Everything Bread Recipe (or just plain bread)

 

Last weekend I made "everything bread", which was just white bread coated in everything bagel spice (I love that stuff). It was really good, but more importantly, it reminded me that I have a damned fine white bread recipe. It's fast (in yeast bread terms), it's delicious (verified by others), and it freezes well (only leave out what you'll eat in a couple days).

An unfortunate bit of math made me realize I've been baking bread with this recipe for 20 years. It makes four loaves, because if am going through the trouble to make one loaf, I might as well make four. To that end, anyone has an industrial Hobart mixer and a need for 30 loaves at once, I can give you that recipe, from which this one came.

Bread recipe

4 cups water (hot tub temperature)
1 1/2 tbsp salt
2 1/4 tbsp sugar
2 1/4 tbsp quick rise yeast 
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Flour (at least 10-12 cups, I've never measured it)

Everything spice

2 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp dehydrated onion
2 tbsp dehydrated garlic (if you can't find it use a tbsp granulated garlic)
1 tbsp course salt

In a very large bowl (preferably larger than this one, one day I will buy myself a proper bread bowl), add the water, salt, sugar, yeast and oil.

Then start stirring in flour by the cupful.

 

 

When the mixture becomes so stiff you can't stir in more flour, and your hand and arm are tired, dump it out on a well-floured counter top. If you are like my grandmother, scrape every last bit of dough and flour out of the bowl onto what's on the counter, wash and grease the bowl. If you're like me, get the worst of it out of the bowl and give the inside a good coat of flour.

 

 

Sprinkle flour all over the top of the shaggy mess and start kneading.  It will be really sticky to start with, so coat your hands with flour and lift the dough and sprinkle flour underneath it every few kneads until it finally absorbs enough to stop sticking to everything and you get a nice smooth ball.

 

 

Both hands and arms should be tired at this point (professional bread bakers have forearms to make Popeye proud). Put the dough back in the floured/greased bowl and place it in a warm spot. I have a bread proofing setting on my oven. If yours doesn't, set your oven to 100F, which is all pressing the bread proofing button does. Leave it there for about 40 minutes.

 

When you come back, the dough will be twice as big. If it isn't leave it for another 10 minutes.

 

Flour your counter and dump the dough on it.

 

Divide the dough into four relatively same-sized pieces and knead each one into a loaf. The dough will make satisfying squeaky noises as the large air bubbles pop. Make sure you squish them all out or your bread will have holes in it.

 

 

If you're going the everything spice route, pour a bunch of the mixture on a pan or plate. I used parchment paper so I could pour the leftover spice mix back in the jar. Use another piece of parchment paper to line one big baking sheet or two small ones. If you don't have parchment, grease the pan(s) with butter.

  

Wet your hands and rub them over the top of a loaf to make it sticky and roll it in the spice mix. This works a lot better in theory than in practice, but do the best you can with it. An alternative would be to use a shaker, but I don't have one. Coat the rest of the loaves, or half and half, or just one. It's your bread.

 
Put the finished loaves on the baking sheet(s) and put them in the same warm place you used the last time. Leave them for half an hour or so. 

 

The loaves double in size. If your using the oven to proof them, take them out. Turn the oven to 350F and when it comes to temperature, bake the loaves for 30-35 minutes. When done, transfer to a cooling rack.

 

Eat, share and/or freeze.