Basic White Bread

Baking a bread at home, is a dream for many especially when you know what all goes into baking a commercial bread. This post is to help you bake the most beautiful, soft and delicious white bread. 

I have tried to list all points and also make it easier to understand with pictures, hope this helps you achieve your dream! If you know to knead and make roti/chapathi, then you should be able to bake a beautiful bread, with a few tips mentioned below. Also, if I can make it then so can you :)

I got this recipe from the internet, long ago I copy pasted into my recipe file and don't know the source, so who ever is the author of this recipe, a big thank you!

BASIC WHITE BREAD
Preparation time - 1.5 hrs | Baking time 30 mins | Serves - makes 1 loaf 

Ingredients

• All purpose flour/maida - 3 cups
• Butter/oil - 2 tbsp (I used oil)
• Sugar - 2 tbsp
• Instant yeast - 2.5 tsp
• Milk - 1/3 cup
• Water - 3/4 cup
• Salt - 1 tsp

For brushing

• Milk - 1 tbsp (optional)
• Egg - 1 + 1 tbsp water (optional)
• Melted butter - 2 tbsp

Method

1. Slightly heat the water and milk. If using butter, add the butter too and heat it. 

2. Once the mixture is warm to touch, add the sugar and yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes.

3. If using oil, add it next. Sift in the flour and salt.

4. Stir until it forms a soft dough. Then lightly flour the work surface and turn the dough onto the work surface and knead for 8-10 minutes. Do the window pane test (check notes)

5. Oil your hands and knead until a soft non sticky pliable dough is formed. Do not add extra flour while kneading.

6. Transfer the dough to a greased bowl. Brush little oil on the dough so that it doesn't dry out.

7. Cover with a kitchen towel or cling film and leave it in a warm place for 1 - 1.5 hours or until it doubles. I left it for 1 hour.

8. Once it doubles, mildly poke the dough, if the imprint remains, then the dough has risen enough. Otherwise let it rise some more.

9. Lightly flour the work surface and turn the doubled dough onto it. Deflate the dough by mildly punching and pressing the dough.

10. Roll the dough into a log shape, pinch and seal the dough well. Keep the pan close by to check the length of the shaped dough.

11. Place the dough inside the greased 9*5*3 pan and lightly brush with milk. Cover with kitchen towel and allow to rise again for 30 minutes.

12. Towards the end of the 30 minutes, pre heat your oven to 190 degrees C. 

13. Lightly beat an egg with 1 tbsp of water and after 30 minutes of second rise, lightly brush your dough with this egg mixture.

14. Place the pan inside the pre heated oven. Add a couple of ice cubes inside a small heat resistant bowl and leave it in the oven. This creates steam which will form a beautiful crust and prevent cracking.

15. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Once done, the bread pan sounds hollow when tapped at the bottom.

16. Brush some melted butter on the loaf as soon as you remove it from the oven. This will keep the loaf soft.

17. Remove the baked bread from the pan as soon as possible. Do not let it cool in the pan for long. Do not slice the bread when it's hot. Let it cool completely on the rack and then slice.

18. Use a sharp serrated knife or a bread knife to slice. Turn the bread slightly to the side and cut the bread using a sawing motion.

Notes

1. I used instant yeast so did not need to proof it. If you use active dry yeast, you have to proof it for 10 minutes and then proceed.

2. When you leave the dough to rise (both first and second rise), leave the dough covered in a draft free warm place. I heated my microwave for 2 minutes, switched it off and left the dough inside to rise.

3. While kneading, do the window pane test to check if the dough has been kneaded enough. Take a small piece of kneaded dough and stretch, if you can keep stretching and pulling the dough until it's a thin membrane that you can see through then your dough is ready. Otherwise knead some more.

4. Creating too much steam while baking the bread can make your bread chewy. Make sure you add just a little water or place 2 ice cubes inside, that is enough to create the steam.

5. Do not add yeast to hot liquid. If it's very hot, it will kill the yeast. Make sure the warm+milk mixture is warm and not too hot.
6. You can choose to give a milk wash or an egg wash, you need not give both. I like to give both.
7. Instead of keeping a small bowl with ice cubes to create steam, you can even spray some water once you place the loaf inside the oven.
8. Do not add extra flour while kneading, the dough just needs to be non sticky but it's okay if it's soft, smooth dough.

Until next time,

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