Tips for baking bread

[lvdkeyes]

As requested here are a few tips for baking bread:

If you want a softer crumb leave your dough a little wetter than you normally would.
Get a piece of granite cut to fit your oven. Be sure to get granite that hasn't been treated. If you are unsure wrap ONLY the bottom of the granite with a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil. (Treated granite can ooze goop all over your oven.)
Place the granite on the oven rack leaving enough room under the rack for a pan, cast iron is the best, but any oven proof pan will do.
Preheat your oven with the granite and pan in the oven to the highest temperature it will go.
Use the fan/convection setting if your oven has one.
When you are ready to put the bread in the oven fill a large measuring cup (I use 4 cups measure) with ice cubes.
Put your bread in the preheated oven and quickly dump the ice cubes in the hot pan and close the oven door. This will create steam which will make a nicer crust.
Bake your bread until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.
Cool completely on a rack before slicing it. Hard to resist, I know, but hot bread doesn't slice well.
I seal my bread in a large Zip Lock bag and it will keep for 2 or maybe 3 days. After that I put it in the fridge.
The crust will get soft because of the humidity here, but crisps up nicely when I make toast in my toaster oven.

[lvdkeyes]

I forgot one thing.
Form your loaves and place on parchment paper on the back of a baking tray or a peel. Slide the loaves and the parchment onto the granite to bake.

[Tripod Mike]

Thanks for the tips, but I'd rather save my Brand New - Newly Bought bread knife for store bought bakery bread. Ha!

[Tripod Mike]

Allright Ivdkeyes, I challenge you to come up with a baking tip that can "best" this idea.
Originally my house was built on a small slope, so when I did any baking, the cup cakes, corn bread and Birthday cakes would all end up sloping. Looking endlessly for baking pans that sloped the other way was futile. Yes they make gyroscope stoves for sailing yachts but too small for my needs. So now I just make sure any young acquaintances who come to the house do not have Birthdays coming up soon. Of course I continue to enjoy cooking, but now I donate more time concentrating on more rewarding time-consuming projects starting with meeting so many endless young energetic beautiful Thai gentlemen.

[Gaybutton]

Originally my house was built on a small slope, so when I did any baking, the cup cakes, corn bread and Birthday cakes would all end up sloping..

You're living in a house that is not level and it slopes? I don't know what lvdkeyes's idea will be, but mine is move to another house - and quickly, before your house becomes a toboggan.

[lvdkeyes]

Tripod, have you ever heard of shims?

[Tripod Mike]

Ha Ha!.....Yes, I've used shims before but if I shim my house, the other houses would'n't look good still slanted. I would be labeled a non-conformist and I certainly don't need that label and the only farang in the immediate neighborhood. Besides, if I shimmed the house to level the baking stove, the refrigerator and water cooler would slant.

[lvdkeyes]

Not the house, silly, the stove.

[Gaybutton]

Hmmmm, what you can do is wait for the bread to be partially baked. Then turn it around by 180°. That way, maybe it will balance out . . .

[Tripod Mike]

Come on you guys..... I'm only joking! I hope you weren't taking me seriously. Sometimes we need a little humor to banter back and forth once in a while - especially lately. I tend to go too far with tongue-in-cheek or outright blatant humor at times. Just as I once wrote in that Silly Trivia Question - How would I know what Zebra meat taste like? Ok, so it taste just like bull meat - and we've all eaten bullburger before - right?
Being in the Constuction Trade most my working life, I've never heard of a slanted house ever being built with final approval by the Main Inspector. Ha! -what commical absurdity.
When I moved here to Thailand, all my useful handtools, small machinery and cords/ropes were crated on several pallets and arrived ready to use. Having built my own house with garage, garden house and upstairs storage -back in Sacramento, I'm able to do any repairs when needed in this house. I've saved lots of money and frusration over the years fixing the air conditioner, plumbing, water pump, roof tiles, nearly all electrical and electronics - until my motorbike accident a few years before. It begrudges me to have to hire someone now to fix something I was prefectly capable of doing before. I quickly adjusted and accepted my fate and can enjoy more of the good life integrating into this beautiful Thai society. I believe we Expats are so fortunate living here.