Making Bread

,Acknowledging tardiness is….

A:  Not Advisable 

B: Honest Sounding 

C: A Sign of a Latent Couch Potato.

It’s C:  So, sue me.  I’m retired.

I finally got up off the couch (rather large rut left behind) and took it upon myself to bake a loaf of bread.  It is on its first rise as we speak and I’m delighted to report after a history of 50 years of baking bread I’ve got some new tips.

This is entirely due to people posting on the internet.  Did I go find my well used recipes from the past?  No.  I actually couldn’t find them, although I didn’t look all that hard. So, I did what I’ve been doing for awhile and I found a recipe online. 

In any case, what I am making is one loaf.  Why spend all the time and trouble to make one loaf of bread?  Well, it’s only Dennis and I and the freezer is sort of full.  Also, I wanted to reacquaint myself with the whole process as it’s probably been at least 5 years since I made any bread.

So, I added a teaspoon of white vinegar to the liquid ingredients (which were a 1/3 of a cup of warm water, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, one teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of BeauMonde and 2 tablespoons of honey).  I make my own BeauMonde seasoning when I can’t find it in the stores.  Basically, it is ½ celery salt and ½ onion powder.  Once that was mixed up and the honey off of the spoon which the warm water helped with.  I mixed it into the proofed yeast. 

I’d proofed the 2 teaspoons of dry yeast in 1 cup of warm water with a tablespoon of honey.  I let it sit around until it was bubbly which, I think wasn’t even 5 minutes.  If you get a packet of dry yeast it measures out to 2 ¼ teaspoons, so I sort of did heaping teaspoons and called it good.

Now, everything is in the bottom of my Kitchen Aid mixer.  I use a Kitchen Aid mixer because I’m really out of shape.  My shoulders and back just can’t do ten minutes of kneading anymore.  So, I spent a good $500 on a Kitchen Aid powerful enough to handle a bread hook. 

I added 2 cups of King Arthur Bread flour to the liquid ingredients and mixed it up with a spoon.  It sort of looked like really lumpy oatmeal.  Then, I loaded the mixing bowl onto the mixer and attached the dough hook.  I remembered somewhere along the way somebody had advised aerating the flour you use in baking.  I’d already put the first 2 cups in, so it was too late for them, but I figured if I took a small whisk to the bag of flour and stirred up the top 2 inches of so that would be good. 

I stood back and watched.  At about the 5 minute mark the mixer started smelling.  Time to stop!  Rather than add more water I figured I was done. I turned the dough out onto our countertop and formed it into a ball, coated it and the bowl with olive oil.

I turned the oven on for a couple of minutes and then covered the bread with saran wrap and a kitchen towel I put the dough into the oven for the first hour long rising.  I made sure the oven light was on and it wasn’t all too hot (I left the door open for a little bit, sort of a short minute) and it’s rising away.  Once the bread has doubled in size you reach in with your fist and deflate the bugger.  Just knead it into a flat watzit again and from there you form your loaves.  In this recipe, because it’s only for one loaf, you get your flat rectangle and start rolling it up pinching it along the way so you don’t get great air holes in your bread.  Nothing worse than jam or mayonnaise comes leaking out of your sandwich, which I guess is why you put down your meat slices or cheese to cover the holes.  Anyway, put the seam on the bottom and turn it all into a greased bread pan. 

What I’m going to do is to make rolls out of it, probably 6, maybe 8.  It just depends on how big the rolls are.  I’m going to put them on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover with saran wrap (maybe I can use the same piece from before…maybe, maybe not) and a kitchen towel and let it all rise again until it is doubled which probably will take 45 minutes.  Then, I’ll load it into the oven for about 45 minutes at 375°.  Note:  I ended up baking for 25 minutes.  Somebody on the internet said to spritz the top with water and that helps to make a nice crust.  I use the water bottle I keep next to my chair in the living room. 

Years ago I used to toss 2 icecubes into the hot oven.  There was a satisfying explosion of steam.  I stopped doing that when someone told me I stood to damage my oven.  So, spritzing sounded good.

I sit nearest the front door and I hate it when the cats all want to go out one by one into the cold night.  This means I get up and go let them in or out.  Picture this, three of them, Molly, Millie and their little brother Stanley all sitting together in the dining room waiting for me to open the door.  One goes out.  I invite the other two to leave for a stroll, but they just sit there looking innocent.  So, I sit down again.  Two minutes later, Millie is at the door scratching.  Up I get again to let her out.  Molly is now drinking water.  I sit down again.  Two minutes later Molly wants to go outside.  Up I get again.  Two minutes later I hear scratching at the door from outside.  I let Stanley in.  On and on and on it goes.  So, as part of my developing spiritual practice I’m trying to be calm and patient, at least more so than when I was going through menopause.  But, there are limits.  Which is where the squirting water bottle comes in.  They are so smart that all Mommy has to do is reach for it and they skedaddle.  Now, we have 5 cats, but the baby, Daisy Mae, confines herself to the study where I spend a great deal of time at the computer.  She’s taken to peaking out the doorway down the hall but has yet to venture out.  Stanley’s job is to scare the bejesus out of her, so she is cautious.  Shelby, our oldest at 15 or 16 likes to sleep a lot, most of the time in my chair.  That’s when I go sit in Dennis’ chair.  So, mostly, it is the 3 amigos who try to test Mommy’s patience with the in and out routine. 

I’ve rigged the screen door with a loop of yarn so when I am in the living room I can leave it open for them to wander in and out at will. 

Now, here are some notes about proofing the bread.  You can tell bread has doubled in size then you poke two fingers into it one inch and the indentation remains.  I wouldn’t poke my fingers into a formed loaf of bread just because I don’t want a dent in it so for the second rise I just sort of eye ball it.

There is a possibility that you can over-proof bread.  I’m not sure what that does to the bread but Paul Hollywood can sure spot a loaf of over proofed bread and does so whenever the Great British Baking Show is on.  What I learned this morning is that you can take over-proofed bread, knead it up and let it rise again properly.  This next rise will be faster than the one before it…maybe 20 minutes instead of 45.  What happens to a loaf of bread that’s risen too much?  Evidently it has less rising power once it hits the oven and collapses in on itself…so, wrinkled and sunk in the middle. 

I slashed the little rolls, ended up getting 5 out of the loaf.  I weighed the whole thing and figured out that I could get 20 gram rolls out of them.  I don’t usually weigh with grams, but it’s easier to divide than going with 16 ounces to a pound.  Slashing the rolls I used a new razor blade.  I’d gotten a bunch of them from Home Depot and use them for all kinds of things around the house.  It’s a safety blade so there’s one side that is blade and the other is blunted and is a holder for you.  Dog, but that made nice slashes in the loaf.  In the past I used a kitchen knife which dragged the bread and just made a really untidy cut.  The razor blade?  Smooth as silk, a lovely deep cut at ¼ inch or so and the rising is going very nicely.

Next item of information I learned was about pre-heating the oven.  My oven generally beeps after 15 minutes when it considers itself done preheating.  What you need to do is to continue preheating for another 10 minutes or so.  Who knew?  Actually, I had a suspicion that was a problem, because my oven thermometer never registered what the oven said right after that beep, so it all begins to make sense.

The oven thermometer never went above 350° even though I jacked the temp up to 385°.  Total time in the oven was 25 minutes.  The top looked very brown so I tested with an oven thermometer.  It went above 195° which is baked bread temperature.  The picture I took has a can of Bush’s beans in it so you can judge how big the rolls are. 

I actually forgot to spray the rolls with water before I put them in the oven and the crusts were really soft.  Anyway, they taste good, and I got to make bread again.