This recipe takes two days and creates a handy loaf of homemade bread, unit price per loaf is less than 50 Cents, 1 loaf can be a meal.
Ingredients –
- 3C Water at 100°F
- 2 Packets of regular Yeast
- 6.5C of AP Flour
- 2 tbsp Salt
Procedure – Wake up Yeast in 100° Water for 2-4 minutes. Stir vigorously to get them all distributed evenly. Put salt and flour in mixing bowl, mix them up. Pour water and yeast into mixing bowl and mix until the entire mass is turned into dough and there is no loose flour on the walls of the mixing bowl. If you have a stand mixer, dough hook attachment, 10 seconds for dry mix on 4, then likely 2-5 minutes on 4 to get the dough to form while pouring in the water and yeast. When the dough is completely formed, scoop out and put in a soup pot or plastic bin big enough to handle 4x it’s starting volume. Place pot or bin on countertop and cover. Leave it for 2 hours, then put it in the fridge overnight. Next morning take out the bin or pot, with a serrated knife hack it into 4-5 equal pieces. Prepare a work surface, put down some more flour, grab a hunk of dough and knead it into a ball, you want a taut drumhead surface and a bunched up bottom. Lube up cookie sheet, put bread on cookie sheet spaced an inch or more apart from each other. Melt half stick of butter, brush onto bread loaves. Fill oven-safe bowl with water, heat oven to 350°F. When oven is at 350°F, put bowl of water at the bottom rack, then bread on next highest rack. Bake for 40 minutes. Bread will be fragrant about 30 minutes in and will be an early warning that you are getting close. Pull at 40 minutes, bread should have a thump-able crust.
You can multiply this recipe as much as you like, either for your arm+mixing spoon or the size of your mixer. Recommend that if you want to multiply, mix in batches and set in batches. The dough is viable for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, the longer it goes the more complicated the flavors get as the yeast complete their life-cycle. You can dole out whatever shape bread you want, I prefer the 5 loaf approach because they are handy and makes enough for 4 people + 1 bakers loaf. You could incorporate mixins if you wanted or cover in cheeses or augment the butter or switch fats and go with olive or peanut oil to brush-on or you could skip the fats altogether. Up to you. One important thing to note, this bread requires absolutely NO KNEADING. Bread needs gluten to form properly, gluten can either be kneaded in or ‘waited for’. I elect to wait for gluten to form, makes for a much moister interior and a more satisfying texture.
This recipe is from the “Artisan Bread” recipe available on splendidtable.org. I heard it on the program, made it once, fell in love. Everyone should listen to The Splendid Table! With these loaves made, you can have a loaf or two a day and if you are trying to eat without chemicals and to do so incredibly cheaply, you cannot go wrong. I imagine that if you hollowed out these loaves and put in a thick soup, you’d be able to make bread-bowl-soup, quite delicious, for pennies on the dollar for what you’d pay at Panera, for example.
With good clean water, you know EXACTLY what you are eating. No preservatives, no chemicals, nothing but yeast, water, salt and flour. If you want to use different flours, feel free. Don’t know what happens if you use something that isn’t as balanced as AP Flour. Bread Flour might make a really rough-and-tumble loaf, pastry flour would probably just puddle or flop about. If you attempted to use a different starch, like arrowroot or rice flour, I have no idea what might happen, no gluten, no structure *shrug*
