Bread is one of the most basic things and yet, often complex. At times, I envision the center of bread which has all sorts of little holes or a extra chewy texture or light and fluffy. The suspense is, after taking the bread out of the oven, letting it cool and taking that first cut. You can never be certain how the inside will form but you can generally guess based off of your preparations.
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 & 1/2 Cups of warm water
Two packets of active dry yeast
Yeast was a very fickle thing historically, but today's yeast is quite reliable.
I decided to use my food processor because it was a single small batch. To activate the yeast I simply threw in the sugar and warm water and then gave the blade a bit of spin so the sugar would dissolve in the warm water faster. Then tossed in both packets of yeast and let it sit with the lid on for 10 minutes.
When I peered into the mixer there was a pretty solid raft floating and bubbling on top of the water. A raft is that gunk at the top, when it starts to float and bubble. The yeast is obviously active.
Next, three cups of all-purpose flour and then mix it up until it's all together. Sometimes you need just a tablespoon more flour or maybe a tablespoon of water which can be easily thrown into a food processor. For this particular bread I wanted something soft so I left it a little more moist. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little olive oil in or sometimes seasonings. This dough was very basic and I turned it out into a bowl to let it rise.
Protip: Since dumping in a couple cups of flour and pushing the button only takes a minute, I turn my oven on before I start to mix my dough. It doesn't matter what the heat is but I usually just kind of crank it. By the time I dump in the flour and the dough starts to form the oven is a really nice temperature for the dough to rise. but not to cook! Turn the oven off immediately when your dough starts to form. That way when you turn the dough out into a bowl or on a pan or form it into whatever you'd like to form it into and stick it into the oven it rises because it loves that higher than room temperature, but not hot.
Because this was a quick bread I let it sit in there for about 30 minutes until it doubled in size. Then, I simply threw it on another sheet pan and gave it a quick egg wash with sesame seeds sprinkles. For less dense bread, or more nooks and crannies, I would generally knead the dough, punching it and squishing it with my knuckles and then toss it back into the oven with another stainless steel bowl on top for another little while until it rises again. I might do this a couple times if I really want those big open pockets inside.
I baked it for 20 minutes at 400° and while it was baking, I made dinner.
Just some quick vegetable medley, a nice scoop of kimchi, a tablespoon of minced garlic and a small drizzle of hoisin makes a perfectly delicious and flavorful quick side dish.
On the other burner I threw a flat iron steak down with simple salt and black pepper.
After a couple minutes on both sides, the steak was a perfect medium rare in the middle and it was time to cut the bread.
The bread had a nice crispy outside from the egg wash and there was some toasted sesame flavor with each bite. A lot of the sesame seeds actually fell off of the bread and in the hot oven darkened and truly toasted and some even burned giving the bread a hint of that sesame flavoring throughout the bread. I turned over the pan and dumped the smoked expert toasted sesame seeds back on top.
That's it, dinner is served!
I forgot to mention I had some leftover white rice in the fridge and I just simply nuked it LoL
Quick and easy bread isn't ever quick and easy.
Easy, possibly because really there's not a lot of prep. Depending on how many times you let bread rise it's not quick at all. LoL even if you do a single rise expecting a very dense dough it still takes technically a half hour minimum. But, if you actually think about the effort it's truly minimal or easy.
Water yeast sugar wait flour mix wait knead wait and slice *shrug*
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