Friday, August 6, 2010

Friday’s Baking – Basic Sandwich Bread – Take Two

This recipe is fairly simple. I use my bread machine to form the dough, as carpal tunnel and kneading don’t really get along.

Ingredients
2 1/4 tsp. yeast (1 packet)
2 Tbsp honey
1 cup warm water (110 degrees ish)
¼ cup olive oil
¾ cup whole wheat flour
2 ¼ cup bread flour
1 ½ tsp. salt



Step One:
Combine yeast, honey and water in the bread machine pan. Let sit for 10 minutes. (Should get all bubbly and yeasty smelling.)




Step Two:
Add the rest of the ingredients (oil, both flours and the salt). Close the machine and set on the dough cycle.

Step Three:
After the dough cycle is done kneading, I unplug it. I do not let it knock the first rise down. The transfer to the pan does that for me. Once it's risen, I transfer the dough into a greased (I use shortening) bread pan.



I rub oil on the top of the dough and cover it with a kitchen towel.



Let rise for roughly another hour, but watch it. This dough gets very airy.

(This is almost done, I usually let it go for a bit longer, but I was in a rush. Depends how dense you like the bread.)

Step Four:
Once the dough is at the desired rise, bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Be careful putting it into the oven! A good enough bump can cause this dough to fall.

Step Five:
Remove the golden loaf from the over, should sound hallow when you rap your knuckles on it. Remove from pan and let it cool completely before slicing.

I never make it to completely cool. I always dig in after it’s no longer hot. I wait until it’s cool to slice up the whole thing. I store the slices in zip bags.

My favorite way to eat this is with a little honey on top.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, sorry bout that!

Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. Huh. That's interesting. So you don't use the bread machine for the whole process. That's good to know. Will try it.

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  2. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the cube of bread it gives me. I also love shaping loaves, like pumpernickel. Gives me the reminiscent bakery feel.

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  3. That looks good in its uncooked state! And warm bread with honey? What's better than that? YUM!

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