Easy Homemade Bread

Nothing beats the smell of baking bread on a cold winter day or even a raining spring afternoon.  I don't indulge in bread on a daily basis, but a warm slice of fresh baked bread with a bowl of homemade soup is one of life's simple pleasures.

The crusty loaf, fresh from the oven.

Bread made with sprouted, soaked, or fermented whole wheat is ideal, with Wonder bread being on the opposite side the of the nutritional spectrum.  This bread is not whole food, but it is better than breads containing GMO ingredients, conventionally grown wheat, and high fructose corn syrup.  And best of all it is super easy to make.

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Assemble your Ingredients

3 C filtered water (room temperature)
1 1/2 TBS granulated yeast
1 1/2 TBS course sea salt (less if you use fine grain)
6 1/2 C all purpose flour (organic if possible)
1 tsp (or more) powder herbs (optional)

Just a few ingredients are needed.

• Pour filtered water in a large mixing bowl, add in yeast, salt and optional herbs and whisk together. 

A whisk works well to incorporate the yeast and herbs into the water.

Herbs like oregano, basil, thyme and rosemary add an Italian flavor to your loaf. Many culinary herbs are also medicinal, and including them in your recipes will give your food health enhancing properties.

This dough also makes a very nice pizza crust.

Basil, oregano and a sprig of rosemary.

Whole herbs can be easily powdered using the VitaMix dry container.  A mortar and pestle will work as well.

Blending makes powdering herbs super easy.

• Add the flour to the bowl.  You don't have to sift or smooth off the top with a knife, just scoop the flour out of the bag, give the measuring cup a quick shake to remove the excess and pour into the mixing bowl.

Measure the flour right into the bowl.

• Using a dough hook, mix the flour into the water mixture. 

A dough hook and heavy duty mixer makes the job easy.

• Use the slowest speed at first and pulse the mixer off and on, so the flour does not escape over the edge of the mixing bowl.

Go slow at first!

The dough is mixed well when you see it start to "clean" the bowl.  The sticky dough will pull the flour off the side of the bowl "cleaning" it. 

Dough cleaning the mixing bowl.

• Coat a glass container with butter, coconut oil, or lard from pastures pigs, then dump in the dough.  The dough will be quite sticky, as the recipe is designed to be high moisture.

A tall container stores easier in our refrigerator.

• Cover the bowl with a towel and allow to rise at room temperature (around 70 degrees) for 2 to 4 hours.  Dough will rise faster in a warm room and slower in a cool room.

Dough rises faster when room temps are warm.

• When the dough as risen cover the bowl loosely and place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.  Cool dough is less sticky and easier to work with than room temperature dough.

All puffed up and ready for the fridge.

• When you are ready to bake, pull off a grapefruit sized portion of dough and make it into a round ball, by rotating the ball in one hand, while using the other hand to stretch and smooth the top while tucking and pinching the dough on the underside of the ball.

• Coat a baking pan with ghee, lard, or coconut oil and place the dough on the pan.

A round ball dough makes a nice crusty loaf.

• Cover the dough ball with a cloth dish towel and allow to rise for 40 minutes while preheating the oven to 450 degrees.

• After 40 minutes, slash the top of the loaf a few times with a serrated knife in any pattern you like.

Baking times vary with ovens.

• Slide the pan on to the top shelf and place a pan with water on the shelf below. 

• Close the oven door and set your timer for 20 minutes.  At 20 minutes check the loaf.  Remove the loaf when it is golden brown.  It may take up to 30 minutes depending your oven temperature.

Cool on a wire rack.

• Cool on a wire rack, cut while still warm, and enjoy with a bowl of homemade soup.  

Try topping a slice with homemade pesto and serving with Creamy Bean Soup.

Cut and enjoy while warm - yum!

You can keep the dough in your refrigerator for up to two weeks.  The moisture in the loaf will create a "sour dough" effect which will enhance the flavor of the loaf.

Tips

• You can double or quadruple the recipe if you want to eat bread more often.  This is very efficient because you only spend time mixing the dough once.  Please note that large quantities will require a very large mixing bowl.  A single recipe fills my Kitchen Aid mixer.

• Dough can be cut into one pound sections and frozen in an airtight container, then thawed in the refrigerator.

• Mother Earth news has detailed information about this technique, and the link can be found here.

• This recipe is one of many in the book; Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.