Breaking BreAD

I've been wanting to make bread ever since the COVID lockdown began in March. I even bought all the ingredients before it started disappearing off the shelves as the "Chicken Little's" of the world began hoarding canned and dry goods. It has been a busy time and finally after saying it for the umpteenth time. I did what I said I wanted to do.

I made bread from scratch.

I have never made bread before.  I remember as a kid mixing hard ass butter into a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon for my mom as she made some Filipino baked stuff, but I've never made a bread loaf.  Plus I was usually sitting in front of the TV as I was mixing.  So I never paid attention.  I was just playing the part of the sweatshop child worker.

I got some recipes from neighbours and online.  And went to check on whether I had all the ingredients or not.  It's basically flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil (or some fat) and water.  That's it!  For some reason I thought there was eggs.  But no eggs.  I even got advice (and kudos for wanting to do this) from the pastry chef at Sweet Potato on what flour to get.

I had everything except flour.  Well we did, but it went into brownies and cookies.

And there is bread flour.  And that's what I got, although many references I saw said it didn't matter.  But others have said, it makes a difference.

In any case...I got bread flour.

And for the oil, I used olive oil.  You can use canola, veg, butter and even coconut oil.  What ever fat you can get.  You do need butter to grease the bread pans so it doesn't stick

Here's the recipe in the order you should mix them.

2-1/4 cups of warm water

2 tbps of sugar

2-1/4 tsps of yeast

4-1/2 to 5-1/2 cups of flour

1 tbsp of salt

2 tbsp of oil

butter

Part 1) Activate and/or ready the yeast.

Mix water, sugar and yeast and let it sit for 3-5mins.  The sugar is for the yeast. You'll see bubbles forming as the yeast starts to activate.

Part 2) Incorporate the flour 1-2 cups at a time, and add the salt and oil.  Add in more flour if it's still too goopy.  We did put some oil in another bowl and dumped the mix into that.  This way it won't stick to the bowl.  Like it will with the first one.  

Cover with plastic and let it rise for 1-2hrs.  It needs to be warm in the room.  Otherwise it won't rise.  When i did this for the second time (the first was a brick with an uncooked centre), the oven had been on and kitchen was warm.  It  will double in size.

Part 3) Activate the gluten.  This is where you knead the dough.  Sprinkle some flour onto a board or clean counter top and dump it out of the bowl, cut it in half and sprinkle a bit more flour on the dough as you roll out with a rolling pin so it doesn't stick to everything like that slime toy from the 80s.  You don't need to work it very hard.   Then roll it up like a carpet and pad it into a rectangular shape so it goes into a greased bread pan.

Cover it with plastic and let it rise again for 1hr.  It will again double in size.

Apparently you can freeze it after this stage.  So you can bake it at a later date.

Part 4) Preheat oven to 375 deg F and bake for 25-30mins.  Not more than that otherwise the outside will become hard like a brick.   These ones were in the oven for 25-27mins.

It should just pop out of the baking pans.  Let it rest for about 15mins before cutting so the inside cools a bit. Also it's easier to cut.  It won't collapse.  When I cut the first loaf right away.  It was good, but the centre felt a teeny weeny bit sticky.  Not sure if that was ok.  But the second which we cut the next day, was perfect.

The smell of bread baking.  We couldn't wait to butter a slice.

After 2 days.  The 2 loaves are pretty much gone.  I'll make it again before the weekend.

On my first attempt,  I mis-read the instructions and dumped the yeast into the flour and then added the sugar and water.  That was mistake #1.  Then I didn't knead the dough after the first rising.  I just cut it in half and put it in the pan.  It rose again, but it looked like a brick.  It was below the pan edge level.  And was uncooked inside.  Mistake #2.  I was disappointed, but i went back right at it and made the 2nd batch and finished close to midnight.  But it turned out.  I was so pleased.  I made bread.

If you are unsure...Google it.  It sure does help to work with someone who's done it before.  Which is why it's taken me so long to to do this after getting the ingredients initially.  I didn't know how to evaluate the dough after each phase.  But now I have some experience.  And it was easier than i thought.

Keep the bread in a brown paper bag and then in a plastic bag so it doesn't dry out. Toast it lightly add butter, jam...whatever.

Tresa and Kieran liked it.  That's all that mattered.

I went and showed my neighbours as they make bread all the time.  And gave them a piece to see what they thought. And I got to taste Maltese patizz.  Google it.  I've never had it before, and it was fresh out of their oven.  It was so gud.  I had a second.