Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking Wonder what the poor folks are eatin' tonight?

This is the recipe that I always started my kids out on. A great bread and simple. For years my wife and I had a 4H cooking club and the highlight was about 20 years ago as part of a town celebration there was a pie baking contest. Three of our group finished ahead of my wife including our son who finished second with a Strawberry-Rhubarb pie.


Sally Lund Bread



List of Ingredients



1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 -115F)
1 3/4 scalded Milk
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp salt
2 well beaten eggs
5 cups sifted flour (Divided)



Instructions

Dissolve the yeast into warm water.

Combine milk, sugar, butter, and salt in a mixing bowl. Allow to cool. Stir in yeast, eggs, and 3 cups of flour. Add enough additional flour to make a nice soft dough. Place in a greased bowl and turn once to coat all surfaces. Cover and allow to rise in a warm, dark spot.

Punch down and turn onto a lightly floured board. Knead until smooth and elastic. Divide dough in half and form into 2 loaves. Turn into 2 greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 350 and bake 17 minutes more. Remove from the pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Well Scklackie, I can make bread with just my two hands and a big bowl. But it's messy and time consuming.
Or
I can use my Kitchenaide Mixer for the first mixing steps. When the bread dough crawls up the dough hook it's ready to come out and be kneaded for ten minutes or so, allowed to rise, punched down, kneaded again, formed into a loaf and plopped into the bread pan to rise the second time.

By far the easiest, method is to use a bread machine for the mixing, kneading, first rise, punching down, and second kneading. With my machine that takes exactly one hour.

Then I spray a little oil on the dough, remove it from the bread machine pan and put it into a loaf pan. Spray the top with oil again and press it down into the loaf pan, cover it with plastic wrap, let it rise a half hour and bake it at 350F for 30 minutes.

There is a book Available called
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day
Many find that this method suits their lifestyles best.
It's too fussy for me though.

Here's my recipe, you don't need scales:

Basic White Bread

1 cup warm water(not hot, temp over 140F will kill the yeast)
3 Tbsp Sugar(or less)
3 Tbsp Olive oil
2 1/4 Tsp (1 scant Tbsp) or 1 envelope of active dry or instant yeast

Mix the above ingredients together in a small bowl, set aside. This is called proofing the yeast it will become bubbly and gross looking an about 5 minutes.


Then sift together
3 cups BREAD FLOUR
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

Measure before you sift, use a dry measuring cup fill the cup heaping full and srape the excess off with the back of a knife.
Sift the flour into a very large bowl, you need room to work so the bigger the better.
Make a well in the sifted dry ingredients.
Pour about half the liquid into the well and stir is small circles with a blending fork. spreading the flour outward and incorporating the liquid into the flour, add the rest of the liquid before all of the first in used up.

Now, get in there with your hands and start mashing it together until it forms into a ball. Depending on the weather you may need to add a tablespoon or so of water or a tablespoon or so of flour. Transfer the ball of dough to a clean,floured work surface. Press it down and away from yourself, fold it over, press it down and away from yourself, dredge it with flour if it's sticky, form it back up and press it down and away, form, press, form, press over and over, you may have guessed that this is kneading the dough.
After a few minutes it will become silky smooth and a little bit shiny.

If the big bowl is a mess, wash it and dry it.
At this point there are two schools of thought.
If the bowl came out pretty clean just dredge it with flour, put the ball of dough back in it. dredge the dough with flour, and cover the bowl with a damp towel.

OR
Spray the bowl with oil, plop the dough into it and spray the dough with oil. Cover with a damp towel and ...

Put it in a warm draft-free place to rise for about an hour.
This is called Proofing the Dough
Clean up your messy kitchen. Use a Bench Knife to scrape up the excess flour and bits and bobs of dough that are stuck on your counter top. Don't clean the work area too well though because you have to knead it a little bit more later.

Pre-heat oven to 350F

When you see that the dough is pushing up on the towel and has pretty much Doubled in Size uncover it, punch it down with your fist(you don't have to hit it hard) this is maybe the funnest part of bread making. pffffffffft.

Flour your work surface again and turn the bread dough out onto it, dredge it with flour and begin kneading again, down and away, form it up, down and away, form it up, knead, reform, knead, reform. Until it is smooth and shiny again.
Place it in a well oiled loaf pan, spray the top with oil and mash it down with your knuckles til it's fairly even. If you have two sizes of loaf pans use the bigger one, the little ones are for quick breads like Banana Bread. Cover the loaf with plastic wrap, spray the top of the plastic wrap generously with oil and turn it over so the oily plastic sits loosely on top of the pan. Put it on top of the stove to rise for a half hour to 45 minutes until it rises a little bit higher than the pan. Remove the plastic and pop it into the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
Ovens vary but you want the bread nicely browned on top so 5 or 10 more minute might be needed.

