Great British Bake Off - Bake it Better: Sweet Bread & Buns - Linda Collister (2016)
Baker’s Guide
Ingredients
All you really need for most of the recipes in this book are flour, yeast, salt, water and something to sweeten the dough - maybe some sugar, honey or maple syrup. Add in a few extras - nuts, dried fruit or chocolate - and you can completely change your bread very easily. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when buying, storing and using your ingredients.
BAKING POWDER, BICARBONATE OF SODA AND CREAM OF TARTAR
Some sweet breads need the help of a chemical raising agent to increase their lightness. The two most common are bicarbonate of soda (an alkali) and cream of tartar (an acid). Baking powder is a mixture of both. Raising agents work by reacting together with moisture and heat to release small bubbles of carbon dioxide, which lighten the crumb of your bake. Some recipes, such as the Soda Bread on here, use a slightly acidic ingredient, such as buttermilk or yoghurt, in combination with bicarbonate of soda to produce the bubbles of gas (see here for more information on buttermilk). Make sure you use the exact amount stated, and discard out-of-date or damp raising agents as they won’t give you the best bake. To check if baking powder is still active mix a teaspoonful into a glass of warm water - if it bubbles up nicely it’s fine to use, otherwise, throw it out.
BUTTER
Most bakers use unsalted butter, which has a lovely rich flavour and gives a more evenly coloured bake because it contains less whey than salted butters. Some salted butters also have a strong taste that can be overpowering in a sweet bake. Wrap butter well and store it in the fridge away from strong flavours, or freeze for up to a month.
Instructions are given in each recipe for whether your butter should be used at room temperature, softened or chilled. In particular, doughs that are enriched with butter, such as the Brioche à Tête on here, require the butter to be squeezed into the dough with your hands, whereas laminated doughs are made by enclosing a square of chilled butter in the dough, so it is essential to have the butter at the right temperature. Remove from the fridge in plenty of time, if necessary, so that it’s the right consistency for your recipe.
CHOCOLATE
Good-quality chocolate is widely available in supermarkets and you can get chips in larger bags from online suppliers, but you can also use bars chopped into pieces.
Store bars of chocolate well wrapped in a cool, dry, dark cupboard, and away from strong-flavoured ingredients. Dark chocolate is most widely used in this book. One with around 70 per cent cocoa solids will give the best flavour. Anything over 75 per cent can be too dry and bitter for general baking. Cocoa nibs are small shards of shelled, roasted cocoa beans. They are unsweetened, and at 100 per cent cocoa, have a very intense flavour. They are an excellent way to bring flavour and a slight crunchy texture to breads, such as the Baked Mocha Doughnuts on here. Cocoa powder is a dark, unsweetened powder made from pure cocoa with nearly all the cocoa butter removed - it is very bitter and powerfully flavoured, and adds an excellent chocolate taste. Don’t use drinking chocolate, which has had sugar and dried milk powder added to it, as a substitute.
DRIED FRUIT
Vine fruits, such as raisins, sultanas and currants are preserved but still soft. They add sweetness and moisture, as well as a fruity flavour. Soft-dried apricots, dates, prunes, figs, cranberries, blueberries and sour cherries can replace vine fruits in many recipes. Candied peel is widely available ready chopped, but can also be found as whole pieces of orange, lemon or citrus peel, allowing you to cut the pieces into a size and mix that you prefer. Store opened packets in a screw-topped jar.
EXTRACTS AND FLAVOURINGS
Avoid synthetic flavourings as they can give your bake a rather unpleasant ‘fake’ taste.
Vanilla extract and almond extract are concentrated liquids, so use them in tiny quantities. Whole vanilla pods are a good addition to your store cupboard, and once used you can dry them off and pop them into a jar of caster sugar. They will lightly infuse the sugar with their flavour.
Ground spices are used in many sweet bakes; cinnamon is a particular favourite and crops up in lots of recipes in this book. Mixed spice is a traditional flavouring for Hot Cross Buns (see here), while saffron adds a rich flavour and glorious golden colour to Cornish Saffron Buns and Swedish Lussekatts (see here and here). Spices should be measured carefully and kept in screw-topped jars rather than open packs. It’s best to buy them in small quantities so you can use them while they are still fresh.
Oranges and lemons can be zested to provide quick flavour; make sure to use unwaxed fruit.
FLOUR
Flour is probably the most important ingredient in baking, but especially so in bread-making. Poor-quality or past-its-best flour can really affect the final taste and texture of your loaf. As with all ingredients, flour should be used when fresh, so store it correctly: to stop it getting damp, keep opened packs in storage jars, plastic food boxes or plastic food bags. Don’t add new flour to old and use it within a month of opening, or by its best-before date. Keep an eye on wholemeal flours and flours with added grains as they spoil quicker than refined flours, and don’t use flour that smells slightly rancid or contains weevils or mites.
