What? Baking on FlatBroke? No worries, folks. It's not from me but from an handsome man who happens to be my brother.
Here's the best part. For both loaves of bread, Paul estimates that it costs less than 50 cents. Legen (wait for it) dary.
Knock 'em dead, bro.
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Last night I was craving bread. Not your standard out-of-the bag type of bread but something with some substance to it. I looked around for recipes of bread that would satisfy my cravings but they all seemed so complicated and time-consuming. I really wanted a crunchy baguette with some cheese but that would take much more time than I was willing to invest, after all, it was 10:30 p.m. I considered going to the store to buy some but I didn’t want to change out of my pajamas. So I did what most sensible foodies would do and Googled “easy bread recipe.” I found one and promptly set to work, encouraged by some of my insomniac Facebook friends.
I took out a large mixing bowl out of the cupboard and put in 2/3 cup of sugar. (Yes, that’s a lot of sugar but isn’t bread mostly carbohydrates anyway?) I added 2 cups of really hot tap water and mixed them until the sugar melted. I then added 1 ½ tablespoons of active dry yeast and let it sit for 20 minutes. This is a crucial step, don’t be impatient, let the yeast do its thing. When the yeast looked puffy and full of air pockets (think
Manuel Noriega’s skin complexion) then you are ready to go.
Mix in 1 ½ teaspoons of salt, ¼ cup of oil and mix until salt is dissolved. I used my trusty whisk again. It is such a fun kitchen tool. You should have a latte-colored mixture by now that smells like, well… yeast. Begin adding flour a cup at a time. I used the whisk to mix in the first 3 cups; it was handy and you know how much I like it. After that you have to switch to a wooden spoon. (Boo, but the whisk can only take you so far in life.) Keep adding 3 more cups of flour for a total of 6 cups. Mix with the spoon until you can’t mix anymore, then comes the stress-relieving part: roll up your sleeves and stick your hands in the warm dough.
Begin kneading and with every fold of dough think of something stressful that happened to you that day. It’s amazing how good it feels to put your weight behind each knead and squeeze your problems away. When you run out of stressful things to think then your dough, and your mind, are ready to rest. Put a spoonful of oil in a bowl and let your dough ball roll around in it so it gets all oily. Then take a clean kitchen rag and get it wet, stick it in the microwave for one minute and carefully pull it out (it will be hot, duh) and place it on top of the bowl. This will give the dough ball a warm steam bath. Take out a second towel and do it to your face, if you want, just don’t burn yourself or you will ruin the whole experience. Do that every five minutes. I also put a pot of water to boil to humidify the air, after all, I do live in the second driest state in the Union.
Now comes the relaxing part, make a cup of your favorite herbal tea and go back to Facebook to chat with your friends. When a half hour has passed, or in Facebook time 2 chats about nothing, then check on your dough. It should be nice ans fat by now, kind of like most of our bellies. Take it out of the bowl and place it on the counter, pretend the dough IS your belly and flatten it. Admit it, you do that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you suck it in and pretend you have the same body you had when you were 16. Divide the dough into two balls and shape them like a loaf of bread. Spray two bread pans and put the dough in them.
Repeat the warm towel and steam treatment, at least for the dough, your face is optional. The dough will do what our bellies do when we’re sitting down, expand again. When it is about that much over the edge of the pans (I’m holding my fingers and showing you) then preheat your oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is hot then carefully put the bread inside. Set your timer for 30 minutes and go back to Facebook. The smell of baking bread will soon begin to tease you, begin thinking of ways to enjoy your bread. Tease your Facebook friends by describing the smell in the air. When the timer beeps, take the bread out and put it on a cooling rack. Don’t cut into it for at least 10 minutes, don’t worry, it will still be warm.
The texture of the bread is a little more dense than most breads and the extra sugar makes it sweeter but not sweet enough to call it a sweet bread. Enjoy your bread with a third cup of tea. When you are finished, go to bed and dream of how tasty it will be when you wake up 4 hours later and enjoy the bread again for breakfast. Give it a shot, you’ll like it.
R. Paul Pickett
