Daddy's Bread

4 cups flour
2 cups warm water
1 Tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
1 Tbs oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F



(or an introduction to basic bread making)

Mix the first 3/4 cups warm water with sugar and yeast until everything is dissolved. The temperature of the water should be warm enough to encourage the yeast to get busy making bubbles but not so hot as to scald it. Let the solution sit for 10 minutes.

When you come back to the mixture, take the time to smell it. If this is your first time baking bread, you’ll probably feel like you’ve been hit in the head. On first sniff, yeast smells high, strident and startling. However, with enough experience you’ll be able to parse out its subtler notes. They smell to me like warm, loopy circles rising into the air but you’ll probably define it in your own way. Whatever your reaction, try to appreciate and learn the smell of yeast because it’s the base into which you’ll be mixing all the other ingredients and tastes of more complicated bread recipes.

Mix the other ingredients together with the first mixture. Let sit in a covered bowl for a few hours. The key here is warmth so you can get pretty creative. Some areas I’ve tried: near (but not in) in a working oven, on top of a running clothes dryer (the gentle rocking does wonders), on a sunny windowsill…

4-6 hours later you are ready to knead. Flour your hands well. Detach the dough from the bowl using a rapid steady motion so as to avoid getting the dough stuck all over your fingers. Turn it out onto a floured surface. At this point, the dough will look like a big misshapen mess but fear not! You will soon turn it into a beautiful round loaf.

The process of kneading, though totally non- existent in my dad’s original recipe, is one of my favorite acts of cooking. It is the moment when you can transform the dough from a random assembly of ingredients to something that is truly yours. I will explain the general technique behind kneading but you will soon discover how to respond to different consistencies and levels of moisture. No two rounds of dough are the same and each much be coddled and coaxed differently.

Begin by using your right hand to grab hold of the side of dough to the right (at around 3 o’clock). Turn your hand (and the dough) 45 degrees to the left while lifting the piece of dough onto which you holding a few inches into the air. Push that edge of dough forward (towards 12 o’clock), using the heel of your hand to press the two sides of the dough circle together. One of the main goals of this movement is to seal air bubbles into the dough. By continuing this motion for several minutes (continually turning the dough 45 degrees and after each fold), you will be working the bread and creating a network of tiny stable bubbles to replace the huge loose bubbles created during the initial rise.

Different doughs need to be kneaded for different lengths of time but the general rule is to knead until the dough has a smooth, even consistency and enough elasticity that it bounces back when pressed down upon with a single finger.

A general note on kneading: You are trying to coax life into the dough. If you bake unkneaded dough, it will certainly rise but it will rise in an uneven, runny manner. By kneading the dough, you give it the pep and bounce required to spring back favorably in the oven. The proper touch is firm but smooth. Imagine you are giving a friend a back rub. His muscles will respond favorably to a certain degree of pressure so long as the pressure you use is smooth and consistent. Smack him suddenly and he will certainly flinch in surprise and pain. The same is true with your dough. Be gentle. Be loving. Be firm. Finally, there is nothing like bread kneading for the calming of daily worries. Work it out on the dough. It doesn’t mind.

Place your now thoroughly perky dough into a greased baking dish (size and shape don’t matter too much at this point). Cover it with something to protect it from cold drafts. A greased bit of aluminum foil or saran wrap work wonderfully. Let it spend 40 minutes rising somewhere warm again. It should very nearly double in size at this point.

Pop it into an oven which you have preheated at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for approximately 43 minutes. Let the warm, yeasty, heady, crackly smell fill your house.

Two tips on judging whether a loaf is done. Check for a pale gold color. Whack it with the back side of a knife and listen for a dull hollow sound.

For a firm, crackly crust, remove the bread from its dish as it cools.