Happiness is the smell of freshly baked bread!

The smell of freshly baked bread = Happiness and sweet memories. 

Making bread as a beginner for the 1st time can be frustrating for those who failed due to sticky dough, failed rises and a dense loaf or a motivation for those who succeeded in producing an aromatic, tasty, light , bouncy, well risen loaf. Since we are all different, each of us takes failure differently. Those who failed miserably may end up " Never again" to try while others with challenging attitude may keep trying until they succeeded. 

In 2001, I bought a Kenwood bread maker for the first time from Singapore at an offer price, just to satisfy my curiosity of how a bread machine can bake a bread automatically! Though it did bake a bread but the bread was not tasty and appeared very dense and heavy. At that time there was no video to show how to bake a bread or any no other recipe book where I could turn to, for help except the pamphlet with brief instructions that came with the bread machine.

This bread machine followed me whichever country I resided. I had even tried with "Hovis" bread flour when I was in UK but still not up to the par level of the taste I was looking for. So I gave up and the machine ended in my store as a "White elephant".

As years gone by, due to high tech, our handphones kept updating and by the time I retired, there were so many bread making made easy videos, shown in U-tube. Those bread looked so delicious and tempting. That's the time, I took out the bread machine again to bake a bread. Unfortunately the machine which was kept in the box for years became faulty. 😞

I tried to send for repair at the household  appliances repair shop but was informed that it was not worth the repair as the cost would be almost the price of an updated brand new bread machine.

Hearing this, I decided to leave the machine with the handyman as discard item and never bake bread any more. 

Another few years passed and recently in year 2025, my former classmate Jerry posted me a few photos of his successful sourdough bread and other artisan bread that he had baked. 

The bread looked so good that they inspired me to start making bread again. 🤣

Jerry's big ear bread🤭🤣🤣 baked in January 2025

Jerry's latest bread made of 25% milk and 25% wholemeal flour, 😋

Another friend of mine 👆from Singapore, Antoinette also posted some of her successful home made bread. 

German bread

German Bread

All these☝ were her beautifully home-made bread😋 .

Making your own bread is a rewarding process and my hubby loves the aroma of freshly baked bread spreading from the kitchen to the whole house. 

My friend, Antoinette shared me this👆 amazing U-tube video of "No Knead Artisan Bread" , a very forgiving dough indeed😂

After watching the video, I started to explore more of these " No Knead " Artisan bread and gave it a try which turned out well. 

My 1st" No knead" Artisan bread 
15th Jan 2026

   

 20th Feb 2026
My 2nd Artisan bread which I divide the dough into two.

Such successful outcome motivated me to bake more bread especially different types of bread such as Italian, German, European and the Poland bread recipes.

23rd Feb 2026 

My 1st successfully baked Polish bread. 

My 2nd Polish bread 7th March 2026 

Polish bread Recipe:

Faux bread starter for Polish bread.

This is how the faux bread starter looks like ☝by using commercial yeast ( Instant yeast).

The U-tube video of this Polish bread recipe must have a protected link because it won't allow me to share their video here but you can still see their recipe in U-tube called "Meisterhaftes". 

First of all, a bread starter 👇 is needed using commercial yeast:

Pour 200mls warm water in a small bowl.

Add 1 tablespoon sugar+ 5gm dry yeast.

Stir well till fully dissolved. 

Add 150gm flour and mix well.

Cover and let it aside to rest for 20mins.

Prepare a clean bowl of  350flour + 1 teaspoon of salt.
Make a "well" in the center and pour in the prepared "Faux bread starter" over it.
Add 120ml warm water to mix well.

A shaggy dough is what we want. 😂

Cover to rest in warm place for 20 mins

After 20 mins rest, wet hands to perform a few series of the pull and fold on the dough. Cover and rest for  another 20 mins

After 20mins do another series of pull and fold before placing the dough in an oiled bowl. 

Cover and rest for 1 hr.

After 1 hr, lightly dust the counter. Place the dough on the floured counter and shape it in circle.

Cover the dough to rest 15 mins.

After 15mins ,spread out the dough upside down and gently fold into 3 ,then roll up into elongated shape before placing in the floured baking tins
I suggested you watch their video to understand what I am trying to say because visual aids can make you understand better. 

The dough was in it's final stage of Proofing. 

I divided the dough into 2 shape, a round and an oval ones. 

I baked the oval shaped ones  after resting in the fridge for 2hrs, while the other ones I let it rest in the fridge overnight or whenever needed.
.

Outcome of my successful German/Polish bread!

The smell of the bread was so flavourful and they taste delicious.
I ate it with cream cheese. So yummy. 😋

My hubby likes the Polish Bread the most. It's Pull and Fold technique and the use of faux bread starter is very easy to make. This bread is tasty, soft and fluffy . Even the skin of the bread was soft which suits elderly like us😁

After my Polish bread, I went on to try a more complicated bread like the Sourdough bread which I never succeed before.

Initially I used my medium size oven to bake my bread but as time goes by, I learnt that the air fryer can also bake bread especially small loaf. Air fryer is fast, more convenient and save cost where electricity is concerned. And the bread always turns out nicely.

 The only bread I failed despite numerous attempt was the sourdough bread. Since I couldn't get those sourdough starter right, I gave up trying and make do with the polish bread until I saw in U-tube, how a bread starter can also be made from yogurt, butter milk and fruit water yeast. I was curious to see if they really work at all and craved to experiment them. So I decided to try all those 3. I will never know if I don't try😜

Tried Grape water yeast from this☝️video.

But unfortunately, it doesn't work on my bread☹️

Everything looked like it's going well.....

But after baking....

