 What we're going to do here is let me first start with the sort of things you need before you start baking, all right? So the very first thing you actually need is a really nice big bowl, okay? and generally some sort of high-grade plastic is generally better in this situation You can use metal as well, but in general I avoid using metals especially where any acids are involved because you know the metal can leads into that and so on but normally this is any kind of high-grade plastic and so you need a lot of room So you can see the size of my hands so that it's easy to need and it should have no corners so that nothing gets stuck So this is the first thing you sort of generally need, right? So the second thing is to think about flour itself, right? So in India again, this is not a brand endorsement, but just to be clear So Having done a little bit of research, this is one particular variety of Maida that is relatively high protein So if you're in India and you don't want to buy some fancy bread flour and all of that This is a this is a good choice for you, right? Just give you one second So this is so this is one variety of I think it's generally that 11 to 12 percent of protein Which is pretty decent, right? For bread use cases. So so this is you know, if you're not someone who Bakes bread that regularly. This is this is what you might want to consider using, right? now That said if you're someone who's Dead serious about making bread and you really like the taste of bread and you want to make like delicious bread and so on This is a this is an excellent Breadflip so this is high protein You can read it so it's a French style Floor that is available on Amazon, it's unbleached and it's high protein, right? And it's high up and it's called bread floor and it's called far in the blood Yes, obviously it's going to be expensive, but to be honest if you buy a kg or two I mean you can you can you can bake three or four times, right? Assuming about 400 to 500 grams every time you bake a loaf of bread. So you so for special occasions, right? So good to have that so providing, you know, you don't mind spending About 400 rupees per kg and like Maida, which is likely to be much cheaper in the 50 to 70 rupees So yes, there is a big price difference. I have not seen any Bread floor in between that is that is any anything decent But if you guys find anything do let me know and to share with others as well So this is so the only distinction is that And other thing is that if you're buying floors like this And you're in India don't store it at room temperature store it in the freezer, right? Seal it and store it in the freezer because that's where things last the longest Otherwise you're going to have Insects and sort of small little things are crawling around the the dough At least that's been my experience in China where this is just too many creepy crawlies So these are so this is the this is the basic sort of you have your mixing bowl and you have your choice of those Right, so either basic plain Maida or you have this now. I'm going to introduce you to something that Will really change your life, especially if you're using Maida, right? As I said, Maida tends to be slightly lower protein Which does not take it sort of as suitable as bread floor for baking breads You can fix that problem with something called wheat gluten. So this is literally pure 100% vital wheat gluten So this is just gluten extracted from Wheat and then you can just add a teaspoon for every cup and that will increase the protein percentage Of your floor and actually you can you know, you can pretty much It'll be much much easier to actually bake with Maida that way, right? So this is but obviously that said Maida is still sometimes too finely milled compared to bread floor, which is slightly coarse and so If you're really serious, I think you should still buy bread floor, but vital wheat gluten really is a game changer. I mean if this costs this costs about 270 rupees and you'll never run out of it again store it in the freezer. You'll never run out of it, right? So this is so the next thing you will absolutely want to invest in is a very basic and cheap Weighing scale. So this is a Amazon basics being scale, but you know, you can buy pretty much anything You basically was this is the cheapest one, right? so this is Important because you know, it allows you to then place your Whatever it is you want to wave and more importantly, like if you can see the weighing scale you can then It will discard the minute little tear for the the weight of the The bowl itself, right so that you know you add something Let's say you add floor that you press it press there again It'll become zero and then you can add you know Let's say you need to add say 200 grams of water then it's easy for you to add that Right. So so weighing scale is absolutely absolutely important, right? So this is very very useful and Again for those of you are really really particular that Weighing scales of this size are not very accurate when you are dealing in say five or ten grams And that is absolutely, you know, essentially if you're trying to measure salt and things like that So I sometimes found people who are dead serious about baking also by a smaller weighing scale But to be honest, I think that's overkill, right now The next thing we spoke about is salt now this is actually Powdered senda namak, which is very similar to kosher salt. It has these slight black flecks, which is which is which is perfectly fine And this is sort of it's easy to pour as well and it has a Slightly coarser texture than table salt. It's non-iodized and it's ideal for baking, right? You can also use Himalayan pink salt if you want now the other thing obviously you might need is sugar Now, obviously if you're in India, this is the kind of sugar crystalline sugar You're used to if you're in the West you probably get more granulated more powdery sugar Which is slightly ideal because you don't want these big pieces of sugar crystals and then of course they'll get over the time of your dough making they're gonna get They are going to get sort of dissolved in any case But you can just take a bit of this put it through your blender and turn it into your granulated sugar If that's what you want. So don't buy go don't waste money buying granulated sugar from the store, right? So this is sugar The last bit of thing is is is a couple of other things you do need is I've also found this to be tremendously useful Because it's an oil spray So especially if you want to take your loaf tin or whatever it is You're baking something in and you want to spray oil so that it doesn't stick, right? This uses