When it looks like it's done remove it from the oven and turn it out of the pan IMMEDIATELY onto a cooling rack.. Or it will steam itself to mush. The bottom and sides of the loaf should be golden, a little bit toasty and should ring hollow when you thump it.
Let it cool almost completely before cutting it

You might also try Irish Soda Bread

Looks like a pretty good recipe Keyser. I'll give it a shot.
I never need two loaves of bread at a time though because I'm single and just don't use it that fast.
I occasionally add a single egg, or a tablespoon of powdered milk, Usually when I make dinner rolls.
I often add a half cup of chopped nuts, sunflower seeds and whatnot. For those who want whole wheat, substitute one cup of whole wheat flour for one of the cups of bread flour.

Just as a point of interest, did you know you don't have to scald milk anymore? That's a holdover from the days of un-pasteurized milk. But all the ingredients should be at room temperature. Cold milk right outa the fridge might gum up the dough a bit.

Greger...my wife - The Lovely Cynthia - enjoys Soda Bread and occasionally will make a batch herself. I really don't enjoy it but when St Patrick's Day rolls around the local markets wheel it out and every other day I'll have to buy a loaf.

You are correct on the scalding and it is my bad for just copying over an online recipe. The one I have has room temp.

I love bread. Big weakness. For breakfast I actually had left over garlic bread from Little Caesar's. We now have two local supermarkets and both have extensive bakeries so there is a wide variety of great stuff. Portuguese Sweet Bread. Fantastic!

I use to bake extensively. For years I was the day care provider for our kids and then scooted off to work an off shift. Kids would help me bake bread and get desserts ready. Oh did they love that cheesecake!

One son actually worked two summers as a cook on the Alaskan Railroad. Just walked in and said he could "Do the job" and he did. Created a menu based on what we had prepared at home.

Greger....love your inside information that you occasionally post with recipe/meals.

I still think that if you want to bake bread on a regular basis, rather than buying it, a bread machine makes it easy enough that you don't get tired of doing it. Making it by hand is fun but isn't something I'm willing to go through every time I need a loaf of bread. I use only the "dough" setting, I never ever let the machine do the baking, and I pull the dough out before it rises the second time in the machine.
I just read back and had missed a few things...
Short Ribs *sigh* My favorite restaurant has them occasionally. I think he braises them in an Alto-Sham oven. It a super slow low heat oven. I haven't perfected a recipe for Short Ribs.
Anybody got one?

Kimchi has been called Korean Cole Slaw, but sauerkraut is really a better description. Usually it's fiery hot and garlicky, it sticks with you for days after you eat it.
I used a chili garlic paste for seasoning but added no additional garlic. Even so it's very strongly flavored. Not for the meek or fussy eater.

http://www.floramosrestaurant.com/

That is a link to a place I have not been to for years but they had great braised ribs. In fact they had great food period.

I asked about the braised ribs and that is how I heard about the Alto Shaam oven which they used. Never heard of one.

I've always used a crock pot for the ribs and what I do is when they are done sear them in a cast iron skillet. In the crock pot it is just a mixture of wine, tomato paste, some spices or a few other things tossed in. I've also substituted salsa for tomato paste. Nothing fancy. As long as the meat gets tender.

Most likely the restaurant is using an Alto-Shaam® Combioven: It steams and dry heats all-in-one!

Every large quantity feeding places using combiovens these days. I'll bet that is why the ribs are so tender.

Keyser~I love Sally Lund bread. It was the first bread I ever learned how to bake, when my mom and grandma started teaching me how to cook. Hardly anyone makes it anymore, that I know of. At least not around SoCal!

Welp, I guess I gotta try the Sally Lund bread now.

Rick, I'm a bigger fan of the Alto-Shaam Cook and Hold Ovens.
If I had a lot of extra cash Id have a half sized one out in my summer kitchen. I've got an old sealed Thermador out there that I use for all my slow cooking.

Like I had said we'd start the kids in 4H and our own out on it. I baked it in a bundt pan. Have not done it for years but with a new grand daughter she'll be doing it in about 5 years. Her mother happens to be a baker who graduated from Johnson and Wales so I'll have some competition.

Greger had me hustling over to Trucchi's Supermarket so I can have braised ribs.