White Bread

After the whole Christmas baking bonanza, you might imagine that I'm a bit baked out, and you'd be right. But sometimes necessity spurs one on to action where otherwise inertia might take hold.

I ran out of bread yesterday, and instead of going to treat myself to a nice and expensive loaf of Terra Bread from my local overpriced grocery store, I got off my butt and baked a loaf of basic white bread. The recipe came from my trusty Complete Cook by le Cordon Bleu. The loaf is pretty big.

White Bread

1 tbsp instant yeast
1 tbsp sugar
4 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 - 2 cups water

Instructions here.

When it comes to shaping and rising, I just shaped the dough into a ball and let it rise on a sheet of parchment paper. I sprayed the dough with some cooking oil and covered it with plastic wrap. When the dough had risen enough, I picked it up by the corners of the parchment and lowered it into my trusty KitchenAid cast iron pot, which is what I bake my no-knead bread and Kazakh Family Loaf in. The size of loaf meant a much longer than usual baking time, but in the end I got a nice crusty loaf with a good crumb inside.