In Search for Perfect Bread (Part II)

Intro

This is another attempt at making good and simple bread. This time I used bread maker for mixing the dough. This saves some time as compared when you do everything by hand.


Ingredients

• 4 cups of flour (King Arthur Bread Flour)
• 2 tablespoon of sugar (TSP, not teaspoon)
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt (tsp, not TSP)
  
• 2 teaspoon of dried yeast (again I used bread maker yeast)
• 1 tablespoon of butter (TSP)
• 1 and 1/2 cup of warm water
• 1 additional tablespoon of butter (TSP) used later when preparing the dough for baking.
  

Preparing

Put the ingredients into a bread maker. Set it to the dough and let it mix it. For the first 10-15 minutes check the mixture. If it is too dry add some warm water. If it is too sticky add some flour. After it makes a nice round non-sticky ball. Let the bread maker do the rest for you. It takes about one to one and a half hour to get the dough.

When the dough is ready, take it out of the bread maker. Punch it down and knead it for about 2 minutes. Now you are ready to shape the loafs. This time, we used th whole dough for a single large circular loaf. We put some batter and flour on the baking pan. The "art" of baking for the loaf as seen in the picture was done by my wife this time.

We spread the dough here flat and put some warmed butter on it and then fold it three times. You can imagined that it looked like a three layers of dough slightly separated by thin layer of butter. You do not need much of butter here. Maybe one tablespoon (TSP). When handing dough put some flour on your fingers.

Let it sit in the baking pan for another hour. It will start rising again. It should be at least two times the size when you put it in the pan. After an hour or so, you can turn on the oven to 380F (around 230 Celsius) and bake it for about 35-40 minutes. Keep an eye on the color. It should become golden brown and you should be able to tell it is done by gentle tapping on it.

Again, as you can see in the picture, we used broiling feature of my oven (550F at the top) for last minute or two to get the dark color at the top (I love the taste of it). Do not overdo this or you can burn your perfect loaf of bread too much.

Once baked, take it out. Sprinkle the loaf with some water and wrap it into clean cloth. Let it cool on wire rack.


This one is little easier to make as compared to doing everything by hand. I have to admit it is same fun to eat it :) This one went into great sandwiches with sour cream spread on it and some Boars Head bologna and smoked beef.