Allen's Guide to Mess-less Bread making:
Ingredients: any Flour, salt, yeast, any cooking oil(optional), and a smidge of sugar, plus water, 1 gallon size+ Ziploc bag or 2.5 Gallon for large batches(Slider types work best for me). For Pizza Hut Pan style dough substitute milk/soymilk/almond milk for water and use 90% all purpose flour 10% any other flour you like, or 100% all purpose.
Not recommended:
Should you like washing dishes please feel free to use a mixer, bowls, utensils, measuring devices, floured kitchen surfaces, and kitchen towels. Please wash your hands before and after touching your dough the old way of making bread had me washing my hands 10 times per batch, should you enjoy all of these things do not continue reading.
1) Dump as much flour as you want into the Ziploc(50% full ziplock is the max capacity), add about a tsp'ish salt per pound flour, add 1 packet yeast(or buy in bulk and shake in a whatever amount), add a tsp of sugar, shake dry contents, add water until the mix looks well covered in the bag.
2) Shake your mix until well hydrated and evenly mixed, mush out your lumps, if your mix feels softer than body fat, add some more flour until it feels like a relaxed toned muscle from your teen years. Soft mixes are fine too and used in many bread types think Schlotzkys or Pizza Hut pan pizza. At this point add a bit of oil and knead it through to clean up your bag. I think it is impossible to mess up one of humanity's oldest recipes.
3) Once you are happy with your mix's consistency burp out the air, and forget about it all for 30 plus minutes until the bag is full of air from the yeasts action. If it is cold in the house you can warm it through body heat if needed, or use a closed oven with the light on, or just warm it however you like in winter I like to incubate it “on mah belly!”.
4) Now you have your first rise press the gas out of the dough pay attention to how soft it feels here as it is a guide for how much kneading you want to do, you basically want to double its firmness by massaging(the only way to mess up this step is to trap the dough in a corner of the bag and squeeze until your bag corners burst) and folding it on itself in the bag until it only wants to stick to itself and not the bag, this step usually only takes about 3-5 minutes tops, and leaving some airspace in your bag makes this step easier. If it is still clinging to the bag after kneading add a tiny bit of oil. I personally do this step on average 2-3 times and stop once the yeast is acting on the dough very aggressively and poofing out my ziplock in under 15 minutes.
5) Let dough rest 10mins, grease your pans, or place parchment paper on whatever you want to bake in. I prefer parchment paper as it is less work and nothing at all to clean. Wash hands, manhandle/form dough as desired, or just dump it into your greased bread pan. For Pan pizzas after greasing the skillet add in 30ml(2 TBSP) of oil to pan then dump on your dough and form it to your pan. Wait for it to rise(double in size this step can be done in the fridge if not in a hurry) top with ingredients and bake(Can be deep fried, pan seared, steamed in a geyser vent, baked in a solar oven, or dutch oven. Just heat until done).
Huge loaves 400F for 45mins, bread rolls/muffins 375F for 22mins(tasty tip for rolls add a small amount of oil in the form under the roll), normal loaves 400F for 30mins. Or just use a thermometer and it is done at 190-200F, pan pizza's 475F until it looks right, 12ish minutes.
Experiment, experiment, experiment! Try different flours, start your own sourdough starter, forget about it too long and bake with tired yeast all of it works. I have yet to have a complaint registered for making fresh bread.
NOT GLUTEN FREE
Ingredients: any Flour, salt, yeast, any cooking oil(optional), and a smidge of sugar, plus water, 1 gallon size+ Ziploc bag or 2.5 Gallon for large batches(Slider types work best for me). For Pizza Hut Pan style dough substitute milk/soymilk/almond milk for water and use 90% all purpose flour 10% any other flour you like, or 100% all purpose.
Not recommended:
Should you like washing dishes please feel free to use a mixer, bowls, utensils, measuring devices, floured kitchen surfaces, and kitchen towels. Please wash your hands before and after touching your dough the old way of making bread had me washing my hands 10 times per batch, should you enjoy all of these things do not continue reading.
1) Dump as much flour as you want into the Ziploc(50% full ziplock is the max capacity), add about a tsp'ish salt per pound flour, add 1 packet yeast(or buy in bulk and shake in a whatever amount), add a tsp of sugar, shake dry contents, add water until the mix looks well covered in the bag.
2) Shake your mix until well hydrated and evenly mixed, mush out your lumps, if your mix feels softer than body fat, add some more flour until it feels like a relaxed toned muscle from your teen years. Soft mixes are fine too and used in many bread types think Schlotzkys or Pizza Hut pan pizza. At this point add a bit of oil and knead it through to clean up your bag. I think it is impossible to mess up one of humanity's oldest recipes.
3) Once you are happy with your mix's consistency burp out the air, and forget about it all for 30 plus minutes until the bag is full of air from the yeasts action. If it is cold in the house you can warm it through body heat if needed, or use a closed oven with the light on, or just warm it however you like in winter I like to incubate it “on mah belly!”.
4) Now you have your first rise press the gas out of the dough pay attention to how soft it feels here as it is a guide for how much kneading you want to do, you basically want to double its firmness by massaging(the only way to mess up this step is to trap the dough in a corner of the bag and squeeze until your bag corners burst) and folding it on itself in the bag until it only wants to stick to itself and not the bag, this step usually only takes about 3-5 minutes tops, and leaving some airspace in your bag makes this step easier. If it is still clinging to the bag after kneading add a tiny bit of oil. I personally do this step on average 2-3 times and stop once the yeast is acting on the dough very aggressively and poofing out my ziplock in under 15 minutes.
5) Let dough rest 10mins, grease your pans, or place parchment paper on whatever you want to bake in. I prefer parchment paper as it is less work and nothing at all to clean. Wash hands, manhandle/form dough as desired, or just dump it into your greased bread pan. For Pan pizzas after greasing the skillet add in 30ml(2 TBSP) of oil to pan then dump on your dough and form it to your pan. Wait for it to rise(double in size this step can be done in the fridge if not in a hurry) top with ingredients and bake(Can be deep fried, pan seared, steamed in a geyser vent, baked in a solar oven, or dutch oven. Just heat until done).
Huge loaves 400F for 45mins, bread rolls/muffins 375F for 22mins(tasty tip for rolls add a small amount of oil in the form under the roll), normal loaves 400F for 30mins. Or just use a thermometer and it is done at 190-200F, pan pizza's 475F until it looks right, 12ish minutes.
Experiment, experiment, experiment! Try different flours, start your own sourdough starter, forget about it too long and bake with tired yeast all of it works. I have yet to have a complaint registered for making fresh bread.
NOT GLUTEN FREE
Procrastination is my superpower, what's yours?