Home Cook World

Sep 25, 2023 | homecookworld.com | Dann Reid

Baking a loaf of bread shouldn’t be rocket science. As long as you know why it’s burning, that is. You’ve mixed your bread dough and followed the procedure to the letter. The warm, comforting smell of baking bread is replaced with the smell of burning and the screams of the smoke alarm let you know something is very, very wrong. Your creation is burnt. Not just toasty, nutty brown, but charcoal black.

Sep 15, 2023 | homecookworld.com | Dann Reid

Stringy bread: why is it happening, should it be happening, and what, if anything, can you do about it? Your bread dough isn’t coming together into a ball. Instead, you have stringy dough being slapped around your mixing bowl. What’s going on, and is that okay? Bread baking starts with bread mixing: Mix flour, water, salt, and yeast until a dough is created and that’s bread dough. Granny’s basic bread was good and sustained folks for a long time.

Sep 14, 2023 | homecookworld.com | Craig Britton

Sep 6, 2023 | homecookworld.com | Dann Reid

The heartbreak of torn bread has happened to all of us. Let’s sift through the causes and talk about how to prevent it. You’ve shaped the perfect sandwich loaf of bread dough. Along the way, you nurtured it, coddled it, and even punched and shaped it. And what do you get in return? A loaf that looks as if a ticking time bomb went off inside it in the bread. One side or the top has blown open, and you probably feel all your effort is for nothing. One possible reason is under-proofing the dough.

Aug 27, 2023 | homecookworld.com | Dann Reid

A broken roux can leave any home cook in panic. But don’t toss it just yet—it’s easier than you think to turn it around. Chicken gumbo sounds like a perfect dinner. You’ve prepared everything. You’ve followed the recipe to the letter yet, something isn’t right. The roux, rich chocolate brown, has butter on top. The flour is in the bottom of the pan with butter sitting on top. What happened? The roux broke.