Thursday, March 3, 2011

Bread



i made some bread for the first time the other day. I made two loaves and my friend Emily made two. It has a little bit a sugar in them so they are slightly sweet. So told me she uses this recipe for sandwich bread. We ate some with butter which was a perfect pairing with the spaghetti we had for dinner.



Bread Recipe :)
warm bowl w/ hot water; dry.
2 cups flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant dry yeast
stir together for 30 seconds (to activate yeast)
add 1 teaspoon salt, 5 teaspoons sugar and mix.
add 1 cup warm water, 1/4 c milk & 5 teaspoons oil.
Mix, then add 1/2 cup flour (up to 1 1/2 cup flour), 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough is the right consistency. (you can substitute oatmeal if you wish for some of the flour.)

Kneed for 10 minutes. Cover and let rise until about double in size (about one hour). [We forgot to warm the bowl that our dough was in so we placed the covered bowls of dough in the oven on the lowest setting to activate the yeast, this speeds up the rising process to under an hour].

Punch down (10 to 15 times press fist into dough) .On floured surface spread dough into a rectangle 6" x 8", then roll up and place in bread pan with the roll up seam side down in the pan. Bake at 400 degrees F, for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

A really cool technique her and her husband showed me is that when you put your bread in the oven throw a third to half a cup of hot water in the bottom of the oven 3 times in 30 second increments, this hardens and browns the crust, like European bread.

2 comments:

  1. the bread looks so yummy! we must make some soon. i finished my birthday post, finally. also changed my blog a bit. let's take pictures together soon, too!

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  2. totally, making bread is so fun, I'm gonna need more friends to give it to, i don't eat loaves of bread at a time so i froze the two i made since i still have bread from the farmers market in my fridge from like a month ago. but it is so fun to make.

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