Basic White Bread

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnVSRHkvVL0&t=32s&ab_channel=JeanMariner

 Ingredients (all are approximations!)

White flour. About 4 cups. 

Yeast. 1 packet or about 1 tablespoon.

Agave Syrup (or honey or sugar...) about 4 seconds of squirting from the bottle. More if you have a sweet tooth (like Gramps does)

Gluten Flour (About 1-2 tablespoons)

Olive oil: a dollup or so. 

Salt: A sprinkling.

Optional: Add a scrambled egg to the dough or have the flour be about 1 C whole wheat and the remainder white. Also adding some oatmeal gives your bread a heartier texture (about 1/3 C oatmeal microwaved with water until cooked, then cool the cooked oatmeal before it's added to the dough)

Directions that follow the video: 

In a large non-metal bowl, place about a tablespoon of dry yeast.  Add about 2 C warm water. Squirt in the agave (or honey) and add about a cup of flour and a couple tablespoons or so of gluten flour. Whisk with a non-metal whisk.  Then wait and watch to see if bubbles form. The bubbles mean the yeast is "waking up" and active. If there's no bubbles, then the yeast will not have the bread rise. 

Then add the olive oil and salt. (This is when you can add a scrambled egg, too, if you'd like.)  Then add flour, about a cup or a half-cup at a time, stirring with the whisk until it becomes too thick to stir with a whisk. Then I use a rice paddle or my hands (no rings on your fingers!)

Fold the yeast, roll the yeast. push on the yeast and otherwise knead the yeast. You can keep it in the bowl or turn it out onto a floured countertop or wooden cutting board.  5 minutes kneading is fine; some recipes just say leave it there in the bowl and every 5 min or so, do a couple turns and presses with the rice paddle. Some folks say knead longer.  I like the meditative quality of kneading and plus the kneading is really good for hand strength and for exercises that benefit arthritic hands. It's also lovely to feel how the dough becomes increasingly elastic and stays in a single piece. If it's sticky, add more flour. If it's too dry, add a little water. 

When the dough stays in a ball and feels elastic, pour some olive oil into your hands, rub your hands, then spread the oil over the whole surface of the ball of dough. Place it into a bread pan lined with parchment paper. (If you want a lovely brown top to your bread, paint on an egg yolk mixed with a small amount of water.)  Then put the pan/dough into a cool oven.  You can help the yeast by placing a bowl of steaming hot water in the oven with the dough.  If you don't use the bowl of water technique, then cover the bread with plastic wrap to keep in the moisture. You may need a little more time for the bread to rise if you don't have the warm water. If you want to really slow down the rising, then put the bowl and dough, covered, into the fridge. 

The dough will double in size in about 2 hours using the hot water in the oven strategy.  Don't let it rise too long or it will collapse onto itself.  1.5 hours is often good.  Then remove the bowl of water and turn on the oven to 350 degrees F.  Set the timer for 35 minutes.  If anything, your bread will likely need a little more time. 

After 35 minutes, remove the bread.  I usually dump it out of the pan immediately. If the bottom of the bread is golden brown and it sounds hollow when you knock on it with your knuckles, then it's ready. If the bottom is pale, then return it to the oven to brown the outside.  

The more you bake this simple bread, the more you can see how many things you can adjust to get different textures and tastes.