Let’s Bake some Bread

hey friends and welcome to my kitchentoday we’re gonna bake some bread youdon’t think you can do it oh yes you canit is extremely simple with the rightingredients recipe and materials youwill be enjoying fresh-baked bread in notimetoday’s recipe comes from prairiehomestead cookbook they just pick thisup off Amazon this is an incredible bookit’s full of from scratch recipeshomesteading tips guides and all kindsof wonderful resources not just forcooking so I suggest you run out toAmazon scoop up a copy find her blog orthe Facebook page because there is a tonof wonderful information right at yourfingertips her recipe is crusty Dutchoven bread and all you need is fouringredients salt yeast some water andflour and that’s it so let’s get started[Music]all right guys step number one is takethree cups of warm water I pop mine inthe microwave for maybe a minute or soand just test it with my finger don’twant it too hot you want it nice andwarm to that you’re gonna add 1 teaspoonof your active dry yeast and onetablespoon of salt you’re gonna mix thistogether in the bowl and you’re gonnalet it sit for a few minutes so it alldissolves and kind of gets nice andready for the flour see that I wentahead and did minenow a tip for yeast I buy mine in likethe big they look like coffee cubes youknow air dried and all that in thelittle containers and I open it up and Iput it in a jar and I keep it in thefridge it helps it to last a little bitlonger you’re gonna learn a lot moreabout yeast and some great informationfrom Nancy and so yeah I keep mine inthe fridge so we’ve got our three cupsof warm water with 1 teaspoon of activedry yeast 1 tablespoon of salt we’regonna let this sit for a few minutesthen we’re gonna add the flour and getour dough formed so come on back alrightfriends it’s been just a couple ofminutes and the yeast and salt havedissolved in the bowl it kind of lookslike cloudy water but that’s ok that’swhat we want we want the yeast in thesalt to be all dissolved in the nicewarm water the next step is to add in 6cups of flour you can use all-purposewhich the recipe calls for or you canuse bread flour I’m using bread flour sowe’re gonna do one you wanna make surethey’re nice even level cups of flourthere’s 2[Music][Music]all right so I also to point out that atthis point you could season this flowerif you wanted to there have been timeswhere I have put a good palm full ofItalian seasoning in here maybe youwanted to do a little rosemary breadnow’s the time to add that spice in ifyou wanted to again with homesteadingand home making your own food thepossibilities for flavor are endless gotmy wooden spoon here and we’re justgonna mix this together you see if I canmix and give you a nice shot of what itlooks like okay there you gowe’re gonna mix this together until allthe flour is incorporated and it kind oflooks like a nice sticky sticky mist solet’s see I’ll show you what it lookslike all right friends I have mixed myflour in with my water mixture nicesticky dough has formed you want to makesure you scrape around the edges youalso want to make sure you get down inthe bottom because sometimes flour likesto hide out in little pockets at thebottom of the bowl learn that the hardwayso what we’re gonna do next is theeasiest part I’m gonna clean off thespoon we’re gonna cover this with a teatowel I’ll put a rubber band around itjust to make sure it doesn’t fall intothe dough because you don’t want thetowel sticking to the dough put it in acorner of your kitchen where it’s notgonna be messed with for three to fivehours the yeast is gonna activate it’sgonna make the dough rise it’s gonnadouble up into thighs and it’s gonna bebeautiful so let’s get that done andI’ll see you in a couple of hours whenit’s time to bake[Music]two and a half hours of the three tofive hours looking great I’m gonna letit go for probably another hour and ahalf at about it’s 2:35 now so aboutfour o’clock I’m gonna come back I’mgonna get the oven preheated and I’mgonna form these guys in two loops andlet them rest again so meet me back herewhen it’s time to do all that okaythe bread has been resting for a littleover four hours and it’s looking greatso it’s on to the next step we’re gonnapreheat the oven to 475 degrees butwe’re gonna preheat it with the Dutchoven inside so the Dutch oven gets niceand hot along with the oven so Dutchoven what kind what variety what styleit really doesn’t matter you can get asuper expensive one or you can go toyour local thrift store or consignmentshop you’ll probably find themeverywhere you just want to make surethat it’s a good cast-ironenamel-coated pan you can see I baconthese all the timeI have parchment paper down in thebottom of them so that the bread doesn’tstick um this one I think I got for 20bucks somewhere this one I got from myum wholesale membership club it wasaround during the holidays it was asteal for like $24.99 super super widevariety you can go with any brand youlike as long as it’s a good quality castiron enamel-coated Dutch oven you’regood to go and I suggest you have onearound anyway it’s great not just forbaking bread but for doing roasts andstews and slow cooking and simmering inthe oven I love it we’ve got lodge aswell Lodge cast iron will cook over ourfire pit outside in the backyard andit’s great for that kind of stuff sowe’re gonna preheat the oven[Music]we’re 75 but we’re putting our dutchovens inside alright so while that’spreheating let’s take a look at thedough I’m so excitedwhoa look at this does yours look likemine you certainly hope soalright put the lid for the dutch ovensover here okay actually so thateverything is nice and hot okay so lidson the Dutch oven in the oven while itpreheatalright I have a spatula and I have alittle bench scraper love this guy superuseful like a right hand man kind ofkitchen gadget I am going to lightlysprinkle the surface that I’m gonna workon with flouryou dropped a little bit too much flouryou can make a little pile off to theside from my understanding this is wherepeople get intimidated the the kneadingof the dough