Sometime ago I started making my own bread with a machine. The decision was prompted by Sainsbury's who changed their policy on discounting products with a 'one day' shelf life. I used to be able to purchase their 'Organic Wholemeal in-store baked loaf' when shopping after work (early evening), sometimes it was discounted and I'd stock up the freezer, but usually they had some. When the new policy came in there was never any left by five o'clock let alone half past six.
I started making my own loaf and tried out different combinations of flours, yeast, salt, sugar, oil and water until I'd managed to get a bread that I enjoyed and had a decent fibre content. The yeast I used initially was Sainsbury's sachets and then I went on to try Hovis sachets. The recipe I used for the amount of flour required 1.5 teaspoons of dried yeast, so I was constantly using part sachets which I found awkward.
One day while shopping for yeast I spotted little tins of
Allinson's Yeast on the shelf - "whoopee" I thought, "no more messing around with part sachets!!" What I had failed to notice was that this yeast was 'Not suitable for Bread Makers' in the small print on the front of the tin. Ooops!!
Anyway, what I have done is modify the method I use for preparing and adding ingredients to the baking tin. Previously I would add ingredients in the following order: oil, water, salt, sugar, flour and finally yeast. Now, what I'm trying is to reactivate the yeast with part of the sugar and water. So now it's: oil, water including reactivated yeast mixture, the rest of the required sugar, flour and now the salt goes in last on top of the flour where it doesn't come in contact with the yeast.
Once I've done it a couple of times I'll report back on the success or not of this experiment.
