I just have to show off the bread I made yesterday. It’s the best loaf yet. I finally bought a loaf pan, and I think I have figured out some of the bread processes a little better. Letting it rise in the laundry room is the best idea yet. Look at all those wonderful little holes! :)

This loaf is 75% unbleached flour and 25% whole wheat, which is the blend I have decided tastes best to me. It gives me some graininess, but not so much the bread sits in your stomach like a pile of raw wheat. :D

Behind the cut, my simple recipe for bread. :chef:

Simple Bread

Ingredients:
One package instant yeast (not rapid rise — regular instant)
1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees if you have a thermometer — if not, it should feel very warm on your wrist)
One teaspoon honey
3 cups flour (anything but cake or self-rising flour)

Tools:
Food Processor
Tall glass
Cotton towels or plastic wrap
Large glass or ceramic bowl
Loaf pan (or not, if you’d rather just form a loaf by hand)

Mix the instant yeast, water, and honey in the tall glass. Cover with a towel, place somewhere warm and ignore for about 5-10 minutes … until it gets foamy on top.

Put three cups of flour in food processor with the regular blade in place. There are, I think, blades especially for mixing bread. I don’t have them, so I just use the regular cutting one, and it works fine. Stir the yeast mixture slightly. Turn the processor on for a moment or two to fluff up the flour, then, with it on low, slowly pour in half the yeast mixture. Let it rest for just a moment, and then repeat with the last half of the yeast mixture.

At this point, it may be either too wet or too dry depending on one of a million different factors, including the weather. If it’s too dry (you still see a lot of crumbly flour or dry flour), add small amounts of water, with the processor running, until it all pulls together into a ball. I prefer it to be a little too wet when it comes out of the processor, because I have to knead it anyway and it’s easier to add flour while kneading than it is to do it with the processor.

Sprinkle some flour on a hard, clean work surface. Dump the dough on the flour, flour your hands and start kneading. Press down on the ball of dough with the ball of your hand(s) and press forward. Fold the top over, turn it one quarter, and repeat the process, dusting it with flour if it is still sticky. Be careful not to add too much flour too fast. Sticky is not really a bad thing. Keep at this kneading until the dough feels soft and silky. If you are using any whole wheat flour at all, you will probably not achieve the silky, but it should feel soft. Usually takes me about ten or so minutes. Form into a ball.

Put a little olive oil (or softened butter) is your glass bowl and spread it around. This keeps the dough from sticking to the bowl as it rises. Put the dough ball into the glass bowl, and flip it over (to get oil on the top as well). Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and put in a warm location. I use a warm room that isn’t air conditioned. You can put it in your oven (not turned on) or set it in a sunny spot as well (indoors or out, depending on your weather). Ignore it for about an hour and a half.

When you check on it, it should have doubled in size, and when you lightly poke it with a finger, the dough should spring back (mostly – mine never springs entirely back, maybe I poke too hard). Go back to your work surface, flour your hands again, make a fist and punch it right in the middle of the ball of dough. It should go “oof” and deflate. Dump it out on your work surface, and begin kneading again, dusting with just enough flour to keep it from sticking to everything. I cannot stress enough to go lightly on the flour while kneading. Too much flour will make a heavy loaf.

Knead it again for about ten minutes until it once again feels smooth and soft. At this point, you can do one of a two things. You can repeat the first rising and kneading process again or you can move on to the final rise. I have found no real benefit to letting it rise and punching it down a second time, and I am impatient, so I almost never repeat the rising and kneading process. I just move on at this point to forming the loaf. If you have a loaf pan (get non-stick, they rock), form the dough ball into a shape that will fill the bottom of the pan. Plop it in, cover it with a damp towel or plastic wrap, and put it back in the location you used when you were letting it rise the first time. Ignore it for another hour to hour and a half … until it had once again doubled in size. If you don’t have a loaf pan, just form it to whatever shape you want (a round loaf, an oblong tube, a braid) and put it on the cookie sheet or whatever you plan to bake it on (if it isn’t non-stick, lay down some corn meal or flour first), cover with the damp towel/plastic wrap and ignore until it has risen again.

When it’s reading to go in to the oven, preheat your oven to 425 degrees (F). Place a pie pan or other oven-safe dish in the oven with water in it as it preheats. When the oven is ready, put your loaf pan or cookie sheet (minus the plastic wrap or towel, of course) in and set the timer for 15 minutes. If you happen to have an oven stone, you can bake it directly on that (also dusted with corn meal or flour). When the timer goes off, reduce the heat to 350 degrees (F) for another 15 minutes. When it’s done, it should “thump” like a watermelon … sound sort of hollow when you tap on it.

Pull the hot bread out of the oven and put it on a cooling rack (if you have one, I sometimes just put it on a wooden cutting board), and cover with a towel (I use the same slightly damp one I used during the rising). I don’t know if you should remove it from the loaf pan before cooling, but I do. Try not to cut into it until it cools a while. That’s hard, because it smells so good! The crust may feel very, very hard when it first comes out of the oven. Do not panic. It will soften up somewhat as it cools, particularly if you put a towel over it. This recipe does create a firmer crust though, at least it’s firmer than store-bought bread. I happen to like it that way, which is a good thing since I don’t yet know how to not have it be firm.

When it’s cooled a while … cut off a piece and enjoy with some butter! Nothing better than fresh bread with a nice swipe of butter on it!

To store, I wrap mine in plastic wrap once it’s completely cooled, and I haven’t had any problems with it keeping for more than a week that way. I’d been worried about mold, since there are no preservatives in this bread, but I have only had to throw away one small part of one loaf, not due to mold but due to it getting dried out and hard … and that was a loaf that was two weeks old. So it lasts pretty well.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am no expert on bread, but I have been making all our bread for some weeks now and not had a loaf not turn out, so I must know a little something about it at this point. ;)