Bake Your Own Amish Crusty Bread: A Delicious Recipe That Will Leave You Craving More (2024)

FAQs

How to make my homemade bread crusty? ›

Before you start baking the bread, make sure that your oven and the form/stone on which you'll bake the bread are well heated. Bake the bread at high temperature, around 260/270°C, for the first 15 minutes of the baking process so that the crust and its beautiful golden color start developing quickly on the surface.

Use a pizza stone or cloche

So heat and steam are a key part of getting that crust of dreams. To help even more, pre-heat a pizza stone in the oven before starting to bake. Place the baking tray or tin directly onto the baking stone. This brings a hot surface into (almost) direct contact with the bread you're baking.

Simply put, it has to do with the starch in flour. As bread bakes, its outer layer (crust) eventually reaches 180°F. At that point, the starches on the surface burst, become gel-like, and then harden in the oven's heat to a crackly consistency. Steam hitting the bread's surface facilitates this process.

If you're looking to ramp up the taste of your favorite bread recipe, we recommend adding a bit of fat. A fat like butter, olive oil or coconut oil in small quantities will help your bread achieve a higher rise and it will also boost its flavor by tenfold.

Cloth, being breathable, retains less moisture; the disappointment is that this doesn't translate into a crispy crust, but rather a hard one. So if you want to store bread for a day or so at room temperature, plastic or foil (rather than cloth) is the way to go.

The short answer is: yes, bread crusts do contain more nutrients. The reason for this is that the baking process causes the exterior of the bread to become firmer and more browned. This chemical baking process also results in changes to the nutrients in the crust of bread.

Once the bread has finished baking, it will still contain some moisture, however if sufficient moisture hasn't escaped the crumb during the bake time, it will move outwards to the crust as the bread cools. This can cause the crumb to collapse and also soften the crust, weighing it down and further creating collapse.

While there are many types of French bread, some of the most popular kinds—like baguettes and boules—have an extremely crusty exterior and a chewy crumb, making them perfect for tearing, dipping or slathering with butter. It's not uncommon for these breads to require a lengthy preparation process.

Wetting the dough causes the surface to steam. Covering it traps the moisture. This partnership stops the bread from drying out on the surface in the hot air of the oven and forming a premature crust. Your bread rises more and produces a richer colour, becoming glossy on the surface.

Method 2 for topping bread dough: washes, glazes, and flour. When baking rolls, pan loaves, or buns, a typical approach is to use an egg or dairy wash to encourage increased browning and give the top crust a shine. Additionally, rolls can be topped after baking with melted butter for shine and added richness.

Why is the bottom of my Dutch oven bread hard? ›

It likely baked for too long at too high of a temperature. Reduce the bake time and temperature until it no longer burns. Use the suggestions in this guide post to help reduce burning on the bottom of your bread dough.

A great way to add flavor to home-baked bread is to use a variety of herbs and spices. Whether you're looking to use up extra basil or rosemary before it loses flavor or interested in bringing cloves, nutmeg, or poppy seeds into your bread baking, there are many possibilities and inspirational recipes.

A generous layer is what gives the restaurant variety that savory, crunchy-but-moist quality. The way you toast the bread is also a game-changer. Instead of popping your bread in the toaster, turn on the stove and brown the bread in a pan for restaurant-worthy quality.

As the loaf cools, any moisture which is left in the loaf escapes through the crust as steam and this is what causes the softening. You can help to prevent this from happening by reducing the water content of the loaf.

Our secret to a brilliant crust even when no dutch oven is in sight is to fill a pot with water and put it below the pan you have picked for your bread. Then as it cooks, make sure you check on the water level so that there is always some as it bakes.

Steam gives bread dough time to expand: the added moisture keeps the dough from drying out before it has time to rise. Steam also produces bread with a thin, chewy crust and seductive shine, what you see in the loaf of country wheat bread pictured here.