simple breads

Here is my take on bread. 10 minutes of actual work and a day to do it all. hyperbole? maybe. But in regards to making your own bread vs using a bread machine or buying a loaf of ‘bread’ from the store, why not spend a day making it? In a time when there is a huge push for organic, fresh, local, and healthy alternatives to almost everything people seem to be turning a blind eye to one of the easiest and cleanest recipes out there.  So why do people shy away from making bread?

For starters, it is convenient to buy bread in the store . Let me give you a break down of the ingredients in bread – flour, salt, yeast, water. Pretty simple stuff. If you dont already have these ingredients in your kitchen, they should be available at ANY grocery store and I would venture to say most corner bodegas. But have you taken a stroll down your bread isle lately? There is a lot of bread there with honey whole wheat, original oatnut, and lets not forget our favorite frozen pillsbury rolls. Why would anyone bother to make their own bread especially when a lot of these are labeled as organic or healthy? Here are the ingredients in Oroweat “orginal oatnut” bread. This packaging has “fresh baked” “wholesome goodness” and “0 grams transfat” stamped all over it. That is convincing to most people and the fact there are dozens of breads with similar packaging why wouldnt you grab one instead of making your own.

Well, here is what Rose Beranbaum, author of the bread bible, writes about oat flour, “oat flour containts 17% protein, oat flour can be substituted for as much as 30% of the wheat flour in a recipe.” Ok, whatever, that is just baker mumbo jumbo about protein and gluten structure. Here is a recipe for a whole wheat bread from Jim Lahey owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City and author of My Bread.

bread flour – 300g /whole wheat flour – 100g / table salt – 8g  /yeast – 2 grams /water – 300 g. (see instructions on how to make below)

Now take into account what Rose wrote and you can easily make your own oat nut bread with 6 ingredients vs. the double digit ingredient count for the oroweat. Healthy, clean, simple. This goes back to my point about convenience. why spend the time to bake it when you can just look at another package of bread and find one with less than 32 ingredients. Easy, its not that much of a time investment for a working professional.

Things you do NOT need to make bread: a 300 dollar kitchen aid mixer, a thousand dollar proof box to help it rise, fancy tools, and a brick oven bult into your home. Bread is an ancient art. People have been making it for thousands of years and as advanced as many cultures were, they made due with less. At its most basic, all you need to make bread is a scale, the ingredients, a bowl, and your hands. If you want to great real crazy, you can upgrade from your hands to a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. I know. Take a minute and catch your breath sometimes I go too fast. Quick lesson on how bread works.

1)Mix ingredients together. 2)Yeast eat flour(s). This produces alcohol and c02. The byproducts give bread flavor and causes the dough to rise. This process is called ‘fermentation’. 3) shape the dough. this will cause it to deflate a tiny bit. let it rise a second time. 4) bake and then cool

Pretty easy. You only need to touch the bread a couple times and the yeast does all the work for you. But why did I say this is not a time investment? In the whole wheat recipe I used above, once you combine the ingredients the dough has to sit for 12-18 hours. This means you can go about your day,  go to work, get drinks, or whatever else you do without having to worry about the dough while you are gone. Come home from your day and Voila! the bread is almost ready to go. You have given up about 30 minutes of time to have your own delicious home made bread that will last you a couple days and cost you next to nothing! Take a chance this weekend and bake your own bread. Go out and buy a book with great pictures and a step by step guide that will walk you through the process. I promise. It is not hard. And if you dont believe me, here is a great New York Times article to convince you to make some bread!

Instructions for bread

• in a bowl stir together the flour, yeast, and salt add water and stir with a spoon for 30 seconds (until it is a wet sticky ball)
• let the dough rise until it has more than doubled in the bowl roughtly 12-18 hours *you can do this step at night and place it in your fridge while you sleep and then leave it out during the day while you are at work)
• when the fitst rise is complete flour your work surface and turn the bowl upside down. fold the edges of the dough to the middle and create a ball
• put the on a lint free towel with the seam side facing down. let rise for 1-2 hours or until doubled.
• preheat oven to 475 and place a large 4-5 qt pot inside.
• when the rise is complete carefully take out the pot from the over and place the bread inside. cover and let bake for 30 minutes. uncover and let bake for another 15 or until a nice golden brown color is achieved.
• CAREFULLY remove bread from the pot and let cool on a rack thoroughly.

My earliest Valentines Day memory came in third grade. I got a personalized box of sugar hearts. Be Mine. U R Cute. Delicious. The sentiment of this was over my head at the time but I knew those hearts were good. As time went on, my Valentines Day goodies got more and more complex. A sugar cookie decorated with red icing. A cupcake hand frosted  in the shape of a heart. I even once received an entire cake but I do not think I was expected to eat it all.  My point being, Valentines Day is a holiday that elicits people to be creative with their food. A cupcake is just a cupcake until someone bakes it at home and adds red dye. Frosting in a can is just betty crocker until it is piped into a cupid and given to someone you love. Ordinary things can become more than what they are on special days like this one.

But what am I getting at? I urge you to take a few moments and consider what it means to you when someone makes you something and vise versa. Its lovely to go to russel stover and buy a box of assorted chocolates. But does it mean as much to someone as taking a few minutes of your time at night after work, or when you have it, and baking off something yourself? I would argue not. If you have moved past the high school level of baking sugar cookies then I suggest you take a look at this weeks New York Times’ food section and this article. … I will let you click and read before coming back to my post … Ok. Now do not be scared of the article. I know there are some fancy restaurants that are mentioned. I also notice there are exotic ingredients in some of these recipes (read: yuzu zest / azuki beans). Do not be put off by these. It is a recipe and not a law. You can change anything you want. The bean paste in the cookies can be easily substituted for any type of jelly, jam, or preserve you like. I am sure most of you have that sitting in your refrigerator right now.  The bell pepper cheesecake is not doing it for you? Ok, find some strawberries and puree them instead. The result is still a red delicious cheesecake. There are a million other recipes out there that you can make and even make your own by tweaking a few ingredients to suite your needs.

This Valentines Day consider taking a leap of faith. Preheat your oven and get to baking up some from the heart desserts for that special someone. I am sure it will be remembered much more fondly than a generic box of chocolates and TXT ME candy hearts.