welcome friends welcome back to the kitchen stuff in our pantry the pandemic
Edition a little while ago we made a couple of no-knead breads on the channel
and they were very well-received by a lot of people a lot of people really
liked them they worked out there are some people that left comments saying
that they didn't have a Dutch oven so what could they do to make bread without
a Dutch oven so that's one of the reasons I'm going to do this recipe
today address that and other people didn't like that bread because it was
too crusty and it's true those no need breads made in a Dutch oven have a very
crusty exterior which I happen to love but I know that a lot of people don't
like that if you grew up eating Wonder bread or another brand is I guess bimbo
if you grew up eating those sandwich breads you want something that's a
little softer and that's fine that's we're gonna make today so in this cup I
have some milk and if you're running out of milk go ahead and cut it in half with
water if you need to half water half milk would work just fine to that I've
added some butter and if you don't have butter but you might have some
shortening or you might have some lard feel free to use the host as well those
would work positively those would work next I'm going to put some honey and the
honey isn't the honey isn't to feed the yeast a lot of people are gonna say that
the honey is not to feed the east I'm using the honey because it adds a really
nice final texture to the bread and a nice flavor to the bread if you don't
have honey you could put in corn syrup you could put in golden syrup you could
quit in sorghum maple syrup would work I should have done maple syrup even malt
syrup malt syrup would give you a really nice flavor to this bread so that is
that is my cousin Jill's local honey now I take this and I'm going to put in the
microwave and I'm gonna bring it up to body temperature about 98 to 110 degrees
Fahrenheit there we go it doesn't take long and you
just want to make sure that it's spotty temperature so if you stick your finger
into it you just want to make sure that it's not cold and it's not hot it just
feels about the same as your body temperature super simple you don't
really have to worry too much about temperature because we're using this
instant yeast and instant yeast is meant to be thrown in directly into the flour
and because we're throwing it directly into the flour you don't have to worry
so much about the temperature of your liquid next in is the salt and we're
just gonna mix that together with the flour
this instant yeast says that you can put liquids into it that are up to 130
degrees Fahrenheit without harming the yeast and instant yeast is in a much
smaller granule so it will dissolve really quickly you don't have to
dissolve it first in the liquid and then and then put it into the flour if you're
not using instant yeast in this recipe and you're using active dry yeast
I would suggest dissolving it in a little bit of water instead of trying to
dissolve it in the milk and butter it can be kind of finicky when you're
trying to dissolve it in this past experience just try to pass that along
so next we're just going to pour all of this in and we're gonna form a ragged
ball now this recipe is formulated with with all-purpose flour just because I
know that probably if you're a beginning Baker
in the situation that we're in in April 2020 all purpose flour is probably the
one that you have on hand if you want to do this with bread flour go right ahead
bread flour will definitely work with this recipe it'll just take a slightly
different amount of liquid to get you to the same point of hydration okay ragged
ball now that we've got a ragged ball I'm just going to put a cover over this
and let it sit here on the countertop for 20 minutes now this isn't a rise
this is just a rest and this rest is going to rehydrate the flour and it's
going to make it so much easier when we move on to the kneading step next now
it's time to knead the dough so a little bit of flour on the table and you don't
want too much I'm not professing to be any fantastic bread baker I still got a
lot to learn and one of the things that I do all the time is
put too much flour on the bench there is a point where you don't want this to
stick but there is a point where you still want it to be tacky and you want
it to grab on to the counter a little bit as you are kneading it and that that
friction is going to help you need it faster and more easily but in this
initial stage this is still quite tacky this is quite a wet dough so you first
want to knead it just until it starts to become smooth and it's not sticking to
your hands terribly and if you need to put down a little bit more flour do but
I'm already at the point where I think I could take some of this flour away now
kneading doesn't have to be difficult there's lots of different methods I'm
not going to tell you that one method is better than another you just need to
find what works for you and what works for me is this push it out with my heel
turn it fold it over push it out turn it fold it over push it out and if it
starts to grab too much a little bit of flour and this folding turning folding
turning pushing folding turning is what's going to get you there
this process of kneading is what a lot of beginning bread bakers find to be
daunting or scary and it doesn't need to be it doesn't need to be at all it just
takes a little bit of time and pretty much all you're doing is just pushing
