Foodblogging - Ted Bread

One nice thing about the weekend is that there's time to cook. One nice thing about Autumn is that it's colder, so you don't mind running the stove to bake.

Bread is really, really easy to make. It's also really, really forgiving of mistakes. Sure, if you want to be a professional baker, you need to pay close attention to get repeatable results. (You can see where I'm going, can't you? Ted Bread is a bit like Calvinball) For me, variation is half the fun.

Quite some time ago, the kids started calling this "Ted Bread". Here's the basic recipe, and a couple of variations:

Start a packet of yeast and a teaspoon of sugar "proofing" in a cup warm (not hot!) water. Warm as in "bathwater for baby", not "I really like a nice hot shower". In 5 minutes, you'll see a foam forming on the top - this means that the yeast is having a real swinging time, in a free-love-for-yeast sort of way.

Next, stir in around 3 cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt. The dough will be pretty sticky, so you'll add flour "by feel" (until it's not sticky anymore) while you knead it. How much you knead it will determine the texture of the loaf - more kneading will give you more of a french baguette texture, with big air bubbles in the loaf and a chewy mouth feel. Less kneading will give a finer, softer (and perhaps less interesting) loaf. I said that it was forgiving.

Now time comes into play. Cover with oiled waxed paper and put in a warm place. My stove has a "Bread Proof" setting (I love my stove), but you can do this instead:

• Turn on your oven to 200 degrees, for two minutes.
• Turn off your oven. You now have a warm, dark place to let the yeast have its way with the flour.
  

Let the bread rise for an hour and a half to two hours. Then "punch it down" (knead it one final time), shape it into loaf, and turn the oven on to 450 degrees. Bake 20 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when you rap it.


Fresh bread with homemade chicken soup.

Variations: This bread is more or less a blank canvas - you can make it into all sorts of different things, from Cinnamon Rolls to Olive loaf to Baguette. Here are two quick variations.

Herb Loaf. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped herbs to the mix when you add the flour. I used minced-basil-in-a-tube this time, because I was out of minced-italian-herbs-in-a-tube and minced-garlic-in-a-tube.

Baguette. There are four tricks to baguettes:

• Give it at least ten minutes kneading, to really stretch the dough. Do not skimp on this step.
• After the dough rises, you need to knead it into a baguette shape. Not only will this make it look like a baguette, but it will improve the texture (can't knead too much), and change the surface-to-volume ratio. Basically, you knead it down (to flatten), and then fold both sides over to meet in the middle. Do not change the direction of the kneading, just keep repeating the kneed-fold pattern. The loaf will get longer and narrower as you do this. You will need to stop every 5 minutes to let the dough "relax" - it will be much easier to continue kneading after 2 minute rest. Turn the load over so that the "seam" is on the bottom, and make a series of shallow diagonal slashes long the top of the loaf.
• Let the formed baguette rise a second time. You'll want at least 45 minutes, but an hour and a half is better.
  
• When you put the loaf in to bake, pour a half cup of water into a metal baking sheet that you pre-heated with the oven. This will make a cloud of steam, which commercial bakers have injected in their special baking ovens. This steam will make the crust more crusty and baguette-ish.