Wheat flours, like all flours, are defined by their rate of extraction - how much of the entire wheat grain or kernel is used in the flour. White flour usually contains about 75 per cent of the kernel and has most of the bran and wheatgerm removed. Wholemeal or wholegrain flour has 100 per cent extraction, which means the complete kernel is ground. The high proportion of bran in wholegrain flours - those coarse golden specks - means your loaf won’t rise as well as one made with all-white flour, as the bran hinders gluten development, but the flavour and health benefits will be greater. Some wheat flours have malted wheat grains added to give a sweeter taste and slightly crunchy texture.
Wheat flour for bread-making is labelled as ‘bread flour’ or ‘strong flour’, as it contains flour milled from wheat with a higher proportion of protein to starch than that used for pastry and cakes. It is the protein content that’s key to yeasted bread-making: as the dough is kneaded, the protein develops into strands of gluten, which help the dough to rise by expanding around the gases produced by the yeast. Plain and self-raising flours have 8-10 per cent protein (ideal for non-yeast breads, as well as cakes and pastries); strong bread flour has 12-16 per cent protein (ideal for most breads); and extra-strong or extra-strong Canadian flour has 15-17 per cent protein (ideal for bagels or larger loaves).
Rye flour was once a staple in places where the soil was too poor, or too cold, for wheat, but is now popular for its deep flavour and dark, chewy crumb. Rye flour has a low gluten content, which makes it harder to work than wheat flours, but some find it easier to digest.
Spelt flour has been grown throughout Europe for centuries. It comes from the same family as common wheat, but is more nutritious and higher in protein. Spelt flour is available as both wholegrain and ‘white’.
Stoneground flour is produced when cereal grains (wheat, rye, oats, etc.) are milled between two large stones, instead of the steel rollers used for mass-produced flours. It has a different texture and fuller flavour.
Gluten-free flours are blends of wheat-free flours, usually rice, potato, chickpea, tapioca, sorghum, broad bean, maize or buckwheat, depending on the brand. (Try different brands, as they vary in flavour.) Some mixes also contain xanthan gum, which replaces gluten in giving structure to the dough. Check the label; if your mix doesn’t include it, add 1 teaspoon xanthan gum per 150g flour. Gluten-free flours often need more liquid, so you can’t interchange them exactly with wheat flour.
HONEY
Honey can be used as an alternative to sugar when sweetening dough, as in the Milk and Honey Loaf (see here). Look for honey from a single variety of flower or plant (such as orange blossom), as the flavour is often more distinct, but be careful that it doesn’t overpower the flavours in your bake. As a general rule, the paler the honey, the milder the flavour. Soft-set honey (but not honeycomb) is easiest to blend in, but solid honey can be used if it is softened first (gently warm it in a microwave or in a small dish set in a bowl of hot water). Honey also adds moisture, but too much can make the mixture dense, so follow the recipe carefully.
LIQUIDS
There’s no need to use bottled or spring water: tap is fine. Some bakers prefer to use filtered water that’s been boiled, and cooled, to remove any chlorine - this is most relevant for sourdoughs because chlorine can hinder growth of the cultures. Many recipes replace some, or all, of the water with other ingredients, such as the Muesli Round on here, where the liquid element is provided by soaking oats in apple juice. Make sure you add liquids at the temperature stated in the recipe; if they are too warm they will kill the yeast.
Milk gives the bread a finer, softer crumb. Cream or Jersey high-fat milk is used where a rich, heavy dough is required, as in the Swedish Lussekatts on here. It is also used to make crème pâtissière (see Pains aux Cerises, here).
Yoghurt is often added to breads as it helps fermentation and flavour. Buttermilk is fermented a bit like yoghurt. It is used to raise non-yeast doughs, such as the Sweet Soda Bread (see here). Both are slightly acidic, which helps lighten the dough when combined with an alkali ingredient.
Eggs add flavour and enrich dough, but make it slightly heavier, too. They also add colour, like the golden shade of brioche. The recipes in this book use medium-sized eggs (62-65g each). Their size is important as they work in ratio with the other ingredients. Using a different-sized egg may affect results - you may need more liquid, or the dough may not bind together well, rise properly or cook all the way through.
Store eggs in the fridge, pointed-side down, to protect the yolk from drying out and spoiling. Keep them in the box they came in and in the cooler body of the fridge, not the door, and use by the best before date. Spare egg whites freeze well for up to a month - mark the quantity and date on the container and defrost thoroughly before use.
