Wednesday, December 20, 2017

3 lb Country White Bread


This is a recipe that Raymond has tinkered with. Originally used for bread machine-bread, I much prefer cooking bread on sheets or pans vs. bread-machine. This is a good solid loaf bread, great structure for sandwiches, soft enough to eat on it's own with butter.


Pro-tip: you can make bread kits by combining just the salt, sugar, cocoa, espresso, and dried milk into little baggies and keep them on hand to speed things up.

3 lb Country White Bread

Ingredients:
1 tsp salt + pinch
1 Tbs sugar
1/2 tsp cocoa
1 Tbs instant espresso powder
3 Tbs dried milk
5.5 cups flour

1 Tbs honey
3-4 Tbs salted butter
scant 1 tsp yeast
2 cups water, luke-warm

Instructions:
1. In small bowl, combine honey, butter, yeast, and luke-warm water. Let sit for 10 minutes until top is foamy.
2. In a large bowl, combine salt, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, dried milk, and flour in a large bowl.
3. Add liquid to dry ingredients and combine well. Once ingredients are incorporated, dump onto a counter and knead bread for 5 minutes, until smooth and tacky.
4. Cover bowl with warm damp tea towel and let sit until dough doubles in size (~1 hour depending on the temperature of your home and how happy your yeast is).
5. After your bread has doubled, punch it down, give it a minute or two of kneading on a lightly-floured surface, then place into 2 buttered loaf pans. Cover both with a damp tea towel, and let both rise again until doubled in size.
6. Pre-heat oven to 350F, and bake loaves for 30 minutes.
7. Once finished baking, remove loaves from baking pans and let rest on drying rack for 30 minutes to allow inside to finish cooking.

Serving suggestion: fresh sliced thick and drizzled heavily with sweetened condensed milk and melted chocolate/nutella.