Bread

This recipe is for a French style white bread.
Bread is a truly significant food that can evoke strong feelings.  Over the millennia, all the cultures
that rose from Indoeuropean roots have looked upon bread as "the staff of life".  I have a young friend
named Christin who would rather eat bread made with this recipe than anything else at all.  She begs
her parents to make it for her.  When I was a child and my sister and I visited our grandmother we
always asked her to bake bread for us which prompted her to laugh and say "But it's only bread!"  To us
it was ambrosia.  The smell of bread baking suggests home and well-being; real estate agents recommend
taking a loaf hot out of the oven before showing a house to a prospective buyer.  Bread purchased
fresh from a real bakery, one that takes pride in their craft, is good but does not even come close to
what you can make yourself.  Supermarket bread does not bear discussing.  In spite of all this, very few
people bake bread regularly.  It is believed to be difficult and time-consuming, just too much trouble for
contemporary life.
This is a myth.  I bake bread once a week or more often.  It only takes a few minutes of actual work, it's
easy and enjoyable, the ingredients are inexpensive, and my home often has really good, really fresh
bread on the table.  Try it.  It will make a difference in your home.

The brand of flour you use is important.  In the US I prefer King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour or
High Altitude Hungarian Flour, or Pillsbury unbleached all-purpose flour as a second choice.  Do not use
bread flour: it is made with ingredients that make the dough rise more rapidly but these ingredients detract
from the flavor of the bread.  Take a look at about yeast and find out before you buy and bake.  You will
save money and get better results.
I am going to give two methods here: a two hour method and an all day method.  They both will make very
good bread.  The longer one yields better bread and does not require your attention all day long.  It requires
brief periods of attention all day long and those brief periods can be arranged to fit your schedule or even
deferred to a more convenient time or even a later date with no loss in the quality of the bread.  In fact it
gets better.  Why not try the two hour recipe first?

I suggest you use your microwave oven as a warm moist chamber to prove your sponge and for your dough
to rise.  Fill a quart glass jar with water and heat it for about five minutes in your microwave oven while you
are measuring out flour and water and making up the sponge.  This warm water will keep the microwave
oven warm and moist during proofing and rising times.  The water should be from 100F to 150F (40C to 65C).

Ingredients
Three cups (360g) of flour measured out into a four cup (1000ml) measuring cup
One cup (250ml) of water measured out into a one and one half quart (1500ml) or
larger bowl or plastic food storage container
Use two teaspoons (10ml) yeast for the all day bread
Use three teaspoons (15ml) for the two hour bread.
One half or one teaspoon (2.5 or 5ml) of salt, to taste

Making the Sponge
Mix the salt into the flour with a whisk or spoon.  Do this right in the measuring cup.  Temporarily remove
the quart jar of water and warm the cup of water in the food storage container to 85F (30C) or so in your
microwave oven.  This cup of water should be warm but not hot to the touch.  I like to do this in my
microwave oven because it's fast and simple.  It takes about twenty seconds in my microwave oven but
yours may be faster or slower.  I also like to measure the water's temperature with my digital thermometer
but there is no real need for such precision.  Baker's yeast will thrive from 75F (25C) to 95F (35C) with the
rise time shortened at higher temperatures.  Replace the quart jar and make the sponge: sprinkle the yeast
onto the surface of the warm water, avoiding clumping - it is tedious getting wet yeast unclumped.  Whisk
the yeast into the water.  Add about one half cup flour/salt mixture and whisk in until you have a slurry about
as thick as pancake batter.  Put the sponge, whisk and all, into the microwave.  The plan here is that the
microwave oven will never be turned on while the metal whisk is inside it.  The microwave oven will be
powered on to rewarm the quart jar of water when the sponge and eventually the dough are on the counter,
not in the microwave oven.  Let the yeast develop the sponge for twenty to thirty minutes.
The proofed sponge should look something like this.

If your yeast is really healthy the sponge will actually look like a sponge with fine pores; if the yeast is dead
nothing will happen at all.  I have had this happen a few times when using individual packets of yeast.  The
remedy is to add more yeast and hope the additional yeast is lively.  If you are out of yeast you can cover and
refrigerate the sponge for as long as day or two and try to revive it when you have more yeast on hand.
It's better to buy yeast in bulk!

Making the Dough
When the yeast has obviously changed the appearance of the sponge, whisk the sponge to smooth it and add
the rest of the flour and knead it in until well mixed.  While doing this, reheat the container of water in the
microwave.  That will be your rising chamber just as you used it to develop your sponge.
For me the temptation has been to try to mix the dough in the bowl or plastic food container and then just
leave it there to rise.  That would make for a little simpler clean-up but I'm afraid it doesn't work out very well.
I have tried many times but I just can't get the dough properly mixed without removing it from the bowl to
knead it.  Here are two pictures of dough mixed in a bowl and left there to rise.  The picture on the left shows
dough in a glass bowl that has been mixed but never taken out of the bowl and kneaded properly.  It is obvious
the dough has not been mixed very well although I applied myself to it.  The dough in the picture on the right
in the plastic container has been allowed to rise for about forty minutes but it is still not well mixed and if it
were baked there would be large air pockets mixed throughout the loaf.  Badly made bread is a sad thing.
This mix-in-bowl method just doesn't work.  The dough in the glass bowl must be turned out and kneaded properly.

