Bread

 This has absolutely nothing to do with books. This is mostly just random babbling. You have been warned.

I'm baking bread again today, and I'm remembering (although I have no idea why I'd want to) last spring when everything first closed down. I was running low on yeast and hadn't gotten around to restocking. Hadn't actually shopped for any staples in a while, truth be told. Suddenly, yeast was impossible to find. I had everyone I know looking for it. None of us was successful for months.

I'm still not clear on why there was such a sudden rush on yeast. I know the internet was full of Instagram pictures and blog mentions of bread. Baking bread was supposedly everyone's new hobby. Fancy loaves, plain loaves, flavored loaves... It didn't seem to matter what bread you were making, everyone was supposed to be making it. 

But the yeast shortage is still baffling to me. Most of the pretty pictures and posts I ran across were loaves made with a starter, not yeast. So, where exactly did all the yeast end up? My guess is sitting in a cabinet somewhere, purchased in a panic (like all the toilet paper) and then forgotten when the promised apocalypse never materialized. 

I could be wrong. Maybe I just missed all the yeasted loaves. Maybe everyone made them and refused to take pictures of them. Maybe sourdough is just a lot more photogenic (which it most likely is, honestly).  Maybe a lot of things.

But just in case, I wanted to talk to you about bread. Not fancy, photo-worthy, special effort loaves made to impress. No, this loaf is just your plain, everyday sandwich workhorse.

The bread I make most often is a simple- very easy- white sandwich bread. It only takes about ten minutes actual effort if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, although you do have to be at home for a few hours in a row to make it. And it can easily be made by hand if you don't have the mixer. It just might take slightly more hands-on time. This is the loaf of bread I throw together after I get home from working a full eight and a half hour shift at my job every day. It's that easy.

Have I mentioned yet that my children told me to never buy sandwich bread at the grocery store ever again? Because they did. They say this bread is a million times yummier than store bread. (They're not wrong.) 

I wish I could remember exactly where I got this recipe. It is wonderful and I really want to give proper credit and thanks. If anyone happens to recognize it, please let me know.  But I want to share with you in case you happen to have a lot of yeast sitting around. There really isn't an easier recipe I've stumbled across that works this well. This will make one loaf of sandwich bread.

Take:

2 teaspoons yeast (or one packet, if you have the strips)

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/2 cup warm (but not hot) water, approx. 100-110F

Combine these three ingredients and let the yeast bloom. It should take about 5 minutes or so and you won't even notice because you'll be gathering the rest of the ingredients. When bloomed, you'll have a lovely, frothy goo floating on the water in your mixer.

Next, dump in the following:

3 cups of flour (I use bread flour, but all-purpose will work also)

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 cup (half stick) melted butter

Just pile it all up on top of the yeast froth. I try to keep the salt from directly touching the yeast, always putting in the flour first, then dumping everything else on top. Turn on your mixer and let the dough hook do its work.

As the dough mixes, slowly pour in:

1/4 cup milk

(If the dough is too sticky, it may need another 1/4 cup or so of flour. Add slowly!)

The dough should come together easily and start to clump up and climb up the dough hook. When it does this and the sides of the bowl are mostly clean, it's ready. Turn off your mixer, pull your dough out and grease your bowl (mixer or otherwise, depending on your mood) with some nonstick spray. Plop your dough ball in, cover it with a towel, and walk away.

Leave it alone until it doubles in size. This will take anywhere from 30-60 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is. Then, grease your bread pan with more nonstick spray, squish your dough ball to get rid of any big air bubbles, shape it into something that looks like a loaf, and plop it in the bread pan. Cover with your cloth again and walk away. 

Preheat your oven to 375F. When the dough has again doubled in size, throw it in your preheated oven and set your timer for 30 minutes. When the bread is done, it should sound hollow when you thump the top. Immediately dump it out of the pan and onto a wire rack to cool.

This next part is the absolute hardest part of the whole process: You have to leave it alone until it cools completely! This is a test of wills, and I fully admit that we don't always manage it. Sometimes, you just have to slice off the heel of a still warm loaf and slather it with butter. And devour it instantly. And sometimes that's an okay thing. There is nothing better than fresh baked bread, still warm enough to melt the butter all on its own. But if you can restrain yourself (and if you make it regularly, you will eventually get to this point), your loaf will be much easier to slice and have a moister, better crumb for your sandwiches. (Or, at least, that's the way it seems to me. Experts' opinions may vary.)

(Note for beginners: Flour is weird. Some days it soaks up all the moisture instantly and needs to drink more, some days the amounts here will be too much and you'll need to add a lot more flour. It has something to do with the humidity of the surrounding air. Or something. I've noticed, now that it's winter and the air is a lot drier, I'm needing to add more liquids to this recipe when, earlier in the year, these were the perfect measurements. So, what I'm saying is: don't freak out if your dough looks too wet or too dry! Just slowly- and I mean slowly- add more of whatever it looks like it needs. It should end up slightly tacky but not sticking to everything in the world. The first sign is, as mentioned, it will clump up and climb around your dough hook, making a weird thumping noise as it spins. When you pull it out, it will feel sticky and you may get a little on your fingers, especially when scraping it down off the hook. But it should not be a slimy mess that clings to the bowl, you, the counter,... You get what I'm saying?

 Also, it's hard to ruin this completely. A little dry, a little sticky, doesn't really matter too much. It will still be tasty once you bake it. The only way to really ruin it is to kill your yeast. If you're afraid of getting the water temperature right, grab a kitchen thermometer and see what your tap water runs at. Anything too hot for you to comfortably hold your hand in is probably too hot for your yeast. Don't go above 115F!)

So that's it. If you happen to have a lot of yeast sitting around and no real idea of what to do with it, I hope you'll give this a try. It's the easiest way I know of to get a loaf of homemade bread. Enjoy!