Bread for Total Beginners

A good starting point is hillbillyhousewife.com and her recipe for beginner's bread. Actually hillbiblly housewife is a good starting point for eating cheap in general.

This article is different in that it uses some whole wheat flour, though. Which seriously boosts protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, everything. You DO have to use a different technique though.

Ingredients you will need:

Flour - 2 cups WW flour, 1 cup white flour
Water - about a cup and a half
Sugar/honey/syrup/molasses - 1 teaspoon
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Yeast - 2 teaspoons (1 packet)


Start with your flour. Take your 2 cups of WW flour, take it and pour in 2 cups of nice warm water. Just about the temp you would use to bathe a toddler in. Stir it all in and put it somewhere to soak for about an hour. WW flour needs all that time to absorb the water so it won't be dry. After about an hour, combine about a half cup of nice warm water and 2 teaspoons yeast. I buy my yeast at Costco because it is a fraction of the price. When I open it up, I pour my old (Fleishmann's) yeast jar full (a good size baby food jar would work as well) then seal up the rest of the package in a ziploc and freeze it in the deep freeze. It freezes well.

Now, the yeast needs something to eat. Give it 1 Tablespoonful of something sweet. Sugar, honey, sorghum syrup, anything. Stir, put it somewhere warm and draft free (like an oven that is not on) and let it set for a half hour. The yeast should be bubbly and active. If it's not, it's dead. If you just bought it, set it aside, and take it back to the store and get your money back. By the way, never buy yeast past the expiration date and never store it somewhere hot. Fridge is good. Freezer is good. Cupboard is not great. Sunny shelf is really bad.

After a half hour, stir in 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 Tablespoons of oil or some other kind of fat to the yeast. The oil or fat keeps it moist, otherwise it will go stale VERY fast.

Stir the bubbly yeast mixture into the now thoroughly moistened flour.

Now, start working in your white flour to finish it off and knead it. Add flour little by little while kneading the bread (look on youtube to find a video of someone kneading bread to watch, it's hard to describe) until the dough doesn't stick to your (clean and oiled) hands too bad. If you don't use the whole cup of white flour, fine. If you use slightly more, fine. Flour, rice, and beans - they all vary. Some have more moisture and you need less cooking time or less of them. Some are drier and you need more cooking time or more of them. It's not exact.

Wash the bowl you mixed the dough up in, and oil it. Plop the bread into it. Cover it with something. Saran wrap, a cereal box liner cup open (thanks Ruthie!), or a clean towel. Put the whole thing in the oven, but make sure the oven is OFF and not hot. You are using the oven as a "proofing box", a place that isn't cold and doesn't have any drafts - perfect for rising, or "proofing". It might take an hour, it might take two. Like any living thing, it's on it's own schedule. Once it is twice as puffy as it was when you put it in, punch it down. Now put it in a clean, oiled loaf pan, or divide it into 6 pieces and put them into a cake pan to make rolls. Brush the top with oil and put it back into the proofing box - - - I mean oven. It won't take long to rise this second time - maybe a half hour or an hour. Once it's nice and puffy again, pull it out and put it on the counter.

NOW turn the oven on to 350 degrees. Once it's completely hot (not before) pop the bread in the oven and set the oven for 30 minutes. Check it after that, it might need another 5 or 10 minutes. Rolls often take only 20-25 minutes.

Let it cool thoroughly before cutting slices and it will cut better.

I never bake only one loaf at a time - I always do 2. Just double all the ingredients.

If it doesn't come out quite perfect the first time, keep trying, it takes a few batches to figure out how to make really awesome bread. The first few should be edible, though. And toasting covers a multitude of sins.