MARGARINE AND SPREADS
Margarines are based on vegetable oils, with added salt and flavourings. Some are made specifically for baking and can be used straight from the fridge. They give good results but won’t taste the same as bakes made with butter. Spreads designed for use on breads and crackers are not meant for baking and won’t give a good bake as they contain too much water and not enough fat.
NUTS
All sorts of nuts, such as walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios and macadamia nuts, can be added to your dough with the flour, or kneaded in towards the end. Lightly toasting them first in a dry frying pan will increase their flavour. Nuts are not usually added as a topping as they burn too easily to cope with the high oven temperatures. Because of their high oil content, check nuts taste fresh before using.
OILS
Some recipes use light olive, sunflower or rapeseed oil, all of which have a mild, neutral flavour and should not be confused with vegetable oil, a frying oil which will give a distinctive, unpleasant ‘savoury’ flavour to your baking. Oil is used in traditional dairy-free breads, such as the Poppy Seed Challah on here. Oil makes the dough moist and soft so it keeps for longer, but too much will make the dough very heavy and greasy.
SALT
The recipes in this book use fine sea salt; if you have the coarser, flaked sort, crush it first so that it combines easily with the flour. Salt is added to bread not only for flavour, but also for its role in the development of the dough structure. Most recipes use 1-2g salt per 100g flour. When adding salt, keep it out of contact with the yeast for as long as possible as salt slows down yeast growth.
SUGAR
It’s important to use the type of sugar specified in the recipe as they all behave in slightly different ways. Store in airtight jars or bags to stop them from drying out.
Caster sugar is refined white sugar with a fine texture, making it ideal for most general baking, as it incorporates easily into your mixtures and combines well with butter. Golden caster sugar is less refined than caster sugar, giving it a pale golden colour and a slightly richer flavour. Granulated sugar takes longer to dissolve and can leave a speckled appearance on top of your bakes.
Demerara sugar is often sprinkled on top of sweet buns to create a crisp, sweet crust (see Cornish Saffron Buns, here).
Soft light brown sugar or light and dark muscovado sugar add a stronger caramel taste, and are used when a warmer butterscotch or caramel taste is wanted. They can form into lumps during storage, so sift or press the lumps out before using.
White icing sugar is used after baking to dust sweet loaves like Stollen and Kugelhopf (see here and here); golden unrefined icing sugar won’t give the same dramatic snowy contrast to the golden brown crust. Fondant icing sugar is a ready-prepared mix of icing sugar and powdered glucose syrup that can be mixed with water or fruit juice to make an icing that sets firm.
Pearl sugar is fine nibs of sugar used to decorate the tops of small buns and loaves, rather than added to a dough.
SYRUPS AND OTHER SWEETENERS
Golden syrup is a sticky, pale gold syrup made from sugar cane sap. It’s sweeter than sugar and helps keep breads moist and easier to slice. Maple syrup is the boiled-down sap of sugar maple trees and has a wonderful red-gold colour and unsurpassed flavour. It is expensive, and beware cheaper ‘maple-flavour’ syrups that won’t produce the same results. Malt extract is a delicious by-product of the brewing industry, made from malted barley grains mixed with water. It gives a wonderful, sweet flavour to Sticky Malted Loaf (see here). Syrups can be messy to measure, so sit the whole tin in a bowl of just-boiled water, or warm the measuring spoon in a mug of boiled water.
YEAST
Yeast is the living organism that makes bread rise. It needs moisture, gentle warmth and flour (or sugar) to stimulate growth and the production of carbon dioxide, which expands the dough. These recipes use dried powdered yeast, sold in 7g sachets as fast-action, easy-blend or instant dried yeast. They must be kept in a cupboard. The powder must be added to the flour and dry ingredients (never to liquid). Hot water kills yeast, while salt slows its growth.
Fresh yeast is greyish-brown, with a distinct aroma, and feels like clay. It can be stored, tightly wrapped, in a sealed plastic box in the fridge for a week, but should be used before it turns dark brown or powdery grey. Use 15g fresh yeast instead of a 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast; crumble it into a bowl and cream it to a smooth liquid with about 7 tablespoons of your measured liquid, then work in a little of the measured flour and leave for about 15 minutes. When it froths and bubbles it is ready to use - add to the flour and dry ingredients with the rest of the liquid. If your mixture isn’t frothy, it’s not working. Some dried yeast, sold as ‘regular dried yeast’, needs to be mixed with a little measured lukewarm liquid and sugar, and left for 15 minutes to ‘froth up’ before adding to the flour with the remaining liquid - check the pack for instructions.
Use the quantity of yeast specified in the recipe; use more and the dough will be lively but the loaf may have a strong aftertaste and keep less well; use less and the dough will take longer to rise and prove, but have a deeper flavour.