SO EASY! HOMEMADE BREAD RECIPE

After researching and checking numerous recipes on the internet (lots of them very convoluted even for basic breads), I’m posting this easy recipe for homemade bread. I’m attaching photo of the final product. I hope this recipe is clear and useful for you!

INGREDIENTS:

-2 1/3 cups of unbleached bread flour (it has to be bread flour and not all-purpose flour)

- 1 packet (7gr - ¼ oz. It’s approx. a half of a tablespoon) of active dry yeast. Don’t use baking powder since the final result would be some kind of pizza dough and not bread (although this kind of pizza dough is delicious).

- 3 teaspoon of salt

- 1 teaspoon of sugar

- 1 2/3 cups of lukewarm water (please not hot, we are not making Spanish churros!). You can always add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the water to bring a Mediterranean flavor to the bread.

*Important: you need parchment paper for this recipe.

1/ In a big bowl, mix 2 cups of flour, yeast, salt and sugar together with  a spoon or a fork.

2/ Pour the lukewarm water into the bowl and immediately mix all of the contents together with one of your hands. Now  add the remaining 1/3 cup of flour. Continue mixing the contents together. What we are looking for at this point is that all of the ingredients become evenly mixed. This will take a few minutes. At this stage the dough will be super sticky and inconsistent (like a piece of melted chewing gum).

3/ Time to start kneading. Before starting, it is very important to have a bowl with 1 cup of flour on hand. Dust the area of the table (or a large wooden board) where you are going to knead the bread thoroughly with flour, spreading it evenly over the surface. Now pour the dough on the table by tilting the bowl and pulling it out with the hand you used to mix the ingredients. Before starting the kneading process, dust the top with a little flour (remember that the dough is sticky and we don’t want to start stuck to the dough). In the kneading process some pieces of dough will stick to your fingers and on the table. This is inevitable. Dust the table and the dough occasionally with some flour to reduce stickiness (you can also use a spatula or a scraper to turn and unstick the dough from the table). Little by little the dough will be getting more consistent. The kneading process approximate time is 10 minutes and the flour used of the cup you have at hand will be a bit more than 1/2 (the remaining flour in the cup will be use to dust the table on the next steps of this recipe). And you are asking me now, how do you knead? The following is the most basic way: with your two hands grab the further side of the dough from you and fold it towards you as a book. Then, push against the dough using the lower part of the palms of your hands and right away spin the dough a half turn clockwise. Please note that the end of the kneading process the dough will still be very sticky but not as much as when you started the kneading process. Place the dough in a bowl (it can be the same one you used for mixing the ingredients) and cover it with a kitchen tea cloth (it is not necessary that the cloth touch the dough). Let it sit for 1 hour in a place that is not cold.

4/ Take out the dough from the bowl again and place it on the table that has been thoroughly dusted with flour again (to avoid the dough sticking to the surface) and slightly knock a few times on the dough (you can use your knuckles) to get rid of some air inside. Again, place the dough in the bowl, cover it with the tea cloth and let it sit for another 20 minutes. After the 20 minute period, the dough is almost ready to be placed in the oven. So, 5 minutes before that period finishes, preheat the oven at a temperature of 440ºF (225ºC approx.).

5/ Ok, those 20 minutes are already over! Now place the dough on the table (again, thoroughly dusted with flour) and without moving it again, shape it carefully just a bit with your hands. You can also make some cuts on its surface with a knife (for example an X) to have those marks on the final bread. Lastly, to give the bread a rustic look, you can dust with a bit of flour on top of the dough.

6/ Now with the help of your two hands (one on each side of the dough – you can also use one hand and the other one with the spatula or the scraper) take the dough and place it on the baking tray which should already have a sheet of parchment paper on it. Please note that we need parchment paper and not wax paper, since the second one is not for baking purposes.

7/ Before placing the baking tray with the dough in the oven, spray the inside of the oven with water.

8/ Place the baking tray in the oven on the medium rack and allow it to bake for 32-35 minutes at the same temperature of 440ºF (225ºC approx.). If at the last minutes the crust starts getting too brown, place on top of the bread an aluminum foil sheet.

9/ When you take the bread out of the oven, don’t leave it on the baking tray. Transfer it to a wooden board or a cooling rack but please be careful! The bread is very hot. Don't cut the bread or eat it right away. Give it at least 20 min to cool down.

BUENISIMO!

#buenisimowithdanielbuenos