It is interesting to read on Facebook what friends are doing as we all are doing our part and staying at home during this time.
One friend cleaned her garage and now can park cars in it! Another friend in New York has been baking cookies, stating he must be bored to be baking at all!
I have been texting our son Neil in Germany about making a sourdough starter to make bread. Like we are experiencing here, he is also having problems getting flour to bake bread.
According to a story in The Washington Post on March 24, the headlines read, “People are baking bread like crazy, and now we’re running out of flour and yeast.” So with more time on people’s hands, they are trying their hand at bread making, if they are lucky enough to have flour and yeast in their pantry. In fact King Arthur Flour reports that March was its busiest month in terms of questions asked on social media. Last year, it received 10,000 inquiries and this year, just since March, it already reached 22,000.
Is baking bread good therapy? Does it help to make you forget what we are going through? Does watching dough rise bring back some hidden instinct to bring our community closer to us?
Whatever makes you happy is good therapy to me, and I have been making bread and can make one more loaf before I run out of bread flour.
I made this easy sandwich bread from Cook’s Country and was pleased with the results. The crumb was perfect for making a sandwich and held together. Have four to five hours to spare?
White Sandwich Bread
Makes: 1 loaf
Combine in a bowl of stand mixer:
2 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Combine in 2 cup measuring cup and whisk until honey is dissolved:
3/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
1/2 cup water, room temperature, plus extra for misting
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons honey
Fit mixer with dough hook. Slowly add milk mixture to flour mixture on low speed until cohesive dough starts to form and no dry flour remains, 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Increase speed to medium-low and knead until dough is smooth and elastic and clear sides of bowl, 8 minutes.
Transfer dough to lightly floured counted and knead to form a smooth, round ball, 30 seconds. Place dough seam side down in a lightly greased large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, let rise until doubled in size, 1-1/2 -2 hours.
Grease 8 1/4 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan.
Press down on dough to deflate. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured counter (the side of dough that was against the bowl should now be facing up). Press and stretch dough into an 8 x 6 inch rectangle, with a long side parallel to the counter edge. Roll dough away from you into a firm cylinder, keeping the roll tight by tucking it under itself as you go. Pinch seam closed and place loaf seam side down in prepared pan, pressing dough gently into corners.
Cover loosely with greased plastic and let rise until the loaf reaches 1 inch above the lip of the pan and dough springs back minimally when poked gently with your knuckle, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Mist loaf with water and bake until the loaf is deep golden and registers 205 to 210 degrees, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking.
Let loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack, about 3 hours, before slicing and serving.
Whole wheat bread: Reduce bread flour to 1 1/2 cups and add 1 cup whole wheat flour and 3 tablespoons wheat germ to yeast and salt when mixing dry ingredients. Increase honey to 3 tablespoons.
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Making sourdough bread using a sourdough starter with a little yeast is a good pastime, as you need to let the starter develop for four to eight days before you can start baking bread and you have a lot of time to wait for that.
But there is nothing better than the smells of bread baking in the oven, so all this time spent for a loaf of bread is worth it!
Here is the recipe for the sourdough starter. Next week it should be ready, so I will give you the recipe to make sourdough bread.
Sourdough starter: In a mason jar, add one package (0.25 ounces) active dry yeast, 2 cups warm water, 2 cups flour. Keep in a warm place and ferment for four to eight days. If it turns a funky pink or orange, throw it out and start again.
Email Audrey Wilson at audreywilson808@gmail.com.
