If I had known how satisfying this whole process would be, I'd have done it a lot sooner. I remember liking baking bread in Nicaragua, but I haven't really done it since I've been back, so I've decided it's the fall of bread. It will also have to be the fall of the gym, but that's okay, as I've discovered that doing things with my hands and body is about the best thing for my overactive mind.
I used this recipe: Almost-Famous Rosemary Bread, because I love rosemary bread, no special cookware was required, and the "makes 4 small loaves" meant it would be easy to give some away.
The ingredients:
Your first step is to let the yeast get started doing its thing. Yeast is, well, amazing. You give it some sugar, a little warm water and it starts respiring and the next thing you know you have CO2 foam and rising bread. I had a conversation with someone yesterday and it was apparent they'd never seen yeast. This is what yeast looks like:
You add water and sugar and it looks gross:
In about 5 minutes, if your yeast is good, i.e. not dead, it will get all frothy:
Once your yeast is going, you can add the rest of the ingredients. This is fairly straightforward, but a word about flour. A lot of bread recipes (baking recipes in general actually) will provide measurements by weight because dry ingredients tend to pack down and then it's easy to measure by volume correctly but still end up with amounts that are wrong. If your recipe calls for measuring ingredients by volume, you should sift your flour because otherwise you scoop packed flour and there are likely lumps and you end up with more flour than you should. For example, here's my flour. See the packing. Yeah, you want to avoid that.
I don't have a sifter, so I used a whisk instead. I scooped the required 2 1/2 cups flour into another large bowl, and whisked it. Whiskery:
The flour should look fluffy. Then scoop that, leveling the top of each scoop with the back of a knife. I ended up with a significant amount of extra flour that I put back in my flour canister.
Once all your ingredients are snugly in a bowl together, stir them until a loose dough forms. Mine was quite sticky at this point, but I knew a lot more flour would get incorporated during the kneading process so I didn't worry about it too much.
Then you turn that out onto a countertop that you've dusted with flour. Keep kneading until it's elastic. It should fight back a little. As I said, it was sticky at first. Just keep dusting it lightly with flour, and by it I mean the counter, the bread, and your hands. I didn't want to get bits of bread goo in my flour canister, so I grabbed a big handful of flour, put it in the dough bowl, and kept pulling from that. I actually thought this dough came together really quickly. There's not a lot of water in this dough (a cup total), and very little sugar. The stuff we made in Nicaragua was a much more processed, soft crusted kind of bread and kneading it took for.ev.er. This only took about the 10 minutes promised in the recipe.
Tuck in all the edges so you have a nice little ball, and place it in a large oiled bowl, and wait for it to rise the first time.
Celebrate your yeast feast by doing the dishes or some laundry or something. Might I recommend a mimosa? Me, I'm blogging about baking bread. Stay tuned for Part 2.
I used this recipe: Almost-Famous Rosemary Bread, because I love rosemary bread, no special cookware was required, and the "makes 4 small loaves" meant it would be easy to give some away.
The ingredients:
Your first step is to let the yeast get started doing its thing. Yeast is, well, amazing. You give it some sugar, a little warm water and it starts respiring and the next thing you know you have CO2 foam and rising bread. I had a conversation with someone yesterday and it was apparent they'd never seen yeast. This is what yeast looks like:
You add water and sugar and it looks gross:
In about 5 minutes, if your yeast is good, i.e. not dead, it will get all frothy:
This yeast magic is explained in my favorite yeast video ever. There's a British accent, microscope shots, beer talk, and chemical formulas. Go watch it. Trust me, you'll like it.
Once your yeast is going, you can add the rest of the ingredients. This is fairly straightforward, but a word about flour. A lot of bread recipes (baking recipes in general actually) will provide measurements by weight because dry ingredients tend to pack down and then it's easy to measure by volume correctly but still end up with amounts that are wrong. If your recipe calls for measuring ingredients by volume, you should sift your flour because otherwise you scoop packed flour and there are likely lumps and you end up with more flour than you should. For example, here's my flour. See the packing. Yeah, you want to avoid that.
I don't have a sifter, so I used a whisk instead. I scooped the required 2 1/2 cups flour into another large bowl, and whisked it. Whiskery:
The flour should look fluffy. Then scoop that, leveling the top of each scoop with the back of a knife. I ended up with a significant amount of extra flour that I put back in my flour canister.
Once all your ingredients are snugly in a bowl together, stir them until a loose dough forms. Mine was quite sticky at this point, but I knew a lot more flour would get incorporated during the kneading process so I didn't worry about it too much.
Then you turn that out onto a countertop that you've dusted with flour. Keep kneading until it's elastic. It should fight back a little. As I said, it was sticky at first. Just keep dusting it lightly with flour, and by it I mean the counter, the bread, and your hands. I didn't want to get bits of bread goo in my flour canister, so I grabbed a big handful of flour, put it in the dough bowl, and kept pulling from that. I actually thought this dough came together really quickly. There's not a lot of water in this dough (a cup total), and very little sugar. The stuff we made in Nicaragua was a much more processed, soft crusted kind of bread and kneading it took for.ev.er. This only took about the 10 minutes promised in the recipe.
Tuck in all the edges so you have a nice little ball, and place it in a large oiled bowl, and wait for it to rise the first time.
Celebrate your yeast feast by doing the dishes or some laundry or something. Might I recommend a mimosa? Me, I'm blogging about baking bread. Stay tuned for Part 2.
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