Easy Bread Making

A loaf of spongy sliced bread cost around $3. And it is so disappointing...

When I have the time and the mood is right I like to make my own bread. It isn't very hard. It just takes the right equipment, ingredients. patients and practice.

Making bread yourself is also really cheap. 5 pounds of all purpose flour cost $1.69. I bought 2 pounds of yeast on Amazon.com for less than $10.  The only really expensive thing I use is my Le Creuset enamelware dutch oven that I bought on Ebay 8 years ago for $75 dollars.

Side notes: I would not buy yeast in 2 pound bags again-- 2 pounds of yeast is way more than I can use in a year. A half pound would be ideal for my needs I just haven't found it like this as of yet.
 But even with the 2 pound pack I'm still saving money; The 3 pack of individual packets you see at the grocery store is really over priced-- I think it cost around $2 last time I bought them.



The first recipe I tried was New York Times published Jim Lahey recipe.  It really makes a great loaf of bread for little work. The big down side is that start to finish can be around 20 hours.  I found making the dough right before bed works best. Letting it proof over night and all the next day so that when I come home from my night classes I can do the shaping and final proofing and then the baking.

Recipe Notes:

• I've found that adding 1/4 teaspoon more salt made the bread even better
• My apartment's kitchen is kind of cold overnight during winter and spring making the rise time of the dough longer. To aid the yeast I found that if I put the covered dough in my gas oven the heat from the pilot light makes it a good proofing box. 

Next bread: Sourdough