I call this recipe the “daily bread” because it’s so quick and easy to make that I make some at least once per week. This is your go-to bread; nothing fancy, nothing tough, just a tasty crumb when you need one. This recipe is also extremely forgiving and is really hard to mess up. While it isn’t suitable for gluten-free diets, this recipe should be otherwise suitable for almost all palates and allergies.
All of the times, quantities, and temperatures mentioned have a lot of flexibility, so don’t sweat it, and try to have fun. You’ll find that you already have the ingredients already.
Ingredients:
- 3 Cups of warm water
- A sprinkle of brown sugar or a dab of honey
- 3 Packets of yeast
- 3 teaspoons sea salt
- 7.5 cups white flour
Instructions:
- Put the sprinkle of sugar or the dab of honey into the bowl with the warm water.
- Add the yeast and mix it into the warm water bowl.
- Add the flour and salt and incorporate it into the bowl. Don’t use your hands, or they’ll get covered in dough!
- Keep incorporating the flour and salt until you have one large clump of dough.
- Lightly flour a kneading surface.
- Plop the large clump of dough onto the kneading surface.
- Start kneading the dough. Knead it for ten minutes, adding small quantities of flour as the bread gets slightly too sticky to neatly knead.
- Once the bread is nicely elastic, split the dough into four pieces.
- Make each piece of dough in the shape that you want. I suggest making it into submarine-shapes so that it looks like a normal baguette. You can do this easily by rolling the dough out, then folding the edges into the middle. Seal up the seam at the center with your fingers, then flip the loaf over.
- Get a towel and cover the loaves for about half an hour and put it in a warm but not hot place.
- Start to preheat the oven by setting it at 450.
- Once the bread has rested for 30 minutes, you can create diagonal slices in the top of the loaves to give it a baguette appearance, if you want. It’s a nice touch, so I usually do it.
- Put the loaves into the oven. Set a timer for 15 minutes, just to be safe.
- Enjoy the smell of fresh bread filling your house.
- Remove your bread from the oven when the timer indicates.
- Tap on the bread to see if it sounds hollow. If it sounds hollow, it’s done!
- Let the bread cool for 10 minutes, then chow down.
This bread is extremely versatile and can be used for anything from sandwiches to making a toast to making bread pudding. If you’re looking to make it a bit more exciting, I suggest adding additional salt, sugar, and perhaps a spice like cinnamon. This recipe renders enough loaves to potentially try a different experiment with each of the four. Don’t feel bad if one of them doesn’t come out quite right. Just remember that making bread should be fun! I used this bread recipe as a “training loaf” for myself to hone my bread making technique, and I hope that it fills that role for you as well.
