Sunday, February 17, 2008

The bread turned out well today!

I made bread today, and it turned out well, so I figured I'd post the recipe - as much for my own memory as for the benefit of all of you out there. (If you have a food processor, making bread is *really* *REALLY* easy.)

Ingredients:
1 cup + 2 tbsp warm water
2 tsp yeast
1.5 tsp salt
3 cups flour
The flour is where you can get creative. I used 1 cup of bread flour, 2 tablespoons of flaxseeds (ground in my coffee grinder) and about 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour (so that the flaxseed and w.w. flour together equal 2 cups). I threw in 2 teaspoons of wheat gluten, since it's supposed to make whole wheat breads rise better. I also added a bunch of fresh rosemary.

1. Mix everything up in the food processor.

2. Take it out, pat it into a ball, and throw it in a bowl you've greased with olive oil. Let it rise in a warm place for a few hours. One hour might even be enough - the dough should double in volume. (My dough likes Scott's desk best, which gets lots of afternoon sun.) Don't forget to put saran wrap over the bowl.

3. When it's doubled in size, AWESOME. Punch it down, and shape it into a round loaf. Put it on whatever you're going to bake it on. (Scott gave me a baking stone for Christmas.) Sprinkle it with cornmeal, put the dough on, and cover it with saran wrap.

4. Let it rise for another hour, or longer if you can stand it. The dough should double in size again, ideally.

5. Heat the oven to 450, stick a pan with a little water in it on the bottom rack of your oven, and put your bread in. It should be done (i.e. golden brown) in 20 minutes.

Here's where I got the recipe. It has pictures and is generally more instructive than my instructions.

I actually baked only half of the dough today. After the first rising, I divided the dough and put half of it in the freezer. Apparently, this recipe is good for pizza crusts as well as regular loaves, so maybe after I thaw it, I'll shape it into a crust rather than a ball.

Off to bed now, looking forward to toasted rosemary bread for breakfast!

1 comment:

me said...

Libby, that bread recipe sounds ridiculously good, especially after checking out the photos on the linked website. I need to try that out sometime when I have a few extended days at home. Thanks for sharing!

- Jenn