Bread

Had some fun making bread with the family – getting the kids (et.al.) very messy kneading the dough in flour. 

I decided to make the bread while driving, and just went to the store planning on finding the recipe on the back of a bag of flour or on the yeast packet.  Unfortunately they all had complicated bread like pumpkin bread, or oatmeal bread. 

I kinda wanna learn the real chemisty behind making bread so I don’t always have to consult a recipe.  I’ve accomplished this for chili, and now want to add bread to the repertoire. This repertoire idea was inspired by my oldest sister who can make chocolate chip cookies without reading a recipe.

I found this recipe online, and it comes close – but the one the flour bag listed eggs and butter, so I improvised a bit and added a couple tablespoons of butter and an egg.  SuzShe warned that messing with a bread recipe would make it fail to rise.

My bread rose just fine – easily doubling in volume.  I planned a little poorly and didn’t want to cook it that night because everyone would be in bed when it was done – and the best part of baking bread is eating it right out of the oven.  So I put it in the fridge after it rose.  It rose a little more in the fridge, then the top got a little hard – dried out.  It wasn’t much, but another day in the fridge would’ve ruined it I’m sure.

Here’s what I ended up with for a recipe:

• 3 cups of Flour + more to tune
• One packet regular yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups hot water
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon butter

1. Mix the flour and yeast, then add the water. 
2. Add the rest of the dry ingediants and stir. 
3. Add the egg and butter and mix.
4. Mix in more flour until it’s not sticky.
5. Knead on a flour covered surface until the kids are bored of it.
6. Let rise in greased bowl until double volume (15min -> overnight) in warm place with cover and make sure bowl is big enough for double volume.
7. Pound dough to get rid of really big air bubbles.
8. I braided 1/2 and made a loaf with a big X cut with a wet knife for the other 1/2.
9. Put bread in oven before preheating, with a pan of water on the bottom rack.
10. Cook for 40min or until golden brown. 

Next time I’ll try more butter and maybe more sugar.  I think the key to the rise is the yeast + warm water + sugar, based on my home brewing experiences.