Two Easy Bread Recipes

I love bread.  Oh man, do I love bread.  If anyone ever came up to me and asked my input on a newer, better food pyramid, it would look like this:

Which, upon reflection, sort of explains why no one's come to ask me to help out in that respect.


But it doesn't change the fact that I know bread.  And over the years, it's become more and more physically painful to eat store brand WonderBread (which fits our budget), and more and more irresponsible to buy four to six dollar a loaf artisan bread (which fits my concept of a good and loving God).  So I figured the only way to reconcile these two needs was to learn to bake the darn stuff myself.


And in fact, one day while doing just that, I calculated that each loaf of delicious, artisan-grade bread cost me less than twenty cents to make.  Including utilities (but not counting labor, since I'm happy to be paid in decent bread).  Twenty cents!


Over time, I've collected lots and lots of bread recipes.  Some of them are really good.  Some are awful.  Some are too labor intensive to justify "eh" taste.  Some are labor intensive and DO have a taste to justify it.  Today, I was asked to share some of them with you.


The first one isn't a "proper" bread.  There's no kneading, no proofing, no punching down.  It's a savory quick bread (which means you stir it and make a batter rather than a dough).  It's easy, and while more costly than my every day, go-to bread (recipe to follow), it is really, really delicious.  I serve it when we have chili or soup.

Cheddar and Chive Beer Bread

• 3 cups self-rising flour (if you don't have self-rising flour, don't worry.  Make your own with 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt for every cup of flour you use.  So this would be 4 1/2 t. baking powder and 1 1/2 t. salt added to the flour)
• 1/2 scant cup ("scant"= not quite full) sugar
• 1 bottle of beer (use beer you like the taste of)
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cups sharp cheddar
• 2 tablespoons of chives
• Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all dry ingredients.  Add beer.  Pour into greased loaf pan.  Bake for 45 minutes, then pour melted butter over top, bake 10 more minutes or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove, let cool 5 minutes, turn out onto plate.  Serve immediately.

The next recipe is my every day bread.  You can do so many things with this bread.  Make it plain for sandwich bread, put basil or oregano in it, shoot, I've even put crushed pineapple in it (it wasn't as good as you'd think).  If you have a stand mixer, use it!  If not, you're going to have to knead it by hand, and maybe adjust the flour levels, but it'll still be good.

Everyday Bread

• mix 3 cups warm (not hot) water, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of yeast into a bowl.  Swirl the mixture to get the yeast all warm and fed and happy.  Let the yeast cream for about five minutes.  When it's ready, it'll look something like this:

(oh, and p.s., file this picture under "the things I do for you", since googling an image of "what does yeast look like when it creams" resulted in about five pictures of infected vaginas.  So you were spared that.)

• to the mixture, add one tablespoon salt (garlic or shallot salt is really good, too) and 2 teaspoons whatever herbs you want to try (or skip the herbs and keep it simple).  Add four cups of flour, and with your stand mixer or a hand mixer (you'll need one of them for this bread), mix the dough until it's smooth.  It will be runny and very sticky at this point.  Just get it as smooth as possible.
• let it rest in the bowl for about 15 minutes
• add three more cups of flour and either knead with the dough hook attachment on your mixer, or turn it out onto a floured surface and knead by hand.  Knead until it's smooth and elastic.
• Put dough into a bowl, and stick it someplace warm- but not hot.  I turn on the light in my oven and stick it in there.  Wait for it to double (about an hour).
• Punch down the dough.  This is exactly what it sounds like.  Make a fist, and punch the hell out of the dough.  Revel in the squishy poofiness of your attack.
• Heat oven to 450, put a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven.
• Divide the dough into two portions.  Form each loaf into a vague football shape.  I line a baking sheet with parchment  paper, and put the loaves on the sheet.  I also cut three horizontal lines into each loaf.
• While the oven heats, let the loaves rise.
• Put sheet in oven, cook for about 20 minutes.
• Eat.

Here's the thing with making your own bread.  Don't be scared.  If you think it's too sticky, add a little more flour.  If you think it's too dry, add a little more water.  Really, the only way you're going to mess it up is if you forget to add the salt, and then you'll have two loaves of bland, tasteless glah.  Otherwise, even if it looks ugly, you still have fresh bread, warm from the oven.  How can that ever be a bad thing?


And the best way I've found for judging if a loaf is done or not is by knocking on the bottom.  If it sounds hollow, it's done.  


I wish I had a video for you, or at least pictures, but there's seven Cub Scouts who are going to descend upon the house in about 26 minutes, so it'll have to wait for another time.


BonAppetit!