IMPROVING YOUR BREAD

     THERE IS NO RECIPE FOR BREAD!
Bread is one of those things that appear very regularly in recipe books and on websites of all kinds.  Grandma may have left her family a box crammed with them.  But in most cases, we have a hard time duplicating Grandma's results.  Actually, bread is a very basic formula that seems like a cross between a chemistry experiment and an excercise class to most people.  Results differ wildly, because they rely entirely on the skill of the baker.  Perhaps skill is the wrong word...practice might be a better choice.
"Bread" is very simple, but always approximate and dependant on the feel of the dough to the baker.  Basically, it is one part liquid(assumed to be water) to 2 1/2 parts flour(assumed to be white), a little salt and a little fat from any source and yeast or sour dough starter.  That is it...that is bread.  If we were all practiced bakers, that would be all you need to know. Pastry has a similar simple formula. Weighing the flour is a common way to improve, but knowing the feel of it is better. 
People often throw up their hands and never bake bread again after a few failures.  They will often find the bread to be too heavy...way too much flour.  The texture will be coarse, lumpy or filled with white dry spots...not kneaded properly -flour not incorporated well.  Doesn't rise...water too hot, drafty or cold room or old yeast.
Actually flat bread is my favorite treat and happened a lot when old yeast cakes were common on the shelves and home temperatures were uncontrollable. Suck up the failure and break the failed dough up into small lumps, flatten and stretch them and fry in butter...wonderful.  Mom called them dough-boys,
The other problem is that there are so many recipes. 
There are many varieties of flour...white, wheat, rye, chickpea, chestnut, etc.  they all have different characteristics and ways of handling them and assembling them.
In France, most of the breads we make cannot be called bread at all. And in Italy, there are many places where the salt is not used because of an age old tax on salt that angered people when recipes were being developed.
Whole wheat flour is much heavier than white.  Rye flour has no gluten in it, so it does not make good bread on its own, and when you make the adjustments necessary, the bread must be finished to the point that it is so sticky that you can't get it off your hands when it is time for you to put it in  the pan to rise. Whole wheat, too, really cannot be used alone, and the rest of  the list is usually used only for a flavoring in bread.
IN MY MIND THERE IS ONE RULE THAT IS GOING TO MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE TO YOUR BREAD...KEEP PRACICING NO MATTER WHAT YOUR RESULTS! If it fails... toast it and slather it in jam...or fry it and drown yourself in heart attack causing slabs of butter and perhaps a little sugar and cinnamon.  Also, you can dry it in the oven and grind it for bread crumbs, croutons or Melba toast. My mother never bought a package of bread crumbs...what a waste of money! Failed bread is still edible!
ALSO, BAKE ONLY WHITE BREAD UNTIL YOU HAVE MASTERED THE TRICKS, THEN BRANCH OUT FROM THERE.
So, back to the chemistry experiment!

Flour
 Use good quality flour if you can afford it, but at least use unbleached and unbromated white flour.  I use King Arthur flour, but any good or even better quality will do.  Just avoid regular White Lily or other flours that are made from soft wheat, and are much better for baking powder biscuits and cake-like foods.
Hard wheat is like Duram wheat and is quite commom in most of America and is very commonly grown in Canada.  These hard wheats develop gluten more readily and that is what actually HOLDS your bread together.
Old flour works best.  Buy double the flour you need for about six months, putting one of the two bags away with the date on it in an airy(bug free) place.  Then, when the six months or more pass, start to use the old flour, putting a fresh bag away and taking out the oldest that you have stockpiled and using it. Even older flour is good.

Water(Liquid).
  You can use lots of liquids for your bread.  Scalded milk(Milk that has been heated just to the point that it steams and bubbles form on the edge of the liquid), eggs (Eggs add both liquid, and fat from the yolks), teas made from water and herbs, seeds and spices...juices, though I cannot imagine bread made with juice, and the liquid from vegetable cans(leave out the salt in the recipe). The water must be heated to above body temperture.  Higher than baby formula, and in fact, much higher than you might guess.  121 degrees  is recommended.  That seems a little high to me, but experiment a bit with the yeast to see how high to do it and still have the yeast bloom.  Heating it too high or not allowing the milk to cool is one of the grave mistakes that lead to failure.  You can kill the yeast.
 I cannot find the recipe anywhere, but there was a bread I made once that had me make a tea out of fennel seeds and coarsely ground black pepper.  I have tried it a number of times, but I cannot get the proportions right.

Yeast
Use jarred yeast, granulated.  Use a basic all purpose yeast until you get the hang of it all before you use any of the improved strains.  Some recipes have you dissolve the yeast in a bit of water to "Prove" then adding it to the rest of the recipe.  In Italy, they mix the yeast with the flour and make the bread in a "FONTANA"(a mound of flour with a hole in the center like a volcano), gathering the mound of dry ingredients into the liquid in the center slowly. I don't understand the logic of this, but it seems to work for the Italians.  Lots of yeast, up to double the recipe, will make the recipe go faster if you are desperate for bread RIGHT NOW. But if you want bread to be at its best, use less yeast and be patient.  In fact, if you have a very cold room or a refrigerator(and plenty of time) big enough for your bread bowl, try making the bread with a quarter teaspoon of yeast then let it rise in a cold place overnight.
You might enjoy the making of sour dough.  This is the habit of saving a bit of dough from your batch to be used in your recipe next time instead of yeast.  The bread is very yeasty and sour tasting, but that appeals to many people.  I love it, but I lack the discipline to keep it going.  Finding the method on You Tube will be better than relying on me to explain it.

Fats
Butter, lard, Margarine (this and butter add a bit of water), bacon grease(Mmmmm), egg yolks perhaps left over from making a white cake or merengue, oils, like olive or canola.  Meat fats like schmaltz will make a distinctive taste, but certainly can be used. Melt hard fats, and allow to cool to a similar temperature to the water.(You may want to strain meat fats before using them.) Fats will tenderize the bread, but you can certainly leave them out if they offend you.  Be prepared for a change in the bread though. The calorie count will go down without the fat.  If I want the bread to be particularly rich tasting I add a ton of fat, like the French do with Brioche.  They also knead butter into the nearly completed dough, I do not remember, but I think they do this with unmelted butter. I make some bread with a whole stick of melted butter, whole milk and eggs to make a very special bread. When you skim the fat off your Spaghetti sauce, save it and use it in your bread...fat from the meat and from the cheese would be in it, especially if you made meatballs.  Don't be squeamish...meat fats are not much different from butter.  Meat fats and butter may not be that healthy for you...in fact they are terrible, but the amounts you are using are pretty small.  You need fat in your diet.  Do not be a fanatic.  Fats help in brain function among other things.  These fats are better than  shortening or margarine that are hydrogenated...the worst of all fats!
 
Sugar
A tablespoon of granulated sugar will feed the yeast when you start the dough.  It will speed up the raising of the dough as well. If you do not over do it, it should not make much difference in the flavor of the bread.  Large amounts of sugar are added for sweet breads, but they are in another category of bread. Honey and brown sugar works as well, but they may impart a pronounced flavor.

Salt
Salt inhibits the growth of the yeast.  Many recipes add salt at the beginning in the liquid.  I think that this is counter productive,  Instead, I add the salt along with the last addition of the flour.  It is kneaded through the batch pretty well.  If you use koscher salt or coarse salt in this way, you must grind it in a mortar or a spice grinder if you do not want a salty jolt here and there in the the bread. You can leave the salt out, but your bread may taste rather blaaaah. Lovely Tuscan bread traditionally has no salt, as noted above, because of the taxes. If you live on the seaside, try using seawater, perhaps diluted with plain water for a local flavor. My ancestors were from a little island, and this would make sense as fresh water was not easy there for centuries. Examine the water carefully to avoid surprises in the bread.

OK, HOW ABOUT MAKING SOME BREAD

Heat a cup of water.  Dilute the water with cold water till it reaches a very warm temperature well above body temperature. 
Pour the water in a large bowl over a tablespoon of granulated sugar.  Swirl till dissolved.
Shake a tablespoon of dry yeast over the water.  Stir(preferably with a wisk) till just starting to dissolve and none is left dry on the surface.
Leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes.  Check to see if a light froth has appeared on the top of the water.  If not walk away again and check in a few more minutes. If this does not happen, your yeast may be dead or old.
When the yeast has bubbled up well, add about a tablespoon of olive oil or melted butter and whisk in one cup of flour. Mix till no lumps remain and beat it very well for at least a minute.
Add another 3/4 cup of flour and stir till absorbed with your hands if it gets too stiff for a spoon. Set it aside for about ten minutes with a towel over it.  This alows the water to absorb into the flour.  Add another quarter cup of flour and a teaspoon of salt or to taste.  Stir in with your hands and turn out onto a floured board if you like.  I often continue right in the bowl because the batch is small.  Knead well with your hands.  The dough will likely stick to your hands. Keep kneading, scraping off your hands and adding a tabespoon or less of flour at a time and continue kneading.  Continue to add the flour and kneading till the dough begins to lose its tackiness, but add no more flour than is absolutely necessary to allow you to knead it.   Eventually the dough will smooth out like taffy and have a gloss to the surface.  There will still be a bit of a tack to the surface, but not exactly sticky.
You can grease a bowl and drop the dough into it.  Cover with an inverted bowl and place in a warm place to rise.(I just leave mine in the same bowl I mixed in.) It should double in size, but do not over do it as over risen dough takes on an odd texture.
Pat the dough down gently till completely deflated.  Form into pizza or rolls.  If making a loaf of bread, pat into a rectangle on a flat surface.  Fold the long sides to the center line, then fold in half  again along that line and pinch together to make a long cylinder.  Pat out again with the seam on top into a rectangle.  fold again as before and pinch closed.  Place seam side down in a greased loaf pan or on a pizza peel(paddle) in a light bed of cornmeal or flour.  Cover loosely and delicately with a tea cloth or a PAM sprayed sheet of plastic film to rise. 
When risen place on a preheated baking stone(450 degrees or more for pizza) 375 for a long loaf with a few razor blade slashes on top.. If in a loaf pan place in the middle of the oven for half an hour.  But watch that it is not overdone.  Take the loaf out of the pan to thump the bottom.  If it sounds hollow it is done.  Return to the oven if it sounds dull and continue to bake till it tests well. Rub with butter or oil on top to soften the crust a bit.    Allow to cool before cutting or tearing apart as I like to do.