Artisan Bread 🍞

 First things first.

It’s important that you know that when you deal with bread you need to use grams or oz measurements. Not cups. This is because when making bread someone can have a heavy hand when measuring. Such as someone can sift their flour and others just put the cup in and take it out and some put the cup in and level the top. You will get different amounts with all 3. A good recipe will give you the grams and/or ounces. So invest in a scale for your baking. 

Second, when you make bread you will need to consider what kind you like. Meaning, knead or no knead. I will always do kneaded bread. In my opinion the kneaded bread is superior to the no knead bread. But if you are new to bread making. Go ahead and start with the no knead. It will take longer and may not rise as well as the kneaded bread but it will be far better that the bread you get from the super market. Give it a try, Your family and friends will be sooooo impressed. 

This recipe is a plain white loaf. Crusty outside with a soft airy inside. Exactly what you want.

Ingredients

Bread Flour 567 grams (100%)

Salt 11 grams (2%)

Instant Yeast 3.5 grams (0.65%)

Water (room temperature) 13.5 oz (68%)

(If you want to make a bigger batch or smaller batch use the bakers’ percentages.)

Directions

It’s good practice to have all your ingredients out before hand. If you don’t you may realize you have ran out of something and don’t have it, or you may not have enough. Plus everything is where you need it, when you need it. 

 Start by putting everything in the mixer bowl, flour first then the rest. I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. You can use a bow and your hands or a wooden spoon if you like. If you are using a mixer, use the dough hook.

Set the speed to low and let it run for a moment to start combining everything, then set it to medium speed and let it go another minute or two until combined. It will be a sticky dough when it is done. 

Take it out on to a floured counter. Put some flour on your hands to get it out. 

In this video I will show you how to knead a bread. (This video shows me kneading whole wheat, but the stretch and fold is the same. I do find that the white bread has a lot more stretch as is more sticky.)

After you have kneaded the bread you will have put it in the oiled bowl, covered and let it rest for about 60 min. It should double in size at this point.

Turn it upside down on a piece of parchment paper. Let it fall on its own.

Put some melted butter on top

Using a pastry brush gently brush it to cover the surface.

Make cuts into the dough so it can expand. You can do it however you like. Some do a couple parallel next to each other, some make an X, some make a tic tax toe like I have here. You can be creative here. 

BON APPETIT!!!