and and working it andmaking the loaves it’s really simple andyou just don’t want to overthink it soI’m going to use my spatula see if I cando it this way so you can see and I’mjust gonna slowly scrape down and let itkind of plop out there we go look atthat so the trick to this dough is thatwe actually don’t want to knead it toomuch because we want it to be light andairy and have you know a little pocketlift up in it I’m gonna take a littlemore flour I’m gonna sprinkle the topI’m sorry it doesn’t look like you canget a very good view of what I’m doingyou backing back it up a little bit okayand then here comes the bench scraperit’s gonna help me scrape some flouraround the doughand I’m just gonna work the dough forjust a few minutes gently just gonnakind of roll it around use the benchscraper if it’s sticking to the surfacethat’s what the flowers for the benchscraper can help to work the flourunderneath yeah I’m just kind of rollingit around there we goso now we want to divide this in halfbecause this recipe makes two loaves ofbread so we want to make sure it’sfairly even gonna kind of make a littleoval here make like a giant long loopand then I’m just gonna eyeball it andI’m gonna take my bench scraper I’mgonna cut the whole thing in half andthen I’m gonna take this all I’m gonnado is I’m just gonna fold it around myfingers and as I fold it around myfingers I’m gonna twist it around in acircle see that I’m forming my loafevery once in a while you can set itdown kind of give it one of thesenumbers to make sure it stays nice andround but you want the light airybubbles in it see there’s a littlebubbles little pockets you don’t want toget you don’t want to need that out ofthe bread so you want to handle itgently so this guy isn’t a nice littleround circle and then I’m going to dothe same with the other half give me alittle flour on my hands so it doesn’tstick sticking a little bit and I’mgoing to again just gently take thedough and I’m just rolling it over onitself not getting too aggressive justgently just gently twisting and foldingon taking the sides and I’m folding myfingers underneath to the middle andwhen you start just to feel a littlesticky I just put a little bit moreflour on my fingerstake this guy down I’m gonna give him alittle circle shake a little pat andthere we go we’ve got two nice-lookingLopes here I’m gonna spread theremaining flour out I’m so sorry youcan’t really see I’m practicing workingon these YouTube videos guys are gonnahave to give me some tips and tricksdown at the bottom to make these YouTubevideos good all right so I’ve got mytulips they’re sitting on a nice flouredsurface all right look at that aren’tthey prettyso then what we’re gonna do I take thesame towel that we had the bowl coveredwith and we’re just gonna gently placeit over the topthe oven is busy preheating these guysare gonna rest for about 40 to 45minutes and then when the oven beeps andthe 45 minutes is over for this restingperiod we’re going to gently andcarefully put them inside the dutchovens and we’ll start the baking processwhich sounds difficult but it’s reallynot umso come on back we’re gonna let theserest I’ll show you how to slash thebread before putting it in the Dutchoven and we are like coming into likethe bottom of the seventh you guysseventh-inning stretch we’re working itwe’re making bread and I bet you guysare doing a fantastic job too so I willsee you back here in just a little while[Music]time they rested for about 45 minutesthe oven is preheated the dutch ovensare hot inside now it’s time to scorethem place them in the Dutch oven startbaking so not quite sure the best way todo this you can see everything so bearwith me all right you want a sharpserrated knife or even a razor bladeworks great what we want to do is wewant to score or basically slash the topof the bread when we put this bread inthe oven it’s gonna get really hotreally fast and it’s gonna start toexpand so instead of blowing out of youknow a wheel somewhere we can controlhow it expands by slashing it it helpsto release some steam and helps to givethe bread a little kind of a breakingpoint to where it can kind of come upand out so you want to be really fastwe’re just gonna go one two three andagain on this one one two three allright so I’ve got my trusty benchscraper we’re going to loosen these guysup that have been sitting on the flourcounter one there’s two now I’m going toopen up my ovenI’ve got my oven mitt because we’regoing to take the Dutch oven lids offand then we’re going to slowly place theload inside the dutch ovens so let’s seeif i can twist you you know if thisbecomes a regular habit you guys I’mgonna have to invest and uh somephotography equipment I think all rightare we ready pulling out my rack I’vegot two smoking-hot lids and take mybench scraper get my first low we’regonna pop it right inside the firsttouch on it and I’m gonna take my secondloaf you know what if it looks ugly ifyou squish it it’s okay it’ll still bakejust fine and what you can do once youget it in your Dutch oven you want toput your mittens back on and give yourpan a little shake to make sure it’ssitting on the parchment paper and thenstuck to the sides alright so let meshow ya see we flip it up can’t flip itokayso there you have it there’s one and twoso now we’re going to put the lid backon these guys okay we’re going to pushthis back in and set a timer for thirtyminuteswhen thirty minutes is up we’re gonnacome back we’re gonna take the lids offand then we’re going to bake them foranother fifteen come on back[Music]that you guys I’d look number two now ifyou think that’s a little too done foryou go closer to ten minutes we didfifteen but I promise you that addsthese cool they’ll get nice and chewy onthe inside and a nice crust on theoutside so the last thing we’re going[Music]rats now is ten seasons it is to eatthem now you want to let them cool forat least thirty minutes or so beforeslicing into them but congratulationsguys we have officially baked breadthank you so much for joining you guysand just remember oh yes you can[Music]you