Baking bread can be easy
Most people think baking bread is difficult. Perhaps they’re afraid of working with yeast or think the process is too time-consuming. But you can produce a wonderful, preservative-free loaf in just three hours, with no more than 30 minutes of actual work – even less if you use a food processor or heavy-duty electric mixer.
A great place to start is with focaccia. Dense and about an inch and a half high, this Italian bread couldn’t be easier. There’s very little shaping involved – just a bit of stretching to form the dough into a rectangle. Once that’s done, dimple the top, drizzle on olive oil, sprinkle with salt and bake away.
Here are tips to help you tackle any yeast-bread recipe with confidence:
• Bread making begins