Stand-Mixer White Bread
Since the stand-mixer cheese biscuits were such an unqualified success, we managed to pick up some yeast to facilitate some bread making. First up is some “plain old” white bread. Besides the fact that I am actually white, ango-saxon and (somewhat) protestant (depending on who you ask), I really enjoy fresh white bread. It’s like sugar or a good light beer; melt butter on hot fresh white bread and it’s an experience.
Right after I removed the bread from the oven, I cut off the crust, buttered it and cut it in half to share with my wife. In part, this cements the usefulness of the stand-mixer in the kitchen; and it part it also cements it useful that I use it to make yummy things. The crust on a freshly hot loaf is crunchy and wonderful. You should try it when you make it!
I must say that my first effort exposes my greenness. When I was younger, my family baked bread for sale by the side of the road as one of our more successful creative ventures. We sold bread and pies (along with some other baked goods) to cottagers traveling from the city to (relatively) nearby lake-front cottages. My mothers bread making quickly well known among those that traveled the route.
This was not our only foray into fresh baked bread. It is cheaper by a fair margin to bake bread than to buy it. I’m not clear on why this is — but the economics were consistent. As kids, my sisters and I often boarded the school bus with oven fresh pizzas cooling in paper bags (this would occur when bread was not made the previous day and this was a creative way for our mother to provide us with a nutritious (if jealousy inducing) lunch. I suppose we’re not shy because we know how to defend our lunches? To be fair, I wouldn’t have wished it any other way.
I will say here that I only put a total of 5 cups of white flour into the bowl … and it seems the result is a bit fragile — it could use more structural integrity.
- Heat water in your microwave. If you have a glass measuring cup, you can heat the water in the measuring cup. In my 1200 watt microwave, I used 60 seconds.
- While the water is warming, heat the milk, sugar, salt and butter in a small sauce pan. Low is sufficient. You want the butter to melt and the sugar to dissolve.
- Pour water into mixer bowl, dissolve yeast into water. This should foam a small amount. If it doesn’t your yeast is dead (get new yeast, or give up: your choice).
- pour contents of the sauce pan into the mixer bowl. Add 4 1/2 cups flour, attach your dough hook and use speed two. Apparently, for the dough hook, the speed shall be two. Thou shalt not set the speed to three as the correct speed is two. It may be permissible to use speed 1 for a very short time (especially since it is between “off” and “2”), but the correct speed is two. I have not verified if the universe comes apart at the seams, but according to many sources, the speed of the dough hook is two. Use speed two, or give up: your choice. Really.
- After about 1 minute, the dough will “start to clean the sides” … at this point you add more flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and elastic. I know this is vague. It should also be “slightly” sticky to the touch (although not “very” sticky, I gather). So… but be clear (and thus, less yoda) I added one of the possible 3 half-cups of flour here. I think should have added two of the three. Too much makes the bread “dry” and “heavy” … too little makes it light, tasty, gives it the structural integrity of wet paper. Your choice though: it tasted good.
- After reaching this magic point of flour content, you need another 2 minutes of kneading with the dough hook. Remember that the speed of the dough hook shall be two. This should be somewhat easy, because if you didn’t quit in the last step, the speed should already be two.
- Grease a bowl. I think you could use spray stuff here, but here at DaveG, we like butter. Stick your fingers in some butter and rub down a bowl. Get into your cooking like a man. A weird greasy man… but… eh. next?
- Lower your bowl from the mixer, extract your dough hook. Remove the dough. You can use the dough to “attract” other dough… kinda like a sticky magnet. Place dough in greased bowl and then flip it over — facilitating a coating of grease on the top of the dough.
- Cover your bowl with plastic wrap. Some people use a wet towel. Towels are for people, silly, but I suppose this is yet another reason to have one around. I prefer to reserve my towel and use plastic wrap. Don’t make it too tight. Your bowl needs room for the dough to double in size and some of this can be facilitated by the dough crowning over the bowl (raising the plastic wrap). It’s hard to see in this pic, but the dough occupies the bottom of the bowl.
