temperature throughout the dough.
- Divide the dough into desired proportions.
- Shape the dough portions into round balls so that it will be easier to make the final shaping.
- Allow the dough to rest for about 30 minutes.
- Form the dough into its final shape and place it in mold or a pan.
- The dough undergoes a final fermentation stage. Place the dough in the oven where you can control the temperature to allow the dough to rise at about 80 percent of the overall volume of the dough.
- Bake the dough, allow them to cool off after baking and then finally store them in some secured place.