#### Semiphilosophical Ramblings Concerning Bread-Baking

I have come to the conclusion that most bread recipes you can find are needlessly
complicated. Most of the time, I just dump together whatever I have and see what
comes out. Of course, you do need to be a bit careful, but it really doesn't
require 20 different types of flour and other junk like a lot of recipes online.

Some of the recipes below do have lots of different ingredients, but these
recipes are just meant as a random collection of stuff I've made, not some
sort of authoritative reference of the right way to do things. The recipe
for potato bread, for instance, was found by just trying what would happen if
I used more potatoes than usual. The first time I made it, I added way too much
water and the result wasn't overly great, but the second time, it turned out
pretty decently. Also, I've started using whole grain shredded rye in a lot of
my bread, but you should be able to use other flour as well, just have fun
and don't take the exact instructions in these recipes too seriously.

On a different note, my later recipes use very little yeast compared to what
you're usually supposed to use. I just let the bread rise much longer than
usual and that works out pretty well. I figure that it doesn't do
any harm and I can save yeast, so I might as well do it that way. Here,
though, the same warning applies that I mentioned above - the exact durations
that I let my bread rise are entirely random and just written here because I
know that it worked for me that way. If it works better to let it rise
overnight, you can try that - just experiment to see what works.

Now some general notes:

- Whenever baking bread that's not very wet, you can add a little bowl of
  water in the oven to create some steam and keep the bread from becoming
  too dry.
- The amounts of water used should only serve as general guidelines because
  every flour is different and may produce very different results. It seems
  that the length of time you let the dough rise also impacts how much water
  is required. When I let the dough rise overnight, the yeast seems to work
  its way through so well that the dough appears much softer afterwards.
- Most recipes here are written for dry yeast, but you can, of course, use
  fresh yeast. The dry yeast just needs to be properly rehydrated with
  lukewarm water before being mixed with the other ingredients.
- When greasing bread baking forms or trays, make sure to use butter or
  margerine since regular oil doesn't seem to work very well.
- Some people like to add spices such as anise, fennel, coriander, and
  caraway seeds to their bread. I don't care much for it, but I guess
  that's just a matter of taste.
- After putting the dough into a bread baking form, you can smooth the
  top with wet fingers.
- When baking any bread with potatoes in it, you may need to drastically
  change the amount of water added because the potatoes may contain very
  different amounts of liquid. I pressure-cook my potatoes, so they also
  don't contain as much water as potatoes that were boiled completely
  in water.
- When making bread with a wet dough in a bread baking form, make sure the
  form is large enough because the dough may overflow otherwise once it
  rises.
- If the bread or buns turn stale in the fridge, you can always try
  toasting them. This has especially worked well with some of the
  buns I've made - they often turn much nicer after toasting.
- Since the recipes containing a lot of potatoes are quite moist, it's
  better to keep the breads/buns in the fridge because they get moldy
  very easily.