First Hand Experience On Baking White Bread

The Step-By-Step Lesson In Pictures

Click photos to enlarge*

WHITE BREAD (from Home and Garden)

5 3/4 c. bread flour
active yeast (1 small packet)
2 1/2 c. milk
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 tsp. salt.

Procedure:

1. Mix: half of flour ( 2 1/2 c.) and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

2. Put in a saucepan: butter, milk and salt in medium heat (120 to 130 degrees Farenheit). If you have no yeast thermometer (as this is may not be available in other countries) do this: set the heat to medium and don't let it boil. You know it is right temperature when the butter starts to melt. Turn off stove or microwave. Don't let it boil. Use yeast thermometer (see left photo) for accuracy.

3. Pour liquid mixture to the bread flour mixture into the mixing bowl.

4. Mix slow to medium for 30 seconds. Use a timer to be exact! Should work well for you!

5. Mix again for 3 minutes in the fastest speed this time, now add the other half of the bread flour (3 1/2 c.) almost immediately but pour it in gradation. Don't dump the entire half of the flour! The trick: the speed must be really fast and you need to pour the flour as fast as you can! I use the soup ladel for this. After yo have poured all the flour, hold the stand mixer as the weight and speed of the mixer with the flour in it would make the mixer to shake even if it a heavy duty mixer. It would be snowy at this point in time in your kitchen while you are waiting for your dough to mix well but don't worry, you can clean up later! After 3 minutes you'd notice the dough is soft and a bit moist. This is the right consistency.

6. Take off the dough and knead it on a slightly floured surface for exactly 8 minutes! Add a minimum amount of flour only as needed when the dough feels wet and moist. Otherwise, don't add flour. As you knead using the base of your palm, you would notice how the small bits of flour sprinkled on the counter top has improved the elasticity of your dough. Follow this direction carefully. Don't over knead! When you strech your dough, it should be smooth. If it cracks it is too dry. You may have placed a lot of flour on your counter top. So be careful! Better to sprinkle the flour in little bits first than be compromised later. Don't panic if at first when you knead your dough it feels moist but once you add bits of flour on the counter top your dough would feel just right.

7. Brush slightly with olive oil (or any kind of) the mixing bowl you'd use to place your dough to rise. Place the dough and roll it carefully, making sure to do it back to front only- to enable the oil to go through the surface of your dough. Now cover the bowl with moist cotton fabric then set it inside the oven. Be sure it is off but turn on the light to increase the natural temperature of your oven. This is done to help the dough to rise easily and to double its size. This works well with me here in California. But if you live in the tropics, you may no not do this trick anymore (sisterette, what is your advise?). Hey, am not so sure about this but if it is hot and humid where you are, you should not have a problem with baking bread. If you are baking bread in the tropics but if it is rainy season there, you may try this as well.

After you have made your ball of dough, here are the simple steps to do:



1. L to R: Bread flour inside the oven (temperature is off), light is on to help the flour to rise; lukewarm water in a bowl is placed underneath the lowest rack of oven to help build up moisture esp. if you are living in a cold place. I heat the bowl with water in mircowave for 3 minutes; middle photo: shows how the bread mixture is starting to expand- see the top portion. It is covered with 100% cotton napkin (moist napkin or towel is appropriate). Cotton fabric breathes and it allows the air and moisture to go through the dough Right: as it is, close up.



2. L to R: Photo: the bread flour that has doubled its size after one hour of letting it rise inside the oven with the light on; middle photo: the bread flour being tested for its volume: when 1/2 inch of the fingers leave a mark on it- it simply means it expanded twice its original size. This is perfect! Extreme right: punch time to get the dough off the bowl, starting out by pushing the fingers SLOWLY from the bottom of the bowl, moving clockwise until the entire dough is removed by pulling it off with the fingers CAREFULLY or you lose the air of the dough! This is my first experience today of doing this and I felt the air from the dough as I punched through it and pulled out the bread dough. It was neat! I knew I'd have a good bread then!



3. L to R: The dough as divided into two parts and being prepared for a "rest period" of 10 minutes (dough is placed on counter top on a slightly floured surface); middle photo: as they are covered with moist cloth (brought back in the oven to rise- note-oven is off but light is on-keep warming up the water in the bowl, heat enough to see the smoke in it- DO NOT BOIL WATER for this procedure); right: as the dough balls have expanded after 10 minutes of "rest time."


4. L to R: the dough balls after the rest period had expanded individually; middle photo: close up of the dough; right: the dough getting ready to be tapped and rolled as loaf bread. I didn't use the standard loaf pan since the bread got really large! Had to use the insulated cookie pan for this.


5. L to R: the first of two dough balls that was rolled and ready for another rising time; middle part: the two dough balls rolled neatly as they were getting ready to be placed back in the oven- always remember to turn off oven and to just turn on the light~ this is done to keep a warm environment for the dough to rise at its peak; right: the rolled dough covered with moist cotton napkin with a bowl underneath it (filled with warm water). The rolls of dough were left in the oven to rise for one hour.



6. L to R: the two rolls of dough after they expanded- they got stuck together- I can't separate them so I just let them baked as "twins;" middle photo: the baked white bread- I had to separate them in the middle of baking (after 2o minutes) as they needed to expand individually-later I slightly covered them with foil to avoid overbrowning; it was fun to test if it was baked already- it had a hollow sound like a drum! right: the baked bread ready for serving!

7. Above: the final result: white bread ready for eating! It is delicious. The texture is good, crispy of the crust and soft on the inside.

NOTE:

In my previous baking experience, all on-line recipes I went to and (where I uploaded several recipes) instructed readers "to mix flour in slow to medium speed." This is not write since this technique only expands the dough to a minimum when baking bread and the texture is not soft. Slow to medium mixing applies only to baking cakes. The fast speed technique works great for baking bread as the texture becomes soft and smooth and the crust~ crunchy. I have never baked a bread as good as this one.

If you ran out of bread flour do not use all-purpose flour! It would make your dough to be soggy as all-purpose flour has no glutten. But all recipe books and online sites would tell you to use "all-purpose flour" to bake bread. WRONG! Bread flour is used for bread recipes. Just my ten cents' worth of advise from my personal experience since November 2005.

I tried a French baguette recipe from www.foodnetwork.com last January and it was not good. Right after it has cooled, it felt like a rock! Anyhow. Just sharing my disastrous moment with baking here. Online, sometimes they give you a lot of confusing instructions in baking bread. One said to spray the oven with water every 20 minutes to increase the moisture in the bread; another said to bake the French bread with stone slab on the lowest rack of the oven. Mamamia! I have tried this and nothing came true to be good. My best advise: buy reliable recipe books like Betty Crocker's or Home and Garden. You'd learn techniques and enjoy baking. Good luck!

BTW, earlier on in my blog this morning I said that the bread's crunchy crust became soft after I covered the bread with foil when I was cooling it. The remedy: I baked the bread again before serving time for 5 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees Farehnheit; added some cornmeal and presto, it was good as new!