Becoming a Breadmeister

Alright.  So last night I was thinking about what to have for breakfast and lunch today and I was at a loss.  Basically, it was a loss of bread.  We have a gallon of chocolate milk.  And my kids love to have bread product with chocolate milk.  Also, we had plenty of sandwich innards.  But no bread anywhere.  Then X is in a simulation of a totalitarian government in his American Problems class at school and his during the simulation his grades will improve if he give gifts to The Party Leaders.  So he had asked me if I would help him make some rolls for that.

So last night at 9pm, I started baking bread.  And it was so fast and easy (and my friend had commented last week wondering about my breadstick recipe) that I thought it was time to compile everything in one mega bread post.  And my disclaimer is that I am not by any means a gourmet type of baker or a bread snob.  I mean, it needs to be delicious, but it also needs to quick and easy.  Below are my go-to recipes that call for no rising or almost no rising.

Loaves of Bread

1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey OR 1/2 cup sugar
3/4 Tbsp salt
2 3/4 cup steaming hot tap water
1/4 cup gluten flour (optional)
1 1/2 Tbsp dough enhancer (optional)
1 1/4 Tbsp instant yeast
7-8 cups whole wheat flour

**The gluten flour and dough enhancer will be found in your grocery store’s bakery aisle.  I have a hard time finding dough enhancer anyplace other than Macy’s grocery store.

Mix together first four ingredients in mixer with a dough hook. Add 3 1/2 cups flour and pulse. In a separate bowl, mix together 1 1/2 more cups of flour, gluten flour, dough enhancer and yeast. Add to first mixture and pulse again. With mixer on medium speed, add remaining flour just until dough pulls clean from the sides of the bowl. Knead for 10 minutes on medium-high speed.

Pre-heat oven to 125 and turn oven off.  (Sometimes I actually leave the oven on to make the bread rise more.) Spray loaf pans with cooking oil spray. Pour dough out on oiled counter, divide and shape into loaves, filling the pans as you go. (This dough is quite sticky. Oil your hands while working with it. I usually just spray cooking spray on my hands and on the surface I’m working on.) Let loaves rise 35 minutes in warmed oven. DO NOT REMOVE BREAD FROM OVEN. Turn oven to 350 F and bake for 30 minutes. Tip out of pans and cool on cooling rack.

Because four loaves fit side by side in my oven and because it takes the same amount of time to make 2 loaves as 4 (20 minutes to mix, 35 minutes to rise, and 30 minutes to bake=about an hour and a half) I always double the recipe.  If you’re going to take 90 minutes to make something, make more is what I always say.

To me, this bread tastes like Great Harvest Bread Company bread.  Also, this recipe works just fine if you substitute half white flour for the wheat flour.  It takes a little more flour if you make it that way so just make sure to stop adding flour as soon as the dough pulls away from the mixing bowl.  I have also made it with all white flour.  Which still works, but the loaves don’t really brown on top and the texture is not quite perfect.  If you don’t have dough enhancer or gluten flour, don’t let that stop you from using this recipe.  In fact, if you take those ingredients off, the recipe is that much simpler.  The dough enhancer is supposed to do something, I can’t remember what, but I’ve never seen a difference with or without it.  If I have it, I use it (extra protein!).  If not, no biggie.  The gluten flour helps keep the whole wheat bread chewy instead of crumbly and brittle.  If you don’t use it, your bread will still work, but you’ll just need to be a little more careful when slicing it.  If you are using a significant amount of white flour, you don’t really need the gluten flour at all.  Confession: I’ve never used honey in this recipe because honey is so dang expensive and a cup of sugar is practically free.

Interestingly, as I was looking for a photo of previous batches of bread (which I couldn’t find!) to add to this post, I saw an old blog post where I had been tweaking this recipe.  Here’s the tweaked (and doubled) recipe that I liked.

