Even an old man can learn to bake bread
Who says you can’t teach an old dog (or man) new tricks? This is my “learning to bake bread” for beginners post.
I decided to learn how to bake bread and rolls. And to be honest, I wanted to recreate my grandmother’s delicious dinner rolls. Unfortunately, I waited until I was 73 to try. I think I have learned how to bake pretty good bread for a beginner. It’s only taken about a half-dozen tries. (And hours watching videos) Enough chit-chat, let’s get started.
This is a small batch recipe, just for practice, but the results have been delicious.
How to get started making bread
you need:
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 cup of warm water
- 1 packet of active dry yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 3 or 4 pats of butter (1/8 th of a stick)
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 mixing bowl
- 1 vacuum for the floor
- some time when your wife is not home
Creating the dough
Add the yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar to the warm water and stir them a little. Let them sit for a few minutes to make sure the yeast is good. You can tell because it will start to make a foam head in the water.
Put 2 cups of flour in the bowl and add the warm, almost melted, butter. Also add in the rest of the sugar and the salt.
now, stir up the flour , salt, sugar and butter until mixed.
pour in 3/4 of the cup of yeast and water and stir. As you stir the mosture will slowly pickup all the flour in the bowl. If, as you stir, the mixture does not pickup all of the flour,, drip in a little more. The idea is to put in just enough to make the dough .
Too much water will make it too sticky, so be careful at this point. If it is too sticky to touch without getting it all over your hands, add in a little flour. The goal is to get it just a little bit sticky. Who knew learning to bake bread could be so messy.
You Knead dough
Next , I kneaded the dough. With my hands I pushed it out , stretching it and then folded it over, turning it a about 90 degrees and doing it again. I continued this about 7 minutes until the dough felt smooth.
At this point I lightly greased the bowl and put the dough in. I coveredit with a plte and put it in the barely warm oven for abut an hour. What you want is to have the dough double in size. Ususlly an hour of so will do it.
After the dough doubled I cut it into 6 parts and rolled them into “roll” shape.You can cut it into smaller pieces or put it into a “loaf” shaped pan., but I just wanted big sandwich rolls.
Baking bread
I baked them at 360 degrees for 20 minutes, but I think it should have been closer to 400 degrees. They turned out great anyway but were just not as brown on the top as I would have liked.
Naturally, if you bake them at higher temperature, you will cut the time a few minutes. I am learning to just watch the color of the bread to see if they are done. If you have more questions check out this site Questions about bread
Try it yourself. But watch the clock. You have to clean up the mess before your wife gets home!
