264
Basic yeast bread and any questions, answers, and additions welcomed!
I make a dough every week, sometimes double batches or more to freeze. If you enjoy a special bread occasionally, or want to start making your own pizza. This is how I do it.
Sprinkle a packet of yeast, or up to a tablespoon if yeast comes from a bottle, into a bowl, sprinkle or pour double the amount of sweetener to cover the yeast, 1/4 cup sugar ( or honey, molasses, agave...), then make a layer of about 1 1/2 cups flour.
Heat 1 cup water 31 seconds, add and stir, mixing the yeast and sugar together so they dissolve, then pull in the rest of the dry, it will be a shaggy dough.
Sprinkle 1 teaspoon salt over dough ball, cover with cling wrap, (I also cover with a tea towel, wrapping the bowl up), and leave it in the warmed microwave to develop.
In an hour you can knead the dough, basically make sure that salt is all mixed in thoroughly, the dough will eventually spring back, you can use a light dusting of flour to encourage the dough to be less sticky, give it about 5 or so minutes of kneading. Then place it in a prepared pan to bake in for a loaf (or make into balls and roll flat to griddle into flat bread, or roll into dinner rolls...). Let it rise up about an hour, hopefully double in size. (depends on temperature, humidity, etc).
*Or after you make the dough, leave it covered in the fridge for 3 days, then pull it out, let it get to room temperature and use it for a more complex taste bread, bread sticks, pizza dough, calzone dough...
For bread sticks and pizza I usually bake about 425F or more , about 7 minutes for bread sticks, and about 10-25 for pizza (depends on toppings).
When it comes out, don't cut, but do lift up to let dough breath, especially pizza, only takes a sec. Then let bread loaf sit at least 30 minutes (to an hour) before slicing it, everything else wait about 5-10 minutes before slicing pizza.
Side note: if you think you will run out of yeast- take a good 1/2 fist or more of raw dough, and add the warm water to turn it into your yeast (I keep extra raw dough portions in freezer for emergencies).
Hey Flour! I am scared silly about making bread and would love any hints - we are GF and that makes a lot of baking more of a challenge! Looking forward to sharing some recipes as cookie/holiday season is upon us!