What will work, and work well, is to mix the dough as well as you can in the mixing bowl, starting the mixing
with a moderately large spoon.  When the dough becomes too stiff for the spoon, continue with your hands.
When the frankly  liquid parts of the bowl's contents are mixed into the more self-containing portions, turn the
dough mass onto a plastic cutting mat and you can begin to actually knead.  Keep your sack of flour handy;
you are going to want it.
The way to knead dough is to fold the "corners" of the dough into the center of the dough mass and press what
you have folded inward down, incorporating more flour into the sticky wet dough.  Rotate the dough mass after
each fold.  I use my fingers to fold the dough in and the heel of my hand to press it down.  The dough will start
out with too much flour in parts and too-wet sponge in others but as you knead more it should become moist
throughout and eventually will stop sticking to your hands.  When the flour and water proportions are just right,
it will feel as though it is going to stick to your hands but not actually stick to them.  You can adjust the mixture
to reach this consistency: if it does stick to your hands add a little flour.  If the dough is stiff and dry and powdery
with flour, add a very little water.  When the flour is pretty well mixed in and the dough no longer sticks to your
hands, change the motion of your hands so that you are stretching the dough mass away from its center and then
folding the dough in on itself.  This stretching is going to develop the satisfying chewiness of your finished bread.
I have read or seen demonstrated several methods of kneading that teach this dough-stretching: Julia Child did
it in The French Chef on US TV, old-time pizza bakers throw and twirl the dough which stretches it, some pizza
bakers allow the dough to slowly cascade down from their upended fist, and I recall a recipe that instructed the
baker to mix in half the flour which makes a very runny batter, beat it with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes,
then add the rest of the flour.  All these methods accomplish the same thing which is to align the strands of gluten
which give bread its structure and chewiness.
Stretch the dough for a minute or more - the more the better - and when things seem ready, return the dough to
your mixing bowl and let it rise in the re-warmed microwave oven for about an hour.  During this rise, the bulk of
your dough should about double in size.

When the dough is finishing its rise preheat your oven to 400F (205C).  Pour about two tablespoons of olive oil
into a glass pie pan.  Take the risen dough out of the warming chamber (microwave oven) and punch down the
dough.  Shape into a round loaf (or any other shape you wish), folding and kneading a bit until air bubbles are
expelled and the loaf is well formed.  Flip the loaf into the oiled pie pan top side down and swirl the loaf around
the pan to coat the top of the loaf with oil.  Turn the loaf right side up and put into the hot oven.  The bread
should NOT rise again before baking.  Bake for about forty minutes.
The loaf will be nicely browned when done.  When it has cooled enough to handle, hold it in the crook of your
arm and tap firmly on its bottom surface.  It should ring like a drum.  If it doesn't ring when tapped it is wet (not
fully cooked) in its middle and needs more time in the oven.
So there is your two hour bread.  I admit it may take a little more than two hours.  I'll describe the all day bread now:

All day bread is almost exactly the same as two hour bread for the first two hours.  The only change in the ingredients
is one less teaspoon of yeast and that change isn't truly necessary.  The proofing is the same, the kneading is the
same, the first rise is the same.  So what's the difference?  You will notice that I just wrote "first rise".
For all day bread you will let the dough rise two or more times, punching it down, kneading and stretching it between
each rise.  And you can interrupt this sequence at any point by punching down, covering and refrigerating the dough.
Bread dough is a pretty stable yeast culture that will only improve for several days.  The flavor becomes more like
a sourdough.  Each rise/punchdown/knead/stretch cycle will improve the bread's texture and eliminate large air pockets.
The bread will have an excellent fine "crumb" or texture that I like serving to people.  The only special care needed
is to warm refrigerated dough up slowly enough that you don't create hot spots that kill some of the yeast.
If you plan ahead you can make dough up through the first punchdown on a Sunday, refrigerate it until Wednesday
morning when you take it out of the fridge and leave it on the kitchen counter while you are at work.  After work let
it rise in a warm moist place (your microwave oven), punch it down, knead it and return it to the fridge until Friday
morning and finally after one more rise punch it down and bake it to have with your Friday night dinner.  Or if you
are going to spend a day off preparing a special meal you can spend a few minutes kneading your dough between rises
all day as you do other things.  After a few times it becomes effortless and people will wonder how you make such
good bread.  Trust me: it's gratifying!

I use this dough recipe to make hard rolls, cloverleaf rolls, hamburger buns and almost anything else.  It can be
rolled out with a pin for flat rolls, buns or a pizza crust.  For some of these I let the dough rise again after shaping
whatever it is I'm baking.  If I want a softer, less crusty product I let my rolls, buns or whatever cool down in a
paper bag.  This makes a better hamburger bun, for example.