Tuesday, January 06, 2009

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.

5 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

This loaf looks really appetizing! Wonderful!

Cheers,

Rosa

Meg said...

I would love a warm piece of this right now!

Emily Rose said...

what a beautiful loaf! I have been craving fresh bread with a lot of butter (healthy I know...) and your picture hasn't helped any!!

Joanna said...

there is nothing like homemade bread. i don't even buy it anymore because i love making my own... well, my bread machine does most of the work.

i didn't know you could bake bread in a cast iron pot. that's so cool.

Judith said...

Did you bake it with the lid on? or did you spray it with water or put a pan of hot water in the oven?
It's a wonderful looking loaf!

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