White Bread - One Easy-breezy Loaf

This is one easy breezy loaf of white bread. I can call it a no knead bread, but it does require some amount of mixing, though not kneading. Putting together the dough takes a few minutes of time and then you just need to wait for it to rise twice. And the result is one good nice loaf of home baked bread and the house smelling like a bakery!

When I baked it here, D came home in the evening and had a slice, and didn’t comment. Later in the evening I told him I baked that bread and he said he had thought I had bought it from the store!! While he apologized for not recognizing home baked bread, I was glad that it made him think it was a store bought one!

Back in India with a full time job, I always had difficulty in baking breads. Mainly because of the time it consumed - from mixing, waiting for it to rise, deflating and again waiting for a second rise, and baking and then cooling. Even if all the steps didn’t involve much effort, time was definitely needed. I mean, you had to stick around for at least 3-4 hours, which I hardly had on weekdays and weekends had other things to look at like traveling, socializing, going out or just taking some rest! And now, doing other things at home, I can always bake what I want, when I want!

Here’s how you make it… trust me it is one easy loaf to bake. I’ve taken it from Suma’s Cakes and More, originally from AllRecipes. I’ve adjusted salt and sugar to my needs and made it by hand, while she has used an electric mixer. Thank you Suma.

White Bread - One Easy-breezy Loaf

Ingredients: 
All Purpose Flour, sifted - 3 cups( 375 grams) Sifted and measured
Instant Yeast - 2 ¼ Tsp
Oil - 2 Tbsp
Sugar - 1 ½ Tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Warm water - 1 ¼  Cups

1Tbsp oil + 1 Tbsp milk for brushing the top before baking - optional

Melted butter for brushing after baking - optional

Method:

• Mix together the oil, sugar, salt, yeast and 1 ½ cup of flour in a large bowl.  Add warm water and beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Suma says the other option is 300 strokes with your hand, and trust me I did it! The batter here (with just half of the flour) is very loose almost like dosa batter consistency, and it is not difficult to beat it with hands. It took some 4 minutes of playing with the batter.
• Add the remaining flour and mix well till you get a smooth dough. The dough will be sticky, but not very loose.
• Coat the dough it a couple of tsps of oil and cover and let the dough rise till double in volume. The time for this depends on the outside temperature and could take anywhere between 30 minutes to 1.5 hrs. So keep an eye.
• Grease a 9'' * 5'' loaf tin.
• Once the dough doubles, gently deflate and transfer it to the greased loaf pan. You can oil your hands to pat the dough into shape.
• Cover with a greased aluminum foil and let rise again till double in volume.
• When the dough has almost doubled, pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C or 375 degrees F.
• Brush the top with oil and milk mixture to get a brown crust and bake.
• I was baking in a ceramic pan and baked for 37 minutes, but felt I should have kept it a couple of minutes longer. 40 minutes should be fine.
• The bottom crust must sound hollow when tapped. Or the reading on your instant read thermometer must be between 200F to 210 F, if you are lucky to have one.
• Brush the top with melted butter and allow the bread to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Remove it from the tin and cool completely on a wire rack. Slice when it comes to room temperature.

Notes:

• This bread is much easier than the other breads which require kneading. Even if made by hand, the effort is too little and is a child’s play.
• The recipe requires the flour to be sifted first and then measured