the least amount of oil Unlike if you of course if you don't want to buy this you can just take regular oil And apply it with your hands. I think that's perfectly fine I'll just take a stick of butter and rub it all over But this is tremendously efficient and it allows you to spray Things and it's it's you end up using a tiny very tiny amount of oil. So it's called Pam spray It's made from olive oil, right? So but again optional, right? So this is so these are the food related things that you need to understand the last thing obviously is yeast itself Honestly any yeast is fine sourdough essentially means that you're going to have a culture That you made which obviously when it takes seven days to make it so it's not something I can demonstrate right here But this is your normal kind of fast action drive yeast Any one is fine all you may have to do is to mentally calibrate how long it takes to rise Important thing is you trust What you need to do is that you also once you've sort of mixed the dough It's better to get a glass bowl of this kind into which you spray Oil and then you put the dough into this so that it can rise, right? So that way you can kind of see how much it's risen and you should trust volume and not time if somebody says you need to Let the dough rise for two hours. That's actually wrong in Chennai in two hours the dough will overgroove, right? In Chennai it takes only 35 minutes or 40 minutes to double the volume, right? Whereas it might take two to two and a half hours if you're in a slightly colder part of the world, right? So get a glass bowl so you can kind of see where the dough is so you can kind of roughly estimate when it doubles and so on You can eyeball that so it's not that important, right? So this is so and again the use of glass here and not metal is simply because again you avoid any Any reactiveness from anything that you're putting inside it So the other thing that I found tremendously useful are two things. One is a plastic dough scraper So this is useful because you know it allows you to cut the dough and also gather the dough as you're actually needing it Things get really really sticky so and this is tremendously useful and the other advantage is the fact that because it has a curved edge It allows me to do scrape it out of the dough out of the the bowl as well, right? and Having done all of that Let's look at loaf tins and the rest of the things. So this is a standard I guess eight into five kind of a loaf tin So you generally you put you shape the loaf in such a way that you're going to put it inside And then it will rise to about the top and at which point you put it in the oven and then the bread will be right now There's another kind of tin that is tremendously useful if you want to make perfectly square shaped Loaves and this is called a pull minted right so this actually has a lid where you put The loaf inside and then you let it rise inside till it touches the top and at which point you you anyway bake it And so you get a perfectly square Kind of loaf right so if you're doing so these are the kinds of things that you would typically use if you are what if you're baking something like a Focaccia which is more of a flat thing so you can get a flatter tray and just you know, let the dough rise just dump it here Add your olive oil bake holes with your hands and so on and that essentially makes it quite straightforward for for that sort of thing and I think One other thing that I wanted to kind of cover is All right, so let me quickly kind of also Take you through the settings on a standard what we call a convection A combination oven right so I realize that everyone's going to have slightly differing so this is This is a this is both a microwave and a convection oven So what it allows me to do is to choose between microwave settings It allows me to choose between the broiler a combination settings and also Temperature right so either 140 it goes all the way up to about 230 Celsius right And so that essentially is these are all the things you need and remember that The higher the temperature you'll need less time less than the temperature you might need more time But trust your eyes, right? So there's a glass so look through and see if your bread is brown enough, right? and for most part remember that The bread continues to cook well after It is it is it has got out of the oven and in fact, you mustn't touch it for about half an hour That is absolutely important because The if you if you cut it too early, then it's still going to be uncooked in the middle Right, so it's important that you let it come to room temperature before you actually Eat anything with the exception of pizzas and a few other things that you want to eat hot Uh, but yeah any slightly thick piece of bread needs to rest at room temperature for a fair bit of time before you Start reading right now, uh from the point of view of just a couple of other things before we move on This whole idea of kneading, right? Now in general I find it easier to put it on a surface like this And and knead the dough and then use your dough scraper to scrape it while it's still sticky Typically 15 to 20 minutes of kneading Uh, the dough will become a lot less sticky needs to become shiny, right? And if you stretch the dough, it shouldn't tear. So that's the basic principle. Uh, that said you can also use Uh a food processor, right? Uh, if you have a food processor attachment uh to your uh to your mixie which is again again I'm again targeting the India-based audience that your mixie probably came with this attachment, which is a food processor Which to which you can attach this uh plastic attachment that allows you to knead dough, right? It does it at a reasonably slow pace because you don't want to over knead using a machine, right? The other option if you're not someone who wants to work out your deltoid muscles every time is to use Is to use a hand-based kneader, right? So this is uh you sometimes get a pretty cheap hand-based blender which also has a dough hook Which you can attach a dough hook like this and you can actually knead dough directly In the in this directly, right? So all in all what you're actually looking for is a very smooth dough that when you stretch does not tear. So that's the primary aim of What a good dough is, right? So don't worry about all these instructions 20 minutes 30 minutes. Keep kneading or use a machine Till it looks smooth and so on. So that's basically the primary thing, right now With these basic equipment that I've sort of introduced to you I'm going to head back and then let's now look at some standard algorithms for how to make any kind of bread, all right