Wednesday, 14th July 2010

The easiest way to make awesome homemade bread

Posted on 17. Apr, 2010 by kchristieh in food

Don’t you just love homemade bread? The crispy crust, the soft, warm interior…it’s how bread is supposed to be. You’re in luck: today you’ll learn such an easy way to make homemade bread that you’ll be willing to make it whenever your family asks for it.

Here’s what you (k)need:

  • Bread machine. We’ll use it to make the dough.
  • Bread mix from Whole Foods. Or you can mix the ingredients yourself. The mix is easier.
  • Water
  • Oil. I prefer olive oil, but you can use vegetable oil or canola oil.

Steps:

  1. Buy the mix.
    I use Bob’s Red Mill bread mix. It costs $2.99 at Whole Foods. Their website says it’s also available near me at Ralph’s, Albertson’s and Trader Joe’s. It looks like it’s available across the country.
    We’ve tried Wheat Bread and 10 Grain Bread, and both are fabulous. You can find them on the flour aisle. If you don’t buy the mix, you can follow the rest of the steps with any bread recipe.
  2. Make the dough
    - Follow the directions on the back of the mix and add exactly the right amount of warm water and oil to the bread machine.
    Make sure it’s EXACT. I have a friend who got really frustrated that her bread never turned out right. It turns out she wasn’t carefully measuring her ingredients. Breadmaking is a science, and requires exact proportions to produce a perfect texture.
    - Add the flour part of the mix. (Don’t dump the yeast packet in the bread machine!)
    - Add the yeast.
    - Set the bread machine to make dough. Start the machine.
  3. Let the dough rise.
    - Spray a bread pan (mine is Pyrex) and a sheet of plastic wrap with Pam with Flour or Crisco with Flour.
    - When the machine stops kneading the dough, remove it and put it in the bread pan. If you have the time, you might leave it in the bread machine a little longer, so it heats up a little.
    - Cover with the sprayed plastic wrap.
    - Wait until it’s risen a lot. I let it rise even higher than it did in the picture to the right.
  4. Cook the bread
    - Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Make sure the top rack is low enough to easily fit the bread in. I actually remove our top rack.
    - Cook the bread. I find that wheat bread takes 45 minutes in my oven with my bread pan, and white bread takes about 30 minutes.

That’s it. The bread pops out of the pan quite easily. The bread is perfect for toast or sandwiches. I’ve taught my teens how to do this, and sometimes they make the bread themselves.

Forget the carbs and enjoy!!

Tags: bread, carbs, cooking, eating, food, recipes