Harm, the internets are invaluable for finding bread recipes, but I can cut out some of the hassle for you.
Squid's guide to baking
I reccomend you make a pilot loaf just to make sure you have the basics down, although being a more experienced chef you might not have any problems.
Baking is like chemistry. There is little room for novice experimentation here-- if you blindly mess around with the proportions you are going to end up with lumps of crap instead of bread. Once you're on your tenth batch or so you've naturally varied a few things here and there out of negligence or curiosity and you'll understand. Actually I have something to offer based on recent experience. We'll begin with a loaf of wheat which I picked up from allrecipes.
Things you will need
White flour
Some wheat flour
A little white sugar
Instant baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
Oil of your choice
Salt
Brown sugar
Ground / rolled oats
A rectangular baking pan
The flour doesn't need to be unbleached but it's a little preferred for some reason. We're not making a 100% wheat loaf because the dough will be very stiff. I don't understand the process of manufacturing instant yeast but suffice it to say these guys are super active. I was briefly deluded thinking it would be possible to culture it-- no. I've found the olive oil is great. Brown sugar greatly helps the kinetics of rising and, you know, tastes good. Oats aren't totally necessary here, it just gives the bread some nice texture. Make sure they're the quick-cook kind, but to stress, not "oatmeal." I think the baking pan dimensions are something like 9 by 5 inches.
Add a teaspoon of yeast to two tablespoons of warm water in your mixing bowl. Add a teaspoon of white sugar and then a tablespoon of white flour, mixing. Let these guys sit in a warm place for a few minutes-- you'll see a little bit of bubbly foam on top, indicating that they're now pumping out CO2 because they've woken up. Yeast grow best in the 30C range, adjust the temperature of your kitchen as necessary by boiling a large pot of water. (That'll be important in a moment.)
Now add in (stirring each time)
2.5 TBS of brown sugar
1 cup of warm water
1 tsp salt
2.5 TBS olive oil
1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup of white flour
Okay, getting kind of sticky huh? It's going to get harder, some people use a mixer but hell I can't afford that. It's a long wooden or plastic spoon. Add the remaining 2 1/4 cups of flour stirring in a half cup at a time. If you add it all in at once it'll just be hell trying to mix it. The exact amount of flour you should have is kind of flexible at this point because you're now estimating the quality of the dough. The amount you've already added will get you in the neighborhood. You should have a large sticky mass of dough at the moment. Flour a countertop and tip the dough out of the bowl. Scrape as necessary. Now you need to knead it-- basically run your fingers through the dough to mix it more finely that a spoon will.
What's that, your hands are covered in sticky dough? It helps to have a small pile of flour in this case. You should add in a tablespoon or so of flour at a time until the dough is only slightly sticky. If you have added too much flour and it's not sticky at all then you've overshot and you need to add a little water back. Mixing it in will be a pain.
Put some oil in the bowl you just used, rub it around. If there's still large chunks of dough inside dispose of them. Small chunks are fine. Shape the slightly sticky kneaded dough into a ball, and then return to the bowl. Turn it in the oil so it's coated. Let it double in size, this should take about an hour. The boiling water pot ensures that the ball won't dry out, and will be warm enough.
When the ball has doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface again and sprinkle some flour on top. Mash it down with your hands to expel the accumulated CO2. You're now going to knead it again with the aim to get it to the "not sticky at all" phase.
Mind, if you open up the ball it should be somewhat sticky, but the problem you'll get if you have too much moisture in your bread is that the CO2 will tend to bubble up to the top of the loaf during the second rise and make a large bubble. You want the CO2 to accumulate throughout the bread so it's spongy. Not enough moisture, though, and your yeast are thirsty. :/
Shape your ball into a kind of long ball with squarish ends (you can accomplish this easily by flattening it and then folding it.) Oil your bread pan and put the dough in the center. Again, with the boiling water in the room it will keep the loaves humid and warm. For an hour again-- it should rise a little above the edge of the pan, maybe a cm or two is what you're looking for. Preheat the oven to 350F (175C) and configure with one middle rack. (Remembering to take out the rack from a hot oven is no fun.)
You must treat the loaf very carefully here. There's a lot of interconnected gas pockets keeping the loaf risen, but the exterior dryish shell of dough is keeping the gas inside, and if you disturb it too much it'll spring a leak and deflate. Very well, shove it in the oven for, say, 35 minutes. After that time, you can cook and check in seven minute intervals (opening the door lets the heat out.) if you find it's not quite done. Your loaf started tan, you want it at brown now. That's how you can tell. When it's sufficiently brown, take it out and let it cool.
It is important to note that fresh out of the oven, this bread will have no taste. You must let it stand somewhere for about fifteen minutes to a half hour. Then cut off the heel and eat it. Good?
Lots of work for one loaf of bread, right? If you're satisfied with the results, scale it up. The recipe I originally linked can be scaled on the page, but I've found what they call a loaf is pretty anemic so I use 1.5 times the ingredients per loaf that they do.
A note on the boiling water: lots of people find it's sensible to use a moist dishcloth to cover the loaf in a warm area. I've always found that the dough hits the dishcloth and sticks to it, and then when you remove it, voila! Deflated loaf. If you want to fiddle with this technique because you don't want to waste energy on boiling water, you're welcome. I just get consistent results this way.
= :bandit: + :snore:
Originally Posted by VOID
