I've gotten addicted to making bread from my new fav book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day -- see blog at sidebar for Zoe Francois. The premise is that you make a batch of high moisture dough that rises in your refrigerator, then pull off hunks as you need it and bake fresh every day if you want. This week, I made the Soft American-Style White Bread. My kids like white bread but I HATE the gooey stuff from the store. This bread was amazing and the kids loved it. There's nothing like heel of fresh warm bread with real butter melting inside and natural cherry jam on top. Hungry yet??
Here's basically the recipe:
3 Cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbls granulated yeast
1 1/2 tbls salt
2 tbls sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
7 cups unbleached white , all purpose flour
1. Mix the yeast, salt, sugar and melted butter with the water in a 5qt bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container
2. Mix in the flour without kneading, using a spoon. Use your hands just to mix if necessary.
3. Cover, not airtight, and allow to rest at room temperature until dough rises, then collapses appx 2 hours.
4. You can use immediately but best flavor if allowed to refrigerate at least 24 hours. Refrigerate dough in lidded, not airtight container and use over the next 7 days.
5. When ready to use, grease a NONSTICK loaf pan. (must be nonstick for this recipe because of the high moisture). Cut off a 1 1/2 lb chunk of dough with floured hands and shape into enlongated loaf.
6. Drop dough in pan making sure it fills pan more than half-full.
7. Allow dough to rest 1 hour 40 minutes (or just 40 min if using fresh, unrefrigerated dough).
Dust the loaf w/flour and slash the top with tip of a sharp knife (I skipped this step and it worked fine). Brush surface w/melted butter.
8. Preheat oven to 350.
9. Bake near the center of the oven for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
10. Allow to cool if you can stand it. I ate hot out of oven!!!
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