I thought I did everything right for a no knead bread –
3 cups flour
1tsp yeast
1.5 cup of warm water
It rested for three hours in the shade. I did notice that the dough still seemed more “wet” than the person who I was following. For some reason I thought the oven would fix it, because we all know that the oven works magical wonders once you throw something in there.
Anyways, I’m so tired of trying to make bread
by I-MadeFetchHappen
36 Comments
How is the humidity where you are?
A reminder that your cups might not be the same as someone else’s cups. Also a cup of flour can vary wildly depending on how it is packed. Always best to follow a recipe with weights.
I mean, in the end you still made bread. Can you tear it apart and eat it warm with some butter? I’d call that a success.
Could you post your recipe to see where you (or the recipe) might have gone wrong?
Have you tried weighing ingredients instead? I know the recipe called for cups, but I’ve just googled the conversion so I can use weight instead. Much more accurate.
Also did it rise much as you let it sit? Could be a yeast problem.
Don’t be tired! I made many bricks until I got a good loaf. I’m sure most of us have had that experience. You might try getting an oven calibrator. I’m not experience with hand made bread, so wait for other comments.
This does not have to be a total loss.
Chop it up, drizzle with oil and season it, then bake up some croutons.
In the worst possible case you’ve made a loaf of breadcrumbs.
slice it, bake it off, then grind it down to crumbs.
Life gives you lemons, so …
I know its not what you wanted but some olive oil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar would be great with it🔥🔥🔥
Keep trying! It happens to everyone.
Nah… turn into a pizza
Is that the *good kind* of mushroom, or the bad kind?
Grab a copy of Peter Reinhardt’s book the bread bakers apprentice. It is where I started and I get pretty decent results.
We all fuck up here and there it’s alright.
First off: stop using cups.
In the bread world you should be measuring with a scale. Gram is the preferred method.
The reason being that a cup can measure absolutely something different in one country to the next. The second is that you can have a lot more or less flour in the same cup based on how thick it is. If you’re winging it by ‘cups’ you will get very odd results.
We need a little bit more information to what recipe you used.
Typically you incorporate flour, water, and yeast. A little bit of sugar and salt can also help.
Once you mix your ingredients, you don’t have to knead, however you are still required to stretch and fold it.
Past that your dough should sit in a plastic or glass container that’s covered with plastic wrap or a tight lid for your first rise in about 75F give or take. 1-2hrs. Temperature while rising is pretty important. If you don’t have a warm spot somewhere in the house or outside, you can leave it in the oven with the light on and it should be sufficient.
After more stretch and fold you get one more rise and then you score the surface (cut with sharp blade) and bake. (Some recipes call for more or less time rising, to more folds, to overnight rises in the fridge, it all depends on your recipe/goal)
Baking is also important. Either you use a hot oven with a pan of liquid to help with humidity or you use a dutch oven inside of your oven to do the same. If you don’t have humidity the bread won’t come out how you want it.
These are just basic steps. Hope it helps.
Edit. Also water temperature for yeast is very important. Personally I shoot for 100-110F. Below a certain temp yeast won’t really activate and above a certain temp you’ll just kill your yeast.
If you’re using active yeast, you should be mixing the yeast in a separate bowl and covering it for 10-15 to make sure it’s still good.
How warm is your warm water?
High hydration dough can be hard to work with. You calculate hydration by doing weight of the liquid / weight of flour. Since a cup of water weighs about twice as much as a cup of flour, 3 cups flour and 1.5 cups water is the same weight so thats 100% hydration.
No knead dough works by letting time develop the gluten structure instead of speeding that up yourself by kneading. So it’s supposed to take awhile and during that time a good chunk of that water should evaporate as well. So my guess is that you took it out earlier than you had to so there was still a lot of water in the dough which is why it looked more wet than what you were watching. Then because the hydration was so high + likely the gluten structure wasnt formed enough yet, it didnt hold its shape when it baked. Try leaving it in the fridge longer next time.
A recipe might give you an estimate on how long it should be on the fridge but depending on stuff like the temperature of where youre at, the humidity, and the elevation, the evaporation rate will change and it might not fully match up with the recipe so its better to just check on the dough until the consistency is around what you were expecting instead of just going by time. It’s okay, still tasty though.
Don’t feel bad. I threw away 2 “loaves” yesterday.
Don’t give up! My first sourdough bread attempts looked like this! It really does take practice. And it doesn’t take much for it to go all wrong
Caveat: I am not a good bread maker. I would say novice at best.
I have found that putting the dough in the fridge at least overnight, but usually about 18 hours (I can’t wait any longer!) really helps the bread rise and keep its form and whatnot. The less yeast I use, the longer I try to keep it in the fridge.
I don’t know the science or the terminology, but it works really well for me.
Luckily, bread is pretty forgiving and easy to experiment with!
Looks like a beaver tail!
Biblically accurate bread
Hey, I’m a novice bread baker and I made one that looked a lot like that the other day! In my case it might have been because I used part whole wheat flour, but it just didn’t rise well. The good news is it was still delicious! There’s no shame in making imperfect bread. 😊
I had essentially the same thing, when it was too wet I just added flour until it was a good consistency lol. I’m pretty sure you’re not meant to do that
It looks like Native American fry bread
I think it looks fine?
Follow recipes that list the ingredients by weight, not cups. Use a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients.
Test if your yeast is still active before you use it. You can google how to do that.
In addition to all this, you can use an oven thermometer too.
Also, make sure the recipe comes from. a legit place. Martha Stewart can be trusted. TikTok not so much.
Your recipe is similar to mine and it works great with that ratio. When I started making dough I thought warm water meant warm to touch but that was killing my yeast. I didn’t know that my water was too warm. It should be tepid and not feel warm to touch but not feel cold either. Maybe try playing with the temperature if you haven’t yet? Don’t give up! Once you’ve learnt all the don’ts you’ll be really good at making bread and that’s an awesome skill to have!
First rule of bread club is how does it taste?
Everything else can be fixed
Been there
lol this looks appetizing to me. It reminds me of a Caribbean bread called “bakes”. Like a fried dough.
I would melt some butter and finish it in a sitting my friend
You gained some experience and the comments are giving you great advice. You will get there if you keep trying. I’ve had good luck with this easy loaf in the past if you’re looking to try an easy one. Recipe: https://www.recipetineats.com/easy-yeast-bread-recipe-no-knead/#wprm-recipe-container-43976
Here boss, try this recipe:
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/easy-no-knead-focaccia
To date, it’s the only recipe I’ve tried or needed.
Still looks good, I’d still eat the entire thing, like the gluten fiend I am.
Hello baker! You made bread! Everyone fucks up their first loaf. My first loaf was similarly frisbee shaped. But it tasted ok. I’m no master now, but I can get decent loaves.
Been there, done that. We’ve all got our failures.
Fortunately, it looks like yours is still edible. Just eat the evidence
looks like bread to me <3
I think you did okay!💛
I thought this was a tropical toad at first glance.