Awesome Basic Bread Recipe
Nov. 25th, 2009 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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omnomnomThis is a nice easy basic bread recipe that can be easily modified for whatever you want. Spice bread, herb bread, cinnamon buns, cheese buns your imagination is the limit.
There's about 30 minutes of actual work. Total time is around 2-3 hours depending on how long it takes for things to rise.
From Food that Really Schmecks
First eat 4 L of ice-cream. Or at least acquire a 4L ice-cream tub.
Next warm the tub then pour in 1 cup warm water, a bit cooler than bathwater.
Dissolve in 1 teaspoon white sugar
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons yeast (or 2 packets) This is traditional yeast, not the quick rise stuff.
Let this sit for about 10 minutes, until the top of the water is covered with puffed up yeast (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it)
Stir to dissolve the yeast into the water.
Add
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 heaping tablespoon salt
1/2 cut vegetable oil
Stir this all up, then keep adding flour until it wont take anymore. Somewhere around 8-9 cups, though this depends on humidity, warmth and any number of other factors. You can add 1/2 cup more water if you find it wont take any more and you're not even close to 8 cups.
Dump the dough onto a floured counter and knead until it's nice and smooth, though with a few sticky spots. You can usually get at least another cup of flour into it through kneading.
And most of the work is done.
Put the dough back into the ice cream tub, put the lid on, and leave it somewhere warm. (Sunbeam, oven with the light on, in bed with you under the blankets...)
After a while (1-2 hours, again it's affected by heat, humidity, draughts etc.) the lid will pop off, then you know you've let it rise enough. You can leave it alone for longer until it's a couple of inches above the container, or move onto the next step now. I usually wait until it's risen a couple inches above the top.
If you're going to add anything to the bread do it now. You can just add it to a part of it, or the entire thing or whatever. Just knead it in. See below for ideas.
Grease your pans.
Punch down the dough and divide it into sections. I usually do buns of bread, so I divide it into 6 balls, 2 go into each bread pan. The end result looks nicer if you fold all the edges down to the bottom, leaving you with a nice smooth top. Or you can make a little dinner rolls if you'd rather by putting little balls in a 9x13 pan (you'll have enough dough to do a pan and some loaves). Or but little balls into a muffin pan to get cutely shaped buns.
Once they're in the pan, cover with a tea-towel and put somewhere warm until they've about doubled in size (20-45+ minutes).
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. They should be brown top and bottom and sound hollow when you tap the bottoms. If you have them out and discover the bottoms are pasty, go ahead and throw them back in the pans, back in the oven.
And your done! The house will begin to smell wonderful about 5 minutes into the baking process
Other things you can make:
* You can add dried onion soup mix to get an onion bread
* Use different flours (though this will take longer to rise, and sometimes won't double. Whole Wheat flour can be substituted entirely with no change. All others should be combined with equal parts all-purpose or whole wheat, alternating them in the mixing (one cup rye, one cup wheat....))
* Substitute brown sugar for white and 1/2c molasses for part of your water.
* Use buttermilk instead of the 2 cups water
* Use warm tomato juice instead of 2 cups water, add 1-2 tablespoons of celery seed. (It makes pink bread ^_^)
* Use Orange juice instead of 2 cups water, 1/2 tablespoons of orange rind, 1-2 cups of raisins, maybe some nuts...
* Knead in your favorite herbs to make bread to go with stew. Or spices and raisins for raisin bread.
Basically you can throw in whatever you have around and it's wonderful ^_^
To make Cinnamon Rolls:
Or take the dough, flatten it out into a rectangle. Spread it with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Poke the dough with a fork to let things soak in.
My favorite variation on this is to melt the butter, add a splash of rum, add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and icing sugar until it's thick enough to spread and use that.
Roll the rectangle into a tube, cut into cross-sections, put them in the pan... spread any extra of the mixture over the top. Let rise. Bake the same way as the bread.