the dough across your counter top it's stretching it folding it and pulling it
back you can't do it wrong it's going to take you ten or fifteen minutes to get
the dough to the right consistency and when you're kneading at home there's
very little chance that you're going to over need it or when you're kneading by
hand there's a very little chance that you're going to over need it unless you
need it for you very long time it's usually you're going to under need it
that is the problem and so it's very difficult for me to tell you a lot of
the ways I feel the dough is going to change in texture it's going to look
smoother it's also going to be tacky instead of being sticky
there is a windowpane test where you snap off a little bit of the dough
and you stretch it really thin and if you can see light through it without it
breaking or stretching or snapping you've you've gone far enough with your
kneading there's also another point where when you push it out this front
surface will be very smooth and it won't crack and it won't have little dimples
in it I'm not at that point yet okay I think that looks good I think I'm good
with that so into a bowl now I have a bowl here
with some melted butter in the bottom and I usually use the same oil in the
bowl as I use in the dough so just flop it in coat it nicely put a lid on and
we're gonna let this rise until it's you know like everybody says doubled in bulk
and that could take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes depending on the temperature
in your kitchen so keep an eye on it
okay so this is about an hour and I think we're actually over proof so we're
gonna do the poke test so you poke your finger in and if it springs back really
quickly it hasn't proved enough if it stays indented and comes back slowly
you're just right but if it stays indented completely you have over proved
and I'm thinking we're just about right maybe we didn't go over so I'm gonna put
this out on the bench this I used to put flour down and I don't put flour down
for this step anymore I found that I always over floured which
is a bad thing so I now just put it right out on the bench and I try to
shape this out so it's about the same width as the bread pan and about twice
the length and if it sticks to the countertop you can pull it out nicely
don't fear the shaping it's really easy roll it over and then just use your
fingers to pinch it in and then roll it over and then pinch it in you want to
make the roll tight and you want to pinch it so that it seals
and I am by no means an expert on shaping bread I just barely get it in
the pan so you know learn what you can for me but the reality is it's something
that it's going to take you a while to get it right so pan bread in now if you
have a Koosh you can put a couch over top or a slightly damp tea towel you
could put over a little bit of plastic wrap really loosely because it will rise
I also see a bunch of people take a second bread pan if you have one and put
it over top I imagine not everybody has to bread pans so probably a wet or damp
tea towel is the way you want to go so now we're gonna let this rise again
until it pretty much doubles in size
okay a little lopsided a little higher on this side then this side that's the
shaping I'm not an expert at shaping I never have been and I don't bake enough
bread to ever probably become an expert at it but do your best
it'll still be okay now at this point you could put an egg wash on top of this
just a simple stir up an egg and and brush it on you could brush on some
melted butter I see people brush on some milk or
whipping cream at this point before you put it in the oven or you don't have to
do any of that and this is also a bread that you don't need to score on the top
so into the oven and I'm gonna bake this until it reaches 190 to 195 degrees
Fahrenheit internally on an instant-read thermometer and once it's baked I'm
going to turn it out immediately onto a rack to cool
that's a pretty good-looking looking love that looks like a good loaf of
bread my friends so this is just a sandwich loaf a pretty simple milk and
butter sandwich loaf thank you completely standard recipe you can find
it in pretty much every cookbook ever known oh yeah mm-hmm
it's that super soft pillowy soft bread does a little more crust edge to it then
but definitely less crust than the no need bread yes so there are a lot of
people that didn't like the crustiness of the no need bread and I assume that
they want a bread more like a regular sandwich loaf and I you know you you
wouldn't make sandwiches with the crusty loaf that's for having with oh well yeah
I do make some people just don't like the crust don't like the crunch I like
different stuff right so but this is this is so simple it's it is a really
easy bread now we've made this sandwich loaf when you have it laid out on the
table before you roll it up to shape it and put it into the pan you could dust
it with a little cinnamon brown sugar and put some raisins in you could and
then roll that cinnamon let's roll it up and and now you've got a cinnamon raisin
loaf really good that there are always options so if you want a no need crusty
loaf check out that recipe if you want this
sandwich bread this one is fantastic it is easy don't be worried about
kneading and I think this will go pretty well with that tomato bean soup that I
made yeah so thanks for stopping by stay safe stay healthy see you again soon I'm
trying not to eat it all
you