My no-fuss bread recipe
#cooking #recipe #sliceOfLife #sliceOfBread
30th of September 2021
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What do making bread and programming have in common? I have only a vague idea what I’m doing most of the time.
So here it is, most inaccurate recipe for making bread. I made it once, it went ok, I did it several times with basically the same approach and it kinda works.
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I hate working with dough because it’s so unpredictable. I strongly believe that bakers are some kind of mages, whispering incantation over yeast, holding sermons for its rising, perhaps including some animal sacrifices and 00’s emo music.
I also don’t like how making dough feels like. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. So my favorite thing about this recipe is that I don’t have to touch it. Everything is mixed in a bowl and then just poured (yes poured, we’ll get to it) into a baking mold. Another benefit is that the kitchen is not covered in flour.
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Since only acceptable online recipes contain images, I took some low-light images in the spirit of the recipe. Let’s get to it!
You take a large bowl, put it on a scale, and sift in 500g of flour. I don’t know what different flour does, so I use white of indeterminate kind. Also, sifting the flour might not be necessary, I just heard that it helps with something. Maybe fluffiness? Wouldn’t know.
Add to it whatever you want. Well, not just whatever, some things are necessary - add a dash of salt, a packet of dried yeast, and then what feels right. This time I added a smidge of chia seeds, a dollop of sesame seeds (roast them for extra flavor), some sunflower seeds, and a smaller bunch of rolled oats. Be careful of oats, since they suck in water. Maybe that would make it dryer. Or maybe not. I base these observations on oatmeal being more watery at the beginning than at the end.
Mix it all together and then add 0.5l of warm to hot water mixed with a sprinkle of olive oil. About the temperature of the water. I heard somewhere, that warm water helps yeast do its thing. But that too hot is not good. And that cold is not good. But sometimes you need ice water when baking. But probably not in this case.
Some say, that you need to add wet parts to dry parts while baking slowly during mixing. I find that tiring. I just pour it in and then wangjangle everything together for some minutes. When I’m tired I stop.
The consistency should be kinda like a waffle mix. Runy, but not too much. You leave that be for…let’s say an hour? If it’s more, can’t hurt, I guess. You’ll see some bubbles forming. That’s a good sign that yeast is working.
Heat your oven to 190°C, put one large pan in the middle. Then get your container in which you make bread, put a sheet of parchment paper in, pour the dough in it, and once the oven is hot, put it inside on the large hot pan.
The next step is the most important one! Make or break! Take a glass of hot water. Like half of a regular-ish glass. Once the dough is in the oven, pour the water on the large pan on which you put the thingy with the dough. Quickly close the oven and then close the oven. Do not open it again until the bread is done.
I bake it for 75 minutes (again, 190°C) and then I stop. Don’t do the toothpick test if something gets stuck to it. It will. I baked it for 250 minutes already, it was burned on the outside, and the toothpick still wasn’t clean.
I didn’t die yet, so you probably won’t either.
Wait for it to cool. Or don’t. My mom told me you shouldn’t eat hot bread, because it would make your stomach hurt. But she also said, that I shouldn’t eat potatoes the next day, rice the next day, that I shouldn’t rewarm meat, potatoes, rice, fish, or mushrooms. But here we are. You do you.
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