Basic Sandwich Bread Recipe
Ingredients
500g bread flour
12g salt
1 tsp instant yeast
20g olive oil
350g room temp water
Time
Bake Time: 40-50 minutes
Total Time: ~ 4 hours
Process
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together bread flour, salt, and yeast.
Pour over the olive oil, then with the dough hook attached, turn mixer on low and slowly pour in the water.
Once all the dry ingredients have been incorporated (you may need to pause and scrape the bowl with a spatula), turn the speed up to medium and let it knead for ~8-10 minutes. The dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl and it will not break as easily when you pull at it gently with your fingers.
Remove dough from the bowl and form into a ball. Place the dough ball back into the bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let it rise at room temperature for ~2 hours, or until the dough has roughly doubled in size. Lightly grease a 1 lb loaf pan.
Loosen the dough with a scraper and turn out onto a very lightly floured surface. Gently deflate the dough with your fingertips, starting near the center and working your way toward the edges.
Shape the dough into a loaf. There are many ways to do this, but this is one of the simplest and most reliable. Use ONLY as much flour as you need to keep the dough from sticking to the counter. Fold the left and right sides of your now-large circle of dough to create a point toward you/the edge of the counter (should look like a “V” now, with the wider side a little bit smaller than the width of your loaf pan). Starting at the side closest to you, roll up the dough until you end up with a dough cylinder with a spiral in the middle. Place your shaped loaf into the greased loaf pan with the seam-side down, slightly shaking the pan side-to-side if you need to even-out its position. Proof for ~1 hour, or until the dough very slowly starts to spring back when poked with a finger tip (it shouldn’t spring back 100%).
About 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375F with a roasting pan in the bottom. Boil a kettle of water, place the proofed loaf in the center of the center rack, and very carefully poor the boiling water into the preheated roasting pan. Bake for 40 minutes, then remove the roasting pan and the loaf from the bread pan. Place the loaf directly on the center rack and continue baking another 5-10 minutes, until the crust lightly browns (internal temperature should be 190-205F).
Remove and place on a wire rack until cooled.
My Talkie Business
I HATE when food-related blogs make you scroll through a dissertation-worth of text to get to their recipes. If and/or when we put up a recipe here, we’re gonna put that crap right up at the top of the post. So, here you go ^^
Couple of points here:
FIRST - This is a base recipe that can be fiddled with endlessly. I usually replace between 10 and 30% of flour with a whole grain flour — the one here has 30% white whole wheat. Much more than that and the process needs to change a bit, as these flours have a lot of bran that cuts through the gluten in the dough. If it’s whole wheat, I like 30%. If it’s something like rye, I go no more than 10% or it will get really sticky.
SECOND - Make the bread you like to eat. No matter what that is, it will be WAY more tasty (and healthy) than what you can find at the store, so do it. No shame ‘round here. This is a white bread recipe, and it’s freakin’ good with sandwiches or toasted with butter.
THIRD - The steam actually makes a big difference. The idea is: we are trying to allow the dough to rise as much as it possibly can before the outer layer caramelizes and firms up into the crust. The steam keeps it nice and moist, which helps. BUT... if you don’t take it out then it won’t brown.
AND LEST WE FORGET: BROWN IS NOT BURNT! BROWN IS FLAVOR!
FOURTH - If you don’t have a stand mixer, no big. Just mix the dough together with your bare hand until it starts to come together (step 3), then turn it out onto the counter and knead by hand. I love kneading, so it’s worth the time and effort.
