Hacks For Baking Bread That You'll Want To Know

If you've ever made your own bread then you'll know that it tastes breathtakingly good, especially when it's straight out of the oven and you can watch butter melt into the soft inside. Aside from making vows to never buy store-bought bread again, apart from perhaps a nice bakery, there's something deeply satisfying, almost meditative about baking bread. It takes you back to the basics of what's so mesmerizing about home cooking, that it's about taking time out from the modern world, de-stressing, and creating something with your own hands. According to Woman & Home, cooking became a popular pursuit for women during the stay-at-home days of the pandemic. Of course, the appeal of making a home-baked loaf reaches the mixing bowls of all. Even if you're on a low-carb or no-carb diet, you can still make bread. 

Perhaps in a bid to make a food staple, to relax, and no doubt to avoid grocery stores, the quest for bread-making has sparked a huge interest in making and kneading dough. Let's face it, in anxious times, pummeling some dough is really relaxing. To make this newfound hobby more interesting, there are a few fantastic hacks for baking bread that you'll want to know. From making cloud bread, a bread that needs no kneading at all, to a shortcut to creating inspired Italian bread art (via The Guardian), here are some ways to up your bread game.

You've gone to the trouble of making some fresh bread, whether you've made a cob, baguette, or a farmhouse loaf. After taking the time to let the dough rise, and kneading it before baking, it seems to have turned out well. But the next day, your fluffy bread is lackluster; it starts to feel less soft and a little more stale. Do you throw it away? Or do you turn it into croutons instead? What if there was a simple hack that revived your loaf and made it taste fresh again? A TikTok post by @chef_tristan_welch explains this mad-simple yet brilliant bread tip. 

Preheat your oven to 400 F before you start, as you need to put your bread in as soon as you've done the following step. Holding your bread, put it under running water, and move it around so it's pretty drenched on top and underneath. Pop it on the wire rack of your hot oven and leave for 5 minutes. Not only will your loaf be revived, but it'll be lovely and warm, just ready for you to tear off a hunk and slather on a generous amount of butter so that it melts. 

A super cool and creative way of baking focaccia bread is to make bread art. Create your own designs, patterns, and color schemes by decorating the delicious Italian bread before baking it. Not only will it look stunning, as a culinary masterpiece should, but if you use the right ingredients it'll taste as good as it looks. If you think this is the hack, think again! @fooddolls have come up with a great idea of making this bread fresh without any kneading. Use frozen dinner roll dough and space the rolls out in an ovenproof dish. Once thawed, they'll expand so they're all touching. Drizzle some olive oil over the top and push each row of dough so that the oil seeps in and the surface looks a little rippled, like that of focaccia. Now you're ready to add your toppings.

Add halved cherry tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, and some halved and pitted Kalamata olives. Add some mini mozzarella cheese balls and then sprinkle on some Italian seasoning, oregano, and black sesame seeds on the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 F (via Food Dolls). This is just one idea, and you really can let your imagination come up with other artistic and tasty designs.

Here's a quick puzzle for you. How do you turn a circle into a square? The answer is you make a cross. That's the secret to turning a round dough ball into a different shape so that when you roll it out you don't get a circle. Whether you're making rectangular focaccia or following another bread-style recipe, there are times when you want straight edges rather than curved ones. If you get a ball of dough, add a sprinkle of flour on top, and start to work with your rolling pin, you're going to find it impossible to get a square shape — unless you do a lot of trimming and cutting into your circle. And even if you start with a square of dough, it's not so simple. TikTok poster @frederikkewaerens has a simple solution. Once you know it, you'll never forget it. 

Using a big enough knife, cut two fairly deep grooves into your ball of dough, from one side to the other, overlapping to create a cross design. Starting in the middle of the cross, roll the dough back and forward once, turn, and do the same along the other cut mark. Each half of the dough, at either side of the cut, will stretch out, giving you an even square. Keep rotating the dough to stop it from going rectangular.

Sourdough has such a unique flavor — sour and tangy — and it also has an incredible history that dates back to mining heritage in the U.S. and Canada. To make it you need to create what's called a starter, and you feed this with flour to make the dough. There's certainly an art to looking after your starter, and it's become on-trend to make sourdough at home (via Mashed). However, if you don't want to invest your time into lovingly tending to your starter and your energy into sourdough baking but love this bread, then this could be just the hack for you. And the secret ingredient is plain yogurt with active cultures (via Wonder How To). 

Lady & Pups recommends using yogurt to add some tartness to a loaf and fake that sourdough taste that's so distinctive. Preheat your oven to 450 F. Mix 2 cups of bread flour with 1½ cups and 2 tablespoons of unsweetened yogurt, as well as 1½ teaspoons of salt and ¾ of a teaspoon of dry yeast. Let the dough rise for 6 hours in a covered bowl. On a floured countertop, softly fold the dough and create a ball. Put the dough on greaseproof paper, cover with a bowl, and leave for 1-2 hours. Put the dough in a hot Dutch oven, and bake at 450 F for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake until lovely and browned. Turn out on a rack and cool. 

The braided beauty that's challah is a traditional Jewish bread enjoyed on the Sabbath, and the name comes from a translation relating to a cake rather than bread (via Aish). While eggs are used in some recipes for this yeasty bread, there are a myriad of different versions, some just using water, and others that are sweet loaves (via Reform Judaism). What's really satisfying about making challah is twisting together the dough into that iconic braided design. Traditionally it has twelve humps, but there are many ways to braid it (via @challahprince on TikTok).

A great tip when baking your own challah comes from TC Jewfolk, and involves using sweet bread dough that you've bought in, so you don't have to make your own. Buy this frozen and defrost it in the fridge for a day before transforming it. What's great is that this dough is often in individual pieces, so you can keep these apart so that it's ready for when you braid. Make three of the pieces flat and stretch them out. To turn this into challah, add butter, beaten egg, white and brown sugar, and some honey on top of your dough. Fold the dough over and knead it so all those lovely sweet ingredients are mixed in. It's not even baked yet, and will smell and look amazing. Since you're using your hands to do this, you may want to wash them. Make a three-strand braid, folding under the end. 

Super light and fluffy, they literally spring right back up when you press down on them. Like the softest pillows, the hack to making bread like this is using the tangzhong method, as demonstrated on TikTok by @theboywhobakes. If you've never heard of it before, then it basically involves making a roux by heating up a little milk, water, and flour until it becomes a thick paste. You then add this to the rest of your dough ingredients, and when you come to bake it, your bread will be wonderfully bouncy and light.

You can use this technique to make Japanese milk bread, as per a TikTok post by @kwokspots, which can be torn apart to create buns. Make your roux in a stovetop pan with a couple of tablespoons of water and flour and 4½ tablespoons of milk. Activate a tablespoon of yeast in ¼ cup of water. Add these together along with an egg, ½ a cup of milk, ¼ cup of sugar, and 2⅓ cups of flour, plus a teaspoon of salt. Mix until you've got a dough ball and add in softened butter. Leave to rest for 90 minutes. Split into 8 balls and add, with spaces between, to a baking pan. Leave for 45 minutes so they expand and touch. Brush with egg wash and bake for 20 minutes. Coat with melted garlic butter when it's fresh out of the oven. Try not to eat it all!