- Let it rise for 1 hour. It need to be warm for the yeasty-beasties to be happy. Some say 35 C to 45 C. So uncomfortably warm for humans. Too cool and it will either a) take a long time to rise, or b) fail. One suggestion that worked for me was to turn on your oven for about 1 to 1.5 minutes, then turn off. Leave the oven light on, and put the dough in there to rise. Means you can’t be baking anything else, but it’s nice and warm. Elsewise? Be creative. Maybe you have Gro-lamps from one of your other projects? I certainly don’t.
- After your risen dough looks like this next picture, you punch it. It’s fun. Really, you punch it. It deflates. It’s satisfying.
- Grease two baking pans. We used 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch pans. Strange sizes. Metric doesn’t make it better. Since someone randomly decided to buy me some many years ago, I’m going to assume it’s common. Again… put your fingers in some butter … spread it around. It won’t threaten your gender identity. Hrm… can I say that? Maybe greasing things with butter is erotic for some people. Hrnh. Do it anyway.
- Divide the dough in two. I’m not completely neurotic, but I used a scale. In my case it was about 645g per piece.
- Pound the dough flat. Again, rolling pins could have been use to hit the bread, but we have none. You want the dough to be about as wide as the pans you’re using… and maybe 1 1/2 times as long. Roll the dough like a carpet and deposit in the pan. Repeat for the other piece.
- Cover with plastic wrap again and put somewhere warm to rise. Same as before.
- If you used your oven, pull your bread out when it’s double the size. Remove the plastic wrap (unless you consider plastic one of the four food groups (Ref: Night Court). If you put your dough to rise somewhere else, you don’t need to move it, but I’d still remove the plastic (unless you consider it a food group).
- Pre-heat your oven to 400F. Bake bread (or bread and plastic, should you be so inclined) for around 30 minutes. Baked bread sounds hollow when you knock on it is is golden-brown.
- Dump bread out of bread-pan onto a cooling rack. Failure to do so makes soggy bread … so your choice.
On plastic as a food-group and Night Court: Night court is worth watching. Go. The intertubes will still be here when you’re finished. Regardless, at some point, Harry (the judge) has a circus of defendants. I’m being literal here. The Geek (as in eats everything rather than Geek as in fixes-your-computer) of the circus eats Harry’s gavel. Harry says, “Why did you eat my gavel.” The Geek replies, “Wood is one of the four food groups.” Harrry double-takes and asks, “And the others are?” To which the Geek replies “Metal, plastic, and the white stuff you find in twinkies.” Really… if you haven’t seen it, binge watch it somewhere.
Note that I’m not in any way responsible for what you eat. You are responsible for what you put in your mouth. In fact, I’m neither recommending you do or don’t eat anything. I’m on the intertubes, for gosh’s sake. You’re pretty much off your rocker if you’re listening to anything I say… But, then, if you do something truly dumb, you might as well make a video to edify others. Link it up! I must be amused!
On doubling the recipe: According to the documentation with my large Stand-Mixer, which is the 475W model, it can handle a recipe with 14 cups of flour. using the lower of the 5–6 cups of flour recomendation, you can make 5 loaves or 12.5 to 14 cups of flour. Note that this would be 12.5 to 15 cups of flour, but 15 cups is aparently too much for the motor. The manual also notes that you require the 6 qt bowl (and dough hook) to make a recipe with more than 12 cups of flour, which would limit you to doubling the recipe.
Those of you with large biceps that want to try this by hand (or those of you with a large commercial mixer) can do as you please. I suppose one of those cement mixers from the rent-all might do a big load. Or we could graft a much bigger motor onto one of these things. But in all Tim Taylor tradition, you’re responsible for your own actions. Don’t blame me if something literally blows up. Just make sure you make a video for you-tube for me. I’m bored.
Thanks for sharing the recipe. This Sunday I will try this recipe and give you a feedback.