Fresh Baked Bread for the New Year!

Seth's Fresh Baked Bread



1 C. water (for yeast blooming and dissolving sugar)

2-3 tablespoons of sugar

2 packets of rapid rise active dry yeast

4-6 C. Flour (all purpose flour)


 

Instructions

1 C warm water dissolve about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (food for the yeast) in it and add 2 packets of rapid rise active dry yeast. Allow the yeast to bloom- the liquid gets a puffy top layer (you should be able to tell that your yeast is good and working by this feature).

Use 4-6 cups of flour (you can start with 4 and add as needed for the right consistency...this is my husband's recipe and he doesn't do a lot of measuring, it's like a memory that he has from his mother).

 

Add the flour to the mixing bowl and add the liquid to the flour and mix until the liquid is completely incorporated into the flour. Then obtain another cup of warm water and add a little at a time until the dough is a one homogenous mixture. You don't want the dough to stick to the pan, but you want it to stick to itself.

 

 

 

Flour your hands and take the dough out and knead it out on a floured workspace until it's not tacky anymore (your hand shouldn't stick to the dough anymore as much). Knead the dough to awake the gluten in the flour, the longer you knead it, the chewier your bread will be.

Lightly coat the pan or bowl that you're using and the dough with oil. Olive oil contributes better flavor, but vegetable and other oils work fine too. Put the oiled ball of dough in the oiled pan or bowl and allow it to rise until it has at least doubled in size. Take the ball of dough out and knead again on a floured surface.

Shape your bread by rolling it out on the floured surface and roll/fold the edges toward the middle. So, there is an edge that is closest to you and one opposite that (farther from you). Fold them in towards one another to meet in the middle of the dough. the two edges that have not been folded yet will be folded into the others. Here is a diagram to help visualize the process:

The pocket to get air bubbles in the bread is to prevent making a really dense bread. Now the dough can be rolled into a snake like shape (not too long), and then tuck the ends in. Let the dough rise again (at least doubling in size).

 Remember that the dough rise more as it bakes, so don't make it too big.

Place the dough on a flat baking pan or bread pan. Then cut slits in the top of the dough to allow steam to escape from the bread.

Bake the bread at 375 until golden brown. When you thump it with your finger, it should sound hollow and not dense.

 

 

 

 

Here's how it looks after you pull it out of the oven. I apologize for the lack of pictures for some of the key steps as I was not present for the entire process, but I'll do another bread blog post later with the corrections.