The bread was too heavy, dense and doughy. I was not satisfied so I tried the 2nd time. The result was the same. Don't know what went wrong.

I have to admit that I was very disappointed because after all the hours of patience, effort and the ingredients spent and the end result was a failed bread!😡

My husband couldn't stand looking at that bread sitting on the rack and said, " For goodness sake, just throw away that bread. It was so dense, heavy, doughy whatever words you can think of, to describe🤭. And the worst is, it was so hard like a rock that he may need an "electric mini saw " to cut a slice, what a comment😂😂😂

Bread using Apple water yeast starter

I almost believe myself not to try those fruit water yeast again until I saw this video by Stepheno and finds it fascinating.

 The steps looked so simple and easy that I gave myself another last chance to try😂

         Just need 1 apple

Apple water yeast. 

1 medium size apple about 150gm
6 teaspoon sugar
500 mls water

Cover and shake twice a day everyday for 6 days.

Day 3
Bubbles are visible 

Water became more cloudy

Day 6
It's time to make the natural yeast (Fruit water yeast)
Drain the fruit water

Keep in fridge for 24hrs 

No waste, No discard 

To make the bread starter ( Feeding stage)

 Pour out 124 mls of apple water in a clean jar.

Add 124 gm flour and mixed well.

 Cover the jar and leave for 10 - 12 hrs to raise. 

10 hours later

Look at this beauty. 

It's the power of natural Lactobacilla and yeasts living in the apple skin.

The starter has risen (almost triple)!

 

This is the time to start making bread.

Apple water yeast bread recipe:

166mls warm water

1 teaspoon salt. Mixed well till dissolved.

Add in all the starter and mixed well till dissolved.

Add 276 gm flour.

Mixed well and rest , covered for 2 hrs.

State of the dough after leaving in refrigerator for 12hrs for slow fermentation before baking. 
Looks promising!😜

After a couple of failures using grapes as bread starter, I became very excited with this one that I couldn't wait for the baking process to finish and peeped half way through. Very satisfy to see the bread was rising well in the middle of the baking process 😂

At last, a success using natural yeast(apple water yeast) 

This was the outcome of my apple water yeast bread.

It's airy, smells nice and taste so good.
At last I can claim myself, a victory for this sourdough bread  with natural yeast.

Now, let's try the Yogurt starter to make bread....

27th Feb 2026 

1st experiment with bread starter using yogurt. 

Was not sure how good it is to make bread. 

I said to myself, if I don't try, I won't know if the U-tube shown is true or not. So I give it a go even though it was risky like my hubby said🤣😅. 

Proofing stage after using yogurt starter for bread
Looked OK at this stage.😜

After baking

There! My bread made from yogurt bread starter.

Looks good but it doesn't raise as high as I expected and the bread is dense and heavy.

It has a slight sour taste like the original sourdough bread from the bakery.

To me, it's a failed loaf because it was not as airy as I wanted but it was still edible and tasted better than those bought bread from the bakery or supermarkets. Unfortunately, my hubby don't like it at all from taste to texture😂

One of my friends who also loves making bread commented that it looked good and as long as it's light and airy, then it's a success.😜 

Now Let's experiment Bread using Buttermilk starter:

Buttermilk starter for bread:

The video I watched said buttermilk from the store is not the same DIY butter milk and advised to get the proper buttermilk from the store. But in our country it's not easy to find buttermilk so I made do with my DIY buttermilk that's 1/2  cup of milk with 1.5 teaspoon of lemon juice which I stirred well and let it curdled for 10 mins. It's an experiment anyway so I don't expect any good result since I don't have any commercial buttermilk as suggested.

Bread dough unexpectedly raise so beautifully.

After baking, it looked heavy to me 

This is my 1st Bread using DIY buttermilk as starter!

My Honest Comment?

Wow, I am surprised and wasn't expecting it to turn out so good! The texture is better than the ones using yogurt starter. This one really taste nice. Texture was airy and more lighter than the yogurt ones. 

Hubby likes it and requested to repeat recipe 🤣. 

Wholemeal bread using apple water yeast.

Whole-meal bread Recipe:

Same measurement from the recipe shown earlier above with the apple water yeast bread except this time we using is whole-meal flour and instead of 166mls water, I am only using 150mls water to dissolve the apple starter before adding the whole-meal flour.

Whole meal dough raise beautifully on a humid day

Another successful freshly baked bread!

Whole-meal Bread using apple yeast starter

 

Outcome of Bread, made from the amazing DIY apple bread starter.

From my experience as a beginner, I find that "No knead" or simply called "Lazy" Artisan bread recipe, is the best which could almost guaranteed a successful outcome that suits me after several previous unsatisfactory results. 

After I had master the Simple "Lazy" Artisan bread, I began to explore more or risk myself, trying another level of bread recipe such as Polish, European bread. 

After I am happy with my 2nd level of bread making , I went further to do the 3rd level and that's the complicated bread such as Sourdough bread..

From the mistake I had encountered, I would like to share with you some tips given by my friends who had baked their bread successfully,    

- Start from the simplest and less likely to fail bread recipe to motivate us to make more bread and the "No Knead , No wait " Artisan bread recipe is the best.

-  Never use tap water which had chlorine in it can kill the yeast. Use bottled drinking water or mineral water.

- Give time for the dough to rise. Dough rises better in a warm kitchen. When it's so humid especially in our country, the dough will rise faster compared to a rainy cold day. The dough should rise at least double it's size before baking. 

-Use warm water, not hot as it can kill the yeast. Cool water is also not advisable as it will not activate the dough properly, therefore the dough will not rise properly.

 That's all for my topic of the day...Happy baking!😊