Adventures in Bread Baking...

I've been baking bread!!! A friend on Ravelry gave me this recipe and I baked a loaf over the weekend.

Here is my (in)famous basic loaf bread.

you’ll need a stand mixer with dough hooks, or a hand mixer..preferably with dough hooks. If you don’t have one with dough hooks, you can do part of it with the normal whisk attachment, and then the last part with a spoon.

3 cups flour
1 1/4 cups of warm water
1 pkg. or 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt

Dissolve yeast in the water, with the oil, sugar, and salt. Let it sit for a few minutes.

Mix in 2 cups of flour on low. If you are using dough hooks, do 2 1/4 cups. Mix for 4 minutes. Increase speed to medium, for 3 minutes. If your mixer can handle it, mix in the remaining flour with the mixer (if using dough hooks, you will have no problem at all). If just using the normal beaters..take away the mixer, and mix in the rest by hand with a spoon.

Let rise for about an hour. Stir the dough down (approx 25 strokes). Spread batter/dough into a 9x5 bread pan (greased). Allow to rise until about a half inch over the edge of the pan. Bake for 40-45 mins at 375f.

For those with standmixers. Super easy.

For those with a hand mixer with dough hooks. Super easy.

Anyone else..you can still make it..it just takes a little more muscle.

NOW, to break it down a little. You can use any flour with this recipe. I personally like two cups of whole wheat and one cup of standard bread flour (unbleached). You can do all unbleached bread or all purpose flour, or all whole wheat (red or white whole wheat). You can pretty much use whatever. Depending on the flours, you may need to add a little more water or oil. It should be more like batter than hand kneaded dough..but not watery like a cake batter.

Oil..I use coconut, or olive. Please use expeller pressed oils ONLY (for every day eating). If it’s not expeller presed, than it’s chemically extracted, and that’s all sorts of fucked up.

Sugar..use unrefined sugar, please. Or, 3 tbsp of honey, agave, or maple syrup, instead of 2 of cane sugar.

Salt: sea salt is my fav. yep.


I ran into a little trouble with getting my yeast to proof.



I think I ended up with a bad batch of yeast b/c the dough didnt really rise like it was supposed to.



I used my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook for the kneading; no problems there. I actually let it rise for quite awhile (like 3 hours) and finally got tired of waiting and popped it in the oven.



Despite all that, I think it came out pretty well and it tasted good. Next time, I'm gonna fiddle with a few things and see how it comes out. Also, I bought new yeast. LOL