Bread

      With baking breads it can be tricky to get the hang of it. There is the old fashioned way mixing by hand in a bowl then turning it on floured surface and kneading for a very long time. Then there is using a stand mixer with a dough hook. Finally a bread maker.
There are pros and cons of each method of making the bread dough. With the bread maker the pros are throw your ingredients in and make a couple of selections that you want to be done by the machine. The cons would be the hole that is left from the mixing paddle that is in the bottom of the pan inside the bread maker machine.

      The old fashioned way is a hands on method so you get to feel as the gluten forms from the mixing and kneading. But it is worth learning how to do things the old way. Plus if the power ever goes out or living off grid you can still make your own bread. The down side of the old fashioned way is if you have problems with your hands, wrists, and arms. You will be using muscles that you have forgotten about and if you have physical issues the old fashioned way could be very hard for you to do. The stand mixer is an easy way to mix your bread dough if you have a powerful enough motor and a dough hook. My family and I prefer Kitchenaid brand for stand mixers. Just don’t take my word for it. They are very spendy stand mixer but you can do many things with the accessories that you can add to them. Not all stand mixers will stand up over time to making bread dough every day, but once or twice a week should be OK for years. The down side is the cost of a good stand mixer and the counter/storage space of a big stand mixer.
There are also many kinds of flour. For bread I use a bread flour for the first addition of flour then I switch to another flour especially if I am making a whole wheat or rye bread. The reason I use the bread flour is it makes it a lighter bread than just using all purpose flour or all purpose mixed with another type of flour for a rye bread or a whole wheat bread.

      There is a whole science about proteins and other things about the differences between the different kinds of flours.This next chart also from Pintrest from Bakers-Blog.Clabbergirl.com shows the proteins that I mentioned earlier along with what each type of flour is good for.

      When you want to change from one flour to another it is good to know the conversion from say an all purpose flour to bread flour. This one is very easy. It is 1:1. so that means for every 1 cup of all purpose flour you can use 1 cup of bread flour.

      Found this chart on Pintrest from FoodtoLive.com to help out with your conversions to other flours if you are wanting to expand your bread making. This chart doesn’t include the bread, pastry, cake types of flours but it does give you a good start to changing up the type of flour that you might want to try in your bread and other baking.