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Baking a bread -2

Basic Bread Recipe

This is a basic bread recipe for beginners. It is the easiest way to bake a bread with instant yeast.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 55 minutes
Course Breakfast, Cakes and Bakes
Cuisine Global
Servings 2 loaves

Ingredients
  

  • 5 cups All purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp instant yeast
  • 2 tsp Sugar
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 1/4 cup cooking oil preferably sunflower oil

Instructions
 

  • Take a large bowl and add 4 cups of flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Mix it all together with hand and make a well.
  • In the centre of the well, add the oiil and warm water and combine with a spoon or your hand.
  • It will all be sticky but keep combining and adding a bit of flour from the remaining one cup to knead the dough. Remove the dough from the bowl on to a work surface dusted with more flour and keep kneading till the last cup of the flour has nicely incorporated and the dough has become smooth and elastic.
  • It takes about ten minutes of kneading using your fingers and the heel of your palm. Once it is done, transfer to a bowl which has been greased with a little bit of oil and cover the bowl with a damp cloth and keep it in a warm area of your kitchen for rising.
  • What I did was keep the OTG running at 160 degrees and the bowl right next to the otg. You have to keep it for 1/2 hour after which you will notice that the dough has doubled in size.
  • At this point, grease two loaf pans with oil and keep them ready. Knock the air out of the dough with a punch and then knead it again for two to three minutes.
  • Cut the dough in to two parts and shape them lenghtwise (the same lenght as the loaf pan).
  • Place the two doughs into the loaf pans and again keep the loaf pans next to the oven or a warm area to rise.
  • Give it about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to rise. In the meanwhile, increase the temp of the OTG to 200 C .
  • The dough would have risen to almost the edge of the pan or a little below the edge. Once that happens, put the pans into the oven.
  • Bake for 40 minutes and when you see the beautoful golden colour, take it out of the oven Take the loaves out of the pans and cover then with a wet towel to soften the crust.
  • I baked at midnight. So I left the loaves with the wet towel overnight and in the morning the towels had dried out in any case. And we had fresh bread for our breakfast with homemade marmalade.