5 cups steaming hot water
2/3 cup of oil
2/3 cup honey or 1 cup sugar (I always use sugar because it’s cheap and easier)
3 Tbsps instant yeast
2 Tbsps salt
3 Tbsps dough enhancer or soy protein powder
1/2 cup wheat gluten
12 cups whole wheat flour

So I decreased the water and flour, increased the salt and yeast and then I let it rise for 5-10 minutes longer before baking.  I remember wanting to use as many whole numbers as possible because it was just easier to work with and remember.

Anyway.  Moving on.

Breadsticks and Rolls

2 cups warm water
2 TBSP instant yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
2 tsp salt
6 cups flour

In bowl or mixer add yeast to warm water. Add sugar, oil, egg and salt. Mix. Add flour and mix until you have a nice dough. Divide dough into 8 equal piece. Divide each piece into 4 pieces . On a greased surface roll dough onto snakes. Place 1/4 cup melted butter in a 9X13 metal pan (heat conductivity helps with rising). Roll “snakes” in the butter and place in the pan. 16 bread sticks fit tightly into the pan. Bread sticks do not need to rise. Bake for 20 minutes at 350º.

It’s hard to go wrong when you are cooking something in so much melted butter!  Over the years, I’ve actually decreased the amount of sugar that the recipe calls for, too.  Just because the dough comes out tasting a little too sweet for me.  So I’ve reduced it by a couple of tablespoons.  I basically take my half cup measure and don’t fill it up all the way.

This is the same recipe I use for rolls.  So instead of making snakes, I make balls of dough.  It’s hard to go wrong baking in melted butter, if you know what I mean.  On the other hand, everyone always adds butter to their rolls anyway, so it felt like a waste for me to use when baking.  So now I just use cooking spray.

These are the very rolls I made last night, stuffed with sandwich makings for the perfect lunch slider.

The variations are endless.  I’ve brushed the top of breadsticks with melted butter and garlic.  Most recently,when I took some breadsticks to a potluck, I added in some Italian herbs and seasonings, garlic, and parmesan cheese when I was mixing it up and brought along a side dish of marinara sauce for dipping.  I have used three small balls of dough and placed them in cupcake tins to make a kind of clover leaf roll.  Yesterday, instead of dividing the dough into 32 pieces, I just divided into 16 so I would get larger rolls and baked them on a cookie sheet.  As I was going through and looking for a photo, I found a post where I had made the rolls the night before Thanksgiving.  I sprayed muffin tins with cooking spray AND placed a pat of butter in each tin.  I put the tins in the fridge over night because I didn’t want to bake them until just before we ate, but I didn’t want to worry about mixing them up while we were doing so much other cooking.  Even though the recipe says they don’t need to rise, they will rise of course.  So if you feel patient, let them rise!  Anyway, mine rose overnight in the fridge and when I baked them the next afternoon they were huge and fluffy.

A lot of times I see recipe videos that call for using canned dough products in order to make a quick and tasty dish.  And if you don’t want to spend the money on those expensive things, this is your quick an easy go-to substitution for any of those things.

Pizza Dough

5 cups whole wheat flour
5 cups white flour
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
5 cups warm-hot water

You mix it all together and roll it into a ball.  Then *technically* you are supposed to let your dough rise for 10-15 minutes.  But I prefer to say that you are just letting it sit there and wait for you until after you have prepared your toppings.  Then you divide the dough into five portions and roll it out.  Top with sauce and your preferred toppings and pop into the oven until the crust edges look done.  Like maybe 20 minutes at 425?  I don’t know.  It’s been a long time, actually. Originally, I used this recipe to make a 100% whole wheat pizza dough.  But after a couple years of that, I finally relented to using some white flour and the dough has turned out much better since then.  Once again, you can always add in Italian herbs, cheese and/or garlic to the dough while you are mixing it up, depending on how fancy you want to get.  I’ve also used this recipe (adding 1/3 cup of gluten) to make calzones for school lunches as well.