Making Bread During Lockdown

Making bread has been a new pastime since 23 march 2020, when our nation went into lockdown.

We never thought much of bread, just get a wholemeal loaf from the store and that`s it. Well that all changed when social distancing came about and it became unsafe for me to go out due to shielding. Next best thing, try to make bread.

Getting yeast was a nightmare. Even more of a nightmare is getting hold of the common flour! I`m sure some of you reading this had similar experience! The hunt began...

Finally, all ingredients assembled. Phew! A lot of sweat has gone into getting them into our kitchen.

YouTube here I come. Never knew there are tons and tons of videos on making bread, brioche,buns and even blinis.

So I tried to make some sort of bread.

Yeast fermentation is so great to watch. Adding sugar to warm milk speeds up the process. So, to speed it up even more, I thought of adding more sugar, maybe adding a little bit of flour, so that the yeast has more food to eat and give out carbon dioxide. To me it worked. Then another thought came to mind. When the dough was done I placed the bowl next to the kettle. I kept boiling water (haha), and true enough the yeast reacted faster and the dough doubled in size in a shorter time than needed. It was an unsettled day in London, as per usual, and was cold. Brr..r

Simple things like observing how yeast respires unaerobically, giving out carbon dioxide and then when mixed with flour creates bread is fascinating. The chemical reactions and biological reactions happen right in front of us, in our kitchen,whilst making bread. Lockdown in a way has its positive side.The smell of freshly baked bread is mesmerising..