One of the main reason people say they won’t cook from scratch is time. But even if you are busy, appliances like bread makers or slow cookers can help you eat healthy with minimum prep time, and that super fast bread recipe is also proof that it doesn’t take much time to eat well.
First, start by pouring a little pack of dry yeast into a glass of lukewarm water.
I add a pinch of sugar so the yeast starts faster. Leave it for five minutes while you pour six glasses (of the same size, or cups, or whatever measure) of flour into a big bowl, with six tablespoons of salt, and two more glasses of water.
Mix that dough and when you are almost finished, pour the glass of warm water and yeast into the bowl and mix some more.
You should be no more than five minutes in after a few tries. No need to make a perfectly blended dough, just rough mixing is fine. It won’t look pretty.
Leave your bowl to sit in a warm room for three hours, the dough should raise and be a bit mushy.
If your house is cold, you can heat your oven just a little bit and leave the bowl inside a warm (not hot!) oven.
Then leave your dough in the fridge overnight. It now looks bigger and prettier, at least like bread material if you pour it over on your table or tray:
In the morning, pre-heat your oven to the maximum, and prepare a tray for your bread with a little oil in the bottom.
Cut your dough in similar sized loaves so it cooks evenly, and shape the loaves in whatever shape you like. This is my first cut so all the next ones will look the same.
That is another 10 minutes of work there, while you shape the loaves. Handle the dough carefully, as the yeast made little bubbles inside and if you work your dough too much the bubbles will go away and your bread will look like a brick of cement instead of a nice airy piece of bread.
I almost do not shape the bread if I want round buns, if I want the loaves to look like baguettes, I fold the dough in three like you would do a letter to fit in an envelope, then turn the loaf around and do it again, it will spread naturally.
Give the loaves a bit of space as you place them on your greased tray, because they will spread while cooking.
Fill a metal mug with water and place it at the bottom of your hot oven, as you bake your loaves for 45 minutes. It can be a bit less depending on the type of oven you have, you will know it is ready when the loaves are golden and starting to get brown.
That’s it! Take out of the oven, and wait 5 minutes before you eat. I usually make 6 loaves with that recipe, and slice it to keep frozen, then use a toaster oven to toast the slices in the morning.
You can add anything to your bread, put a little cheese inside, some thyme, rosemary, granulated salt on top, etc. If you add a little olive oil, you can use part of that dough to make a pizza base.
If you are too busy to bake your bread on the next day, don’t worry, you can easily keep the dough for a week inside your fridge. It just requires an additional couple of minutes every day, so you take your bowl out of the fridge, fold your dough like it is a dirty diaper, and flip it over before you put it back in the fridge.
I sometimes keep the dough longer on purpose, as I find the slightly sour taste makes the bread even better.
Bon appétit!
We make bread at home but we must handle it too much because we don’t get those nice big air pockets on the inside. The bread isn’t exactly a brick but its a bit harder than we’d like. Looks like we’ll have to try it again and pay attention to how much we handle it. Thanks for the tip!
Probably, or just shape it, let it rest already shaped on the tray for a couple of hours before you put it in the oven.
I’ve been looking for a dough recipe for pizza crust and it sounds like this could work. I also really like the idea of fresh bread as we always just have store-bought bread. Thanks for sharing!
yep, just add some olive oil and you got a pizza crust!
Thanks for sharing the recipe Pauline! We used to do quite a bit of homemade bread, both like this and with our machine but that has been put on hold for awhile with us looking to eat healthier. That said, the machine might be “easier” but we always prefer to do it by hand.
I prefer to oven bake, as baking in the machine only makes soft bread and I like crunchy bread.
This bread is making me hungry! Jacob doesn’t eat bread, so I won’t be able to try this out on him, but I’ll definitely try it out next time I see my parents. My dad is a bread-o-holic!
ha, me too! If I don’t eat bread for a couple of days I feel like I haven’t eaten.
I’m going to have to try that folding technique to get the surface like your baguettes have. I used to make bread a fair bit, but we found out that my spouse has a yeast intolerance, so everything we make now is soda bread and similar. It’s not quite the same as being able to eat real bread and it takes more ingredients!