Our Daily Bread

I’ve adopted a new item in my regular kitchen repertoire. Homemade bread.

This is partly because I’d begun to buy farmers market and Whole Foods bread on a weekly basis, tempted by their chewy crusts and soft interiors and irregularly shaped artisanal charm. My favorites were often the simplest – just flour and water and yeast. So I thought, how hard can it be to throw together a handful of ingredients and come up with a great loaf of bread? Not $4 or $5 worth of hard. I decided to try it myself.

It’s not like I haven’t made bread before—I once sold my loaves at a health food store for summer spending money during college, and I’ve made plenty of bread since then. But my bread baking standard was always to take an afternoon and set it aside for Making Bread. I loved the luxury of unhurried kneading, and the promise of warm, aromatic loaves in exchange for following the structure of a recipe with lots of steps and ingredients in it. The last loaf I made this way was a seven-grain recipe from my sister (thanks, Jean!). It was delicious.

My new ambition is to make delicious without all the fuss. I began by looking up “artisanal bread” on the internet and bingo! There was one of the simplest recipes I’ve ever encountered. Best of all, it helped me break down the process so I feel comfortable ignoring all those steps I so slavishly followed in the past. Now I can start with the basics and if I feel like experimenting (or happen to have that luxurious afternoon), I’ll start adding on.

Distilled to its essence, good bread really is just four ingredients—flour, water, salt and yeast. Even when you knead it by hand, it is unintimidating and simple enough to do in 15 minutes while you’re waiting for your afternoon tea to boil and steep. Last week, I made bread in the time it took to watch Jon Stewart interview President Obama. That internet: first a great bread recipe, then a way to watch the show I’d missed two nights before!

By the way, I realize a bread machine is even simpler, but that takes the magic out of the process. I love pushing the heel of my hand into the silky dough, then turning it gently and rolling it around on the counter top for ten minutes. As I knead, I like to look out the window at the oak tree in my backyard and empty my mind, or think of the people who will slice and butter and eat this bread, warm from the oven or toasted for breakfast. The process becomes a meditation.

Here’s the bread recipe, modified from that web site per my own experience with it. It’s a cinch. And if you comment on the blog (and live near me) I might even make you a loaf.

Basic Bread
yields one loaf

3 cups flour (all unbleached white rises more, but when I make it with 1/3 whole wheat it's still delish and not overly dense)
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons yeast
1 1/8 cup warm water

Stir yeast into water until it's dissolved. Mix in salt, then flour -- first 2-1/2 cups, then add the rest as needed to create a ball of dough that is kneadable -- not too wet (though it's okay if some of it sticks to your hands), but not too dry (you'll know if it's too dry, the flour will sit in the bottom of the bowl and not incorporate if there's too much of it).
Knead it for 10 minutes. Place in a greased bowl (I use olive oil for this) and cover with a damp cloth, set it aside to rise until it doubles in size, maybe an hour. Punch it down and let it rise again. Place in a greased loaf pan or, my preference, on a cookie sheet in the shape you like best, and let rise a third time, maybe 20 minutes or a half hour (not necessary, but my theory is that it'll make it airier). Bake in a 425 degree oven 'til done -- this was only about 20 minutes in my fast oven, but it might be different for yours. Just keep an eye on it. It's done when it makes a hollow sound when you thump the bottom with your finger.