I have yet to screw up this recipe, even when doing things like making it at 4am. The first time is a little stressful, but once you get a feel for what the dough is supposed to feel like it's much easier. If you put in too much/too little flour it will just make a heavier/less substantial bread respectively.
There's about 30 minutes of actual work. Total time is around 2-3 hours depending on how long it takes for things to rise.
From Food that Really Schmecks
First eat 4 L of ice-cream. Or at least acquire a 4L ice-cream tub.
Next warm the tub then pour in 1 cup warm water, a bit cooler than bathwater.
Dissolve in 1 teaspoon white sugar
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons yeast (or 2 packets) This is traditional yeast, not the quick rise stuff.
Let this sit for about 10 minutes, until the top of the water is covered with puffed up yeast (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it)
Stir to dissolve the yeast into the water.
Add
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 heaping tablespoon salt
1/2 cut vegetable oil
Stir this all up, then keep adding flour until it wont take anymore. Somewhere around 8-9 cups, though this depends on humidity, warmth and any number of other factors. You can add 1/2 cup more water if you find it wont take any more and you're not even close to 8 cups.
Dump the dough onto a floured counter and knead until it's nice and smooth, though with a few sticky spots. You can usually get at least another cup of flour into it through kneading.
And most of the work is done.
Put the dough back into the ice cream tub, put the lid on, and leave it somewhere warm. (Sunbeam, oven with the light on, in bed with you under the blankets...)
After a while (1-2 hours, again it's affected by heat, humidity, draughts etc.) the lid will pop off, then you know you've let it rise enough. You can leave it alone for longer until it's a couple of inches above the container, or move onto the next step now. I usually wait until it's risen a couple inches above the top.
If you're going to add anything to the bread do it now. You can just add it to a part of it, or the entire thing or whatever. Just knead it in. See below for ideas.
Grease your pans.
Punch down the dough and divide it into sections. I usually do buns of bread, so I divide it into 6 balls, 2 go into each bread pan. The end result looks nicer if you fold all the edges down to the bottom, leaving you with a nice smooth top. Or you can make a little dinner rolls if you'd rather by putting little balls in a 9x13 pan (you'll have enough dough to do a pan and some loaves). Or but little balls into a muffin pan to get cutely shaped buns.
Once they're in the pan, cover with a tea-towel and put somewhere warm until they've about doubled in size (20-45+ minutes).
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. They should be brown top and bottom and sound hollow when you tap the bottoms. If you have them out and discover the bottoms are pasty, go ahead and throw them back in the pans, back in the oven.
And your done! The house will begin to smell wonderful about 5 minutes into the baking process
Other things you can make:
* You can add dried onion soup mix to get an onion bread
* Use different flours (though this will take longer to rise, and sometimes won't double. Whole Wheat flour can be substituted entirely with no change. All others should be combined with equal parts all-purpose or whole wheat, alternating them in the mixing (one cup rye, one cup wheat....))
* Substitute brown sugar for white and 1/2c molasses for part of your water.
* Use buttermilk instead of the 2 cups water
* Use warm tomato juice instead of 2 cups water, add 1-2 tablespoons of celery seed. (It makes pink bread ^_^)
* Use Orange juice instead of 2 cups water, 1/2 tablespoons of orange rind, 1-2 cups of raisins, maybe some nuts...
* Knead in your favorite herbs to make bread to go with stew. Or spices and raisins for raisin bread.
Basically you can throw in whatever you have around and it's wonderful ^_^
To make Cinnamon Rolls:
Or take the dough, flatten it out into a rectangle. Spread it with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Poke the dough with a fork to let things soak in.
My favorite variation on this is to melt the butter, add a splash of rum, add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and icing sugar until it's thick enough to spread and use that.
Roll the rectangle into a tube, cut into cross-sections, put them in the pan... spread any extra of the mixture over the top. Let rise. Bake the same way as the bread.
I have yet to screw up this recipe, even when doing things like making it at 4am. The first time is a little stressful, but once you get a feel for what the dough is supposed to feel like it's much easier. If you put in too much/too little flour it will just make a heavier/less substantial bread respectively.