Bread

A good friend asked me to send him a recipe for bread, but I wanted to do one better and make directions for making bread.

First a little background. I started trying to make bread about the time I got married. I don't know, it seemed like a domestic enough sort of thing to do (that and making margaritas by the pitcher). A little while later I went to grad school in another state and my wife and I lived apart for two years. It was then that I really worked on perfecting bread making. As a result, bread has some complicated associations for me. But that's alright, because the first step to becoming a good bread baker is to accept that you will never get it exactly the way you want it every time. Making bread isn't an exercise in total control. Bread contradicts itself; it contains multitude. Only once you can accept that can you start on the path of the home baker.



Hungry's Simple Bread

Ingredients:
4 cups white flour, 2 cups wheat (sifted if possible, but it's not essential)
Additional flour for kneading
2 Tbs granulated salt
2 packets of yeast or equivalent (I use bulk yeast)
1 tsp white sugar
3 cups hot water

 

Here's pretty much everything. As you can see, I prefer using the mixer with dough hooks. If you want to roll old school you can mix by hand with a wooden spoon.

Step 1: Combine the flours and salt and mix thoroughly.  The idea here is just to make sure the salt isn't so concentrated that it might kill the yeast later.

Step 2: Make a low spot in the salt/flour mixture (think sink hole) and pour in the sugar and yeast. Don't worry, the sugar doesn't sweeten the bread; it's there to feed the yeast.

 

Step 3: Add the hot water. Boiling water will kill the yeast and since that's where all the magic is, you want to avoid this. Instead, use water only as hot as it comes out of your tap. Using either the beater or a wooden spoon, mix all the ingredients until they begin to form a coherent dough. This is hard to explain, but once it stops being a sloppy, wet mess and starts being a sticky wet mess you're in the right neighborhood. Ideally, it will come out of the bowl onto your flour-dusted surface (more on this in a minute) as one piece.

It should sort of look like this. Ugly, but in that ugly duckling everything's going to be alright in the end sort of way.

Step 4: Dust a surface (probably your counter top) with flour (I sometimes use corn meal). You want to cover a section slightly larger than a sheet of notebook paper with a thin, mostly even, layer of flour. You also want to cover your hands with flour while you're at it. This is to keep the sticky dough from sticking to either. Dump the dough onto the dusted surface and begin working it vigorously. I prefer using the heel of my hands to press it into the floured surface, then folding it half and and pressing again. There are, however, as many kneading techniques as bakers and most are fine. Go with what feels right and keep adding flour if anything is sticking. When in doubt add a little more flour. You'll know you're done kneading when the dough stops being a sticky mess and starts to feel smooth and elastic.

It should look something like this.

Step 5: Pull off bits of the dough a little bigger than golf balls and shape them into the smoothest spheres you can. Try not to leave any seams if possible. Once you've done that--I get about 15 balls generally. You can coat a couple baking trays with spray oil (you can use liquid oil too, just try to keep the coating thin) and arrange them so there's a fair bit of space between each dough ball.

In process--I make the dough into a snake shape first. I think it's easier, but you don't have to do it that way.

On the tray--don't crowd your balls.

Step Six: Wait. Depending on heat and humidity levels your dough will need an hour or maybe an hour and a half to rise. This is the really magical step--don't skip it. Go for a run or read a Flannery O'Connor short story and when the dough balls have more or less doubled in size, go ahead and preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Once the oven is hot, put your baking trays on the middle rack and set a timer for 25 minutes.

Step Seven: Take out the bread when the timer goes off. Be careful it will be very hot. Remove it from the tray and put it on a kitchen towel or wire rack to cool--otherwise it soaks up condensing moisture and gets soggy on the bottom. If you did everything right, you should get a stack of rolls that looks sort of like this:

For additional flavor options, consider adding a tablespoon of dried rosemary, or onion flakes. Pretty much anything savory goes well with this bread. Enjoy.