Basic white bread

As stated in a past blog[LINK]. I am taking things back to basics. I am going to do the same simple recipe and try and take in what I have learned from each bake, and improve on my baking skills.

So, here I go. I have not added anything to this recipe like last time. This is just going to be a basic loaf.

The recipe is the same:

3 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of yeast

2 teaspoons of salt

1 1/8 cup water

This is how I went about making this loaf:

First off I need the essential tools

Measure out the flour

Wait for the water to reach optimum temperature

add yeast to the warm water and leave fro 5 min for the yeast to react

I then add a bit of the flour to the yeasty water to make a past

Then leave for 20min for the yeast to be come frothy

I then add in the rest of the water, flour and salt to make a rough dough ball. I then knead on a floured surface to it becomes a smooth texture

I then write down the time and tempreture of the dough, and leave to proof for 40min

After 40 min, I fold the dough and leave for a further 25min.

After the 25min, i punch down the dough and shape in to a boule for the final proof

I preheat the oven to 230c with Pizza stone and empty roasting dish.

Once the oven has come up to temp, I transfer the dough onto the pizza stone, slash and place in the oven. I also add half a cup hot water to steam the loaf.

After 10 min I turn the loaf and take out the roasting dish.

After another 10 - 15min I take out the loaf and leave to cool for an hour.

The loaf came out quite nicely, decent shape and good flavour. 

I am thinking next time to tighten up the boule a bit on the final proof and to bake for a bit longer as the crust was a bit thin and soft to me.

Enjoyed baking this loaf and learned alot.

Please let me know hat you think!

I also received a new book to read over

And a shot of some of the tomatoes from my garden

my starter (affectionately named "dr. hip hop", which has definitely stuck) is definitely getting stronger with the twice daily feedings (have kept to co-op flour and will be moving back to bread flour today since i've run out until the weekend), although isn't really back to one hundred percent and still takes closer to 3.5 hours to double.  i have not been throwing away the extra that you scoop out of the dish -- i've been reserving and then cooking new loaves with it and running up a list of baked goods that also include starter.  it's not super strong, but i've been augmenting with some instant yeast and got great results.  i was a litlte irritated to have to do that at first, but the bread came out so great i was really excited to have made something good again.  i was just working with white flour, none of the healthy junk like i usually do, and everyone agreed that was the best :)  even me, miss weight watchers weird ingredients ancient grains only scarfed down a few white scraps when the opportunity presented itself.

questing right now to find the best white loaves.  if you google amish white bread there's a great recipe that comes up on allrecipe; that's where i subbed in the starter+yeast and it rose faster than anything i'd ever worked with before.  also used a tangzhong because i love the way the cooked gluten gets the bread so cottony.  but the perfecentages weren't quite right...trying again with another set of loaves with the same recipe but carefully noting my changes.  i reduced the oil (and subbed out half for coconut oil), upped the salt, made a smaller tangzhong so the recipe wouldn't be as wet and also mixed in 2 TB of chia seed gel (gives it a nice speckled look, plus the chia seed gel should hold in the moisture of the loaves similar to the tangzhong and give it a nice earthier flavor).  possibly it may taste to healthy.  if the dough still smells "healthy" when i go to bake it i'll coat it in melted butter, hopefully no one will notice.

i'm trying to really walk the line between good gluten development and dough that's too sticky.  too sticky/wet dough can have enough gluten development, but it's moot if you can't work with it.  the white loaves earlier couldn't really be handled, but with the reduced oil and my careful measuring and noting of the water, lessening of the tangzhong and fully incorporating the oil this time around the development was really really nice.  sticky but stretched with the consistency of a weak rubber band.

i baked up another set of loaves with a whole wheat, spelt and rye mixture.  haven't tasted it all yet -- had a really nice crusting (but not ideal, i wonder if it's possible to get such a typical artisan crust with whole wheat flour?  maybe that's another thing special to white).  this was 100% starter, and i left it out for a little less than 24 hours to proof (i haven't been able to revive a starter loaf that's gone into the fridge, and when i leave it out that long the sourdough gets SO SOUR.  it tastes like there's vinegar in the bread, but even better is that when you add a little bit of butter it tastes like cheesebread.  also my 12 hours plus work day prevents me from having too much control on rise times). 

i was happier with the crusting than the first time i almost burned the house down trying to work out the steam situation (and shocked i didn't burn myself), but the loaves were definitely too wet.  looking forward into cutting into one of them last night.  i did a tangzhong with a third of the spelt flour to see what would happen.  spelt has low gluten development so i thought super-hydrating it might be an interesting experiment.  i'm really fascinated by that particular method, especially since there's so little information available on it in english on the web.  i think it will end up with a wetter loaf/denser crumb, which with the vinegar taste is fine by me.

This was very easy and tastes better than your average sliced bread... It looks cool too!

Ingredients: (for white dough)

• 2 cups bread flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups water

Ingredients: (for beet dough)

Do the same as the white dough in a seperate bowl, replacing the water with beet juice. To obtain beet juice, I shredded 3 pounds of fresh beets, loaded the shreddings into a mesh bag, and squeezed  out the juice. I recovered about a cup, so I added water to make 1 1/4 cups. 

Instructions: (remember you are making TWO doughs)

1. Add all the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt) into two bowls and stir with spoon for about 15 seconds.
2. Add water to one bowl and beet juice to the other bowl. Stir for about 1 or 2 minutes.
3. Cover the top of the bowl loosely with plastic wrap.
4. Let sit on counter top for about 12 to 16 hours (I ussually do this for about 13 hours), the dough will look all bubbly on the top when done rising.
5. Generously sprinkle flour the top of your clean counter top or a cutting board (don’t worry about using too much flour, it won’t hurt it).
6. Slowly pour the dough from each bowl on to the floured surface, using the silicone spatula to help it peal off the sides of the bowl.
7. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and rub your hands together with flour.
8. With you hands, gently stretch each dough out to a rectangle shape.
9. Lay the beet dough on top of the white dough.
10. Roll up the dough from one end to the other.
11. Place the dough into a lightly greased bread pan (seam side down).
12. Let dough rise till it is a bit above the top of the bread pan (about double in size or 1 to 1.5 hours).
13. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
14. Place bread in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
15. Remove from oven, dump bread out on a cooling rack or your counter top and allow it to cool.

There is a delicious flavor from the beets...somewhat salty, a bit savory, and a smidge of sweet. The deep cherry red color emitted from the crust, but inside it lost the red component and is a boring brown. I think I'll try the beet dough on the outside next time.

Does anyone know why this happens?

Thanks to Yippee for her recipe, I managed to do this soft white milk loaf. Obviously I didn't read the instructions properly and end up with 1 loaf of bread which I could have split into 2. Anyhow, I believe I will make this bread again.

I can't find the link to upload the picture here, somehow it disappeared on me occasionally. But here's my link to what I was referring to. I will try again to upload the picture the next time.

www.foodforthoughts.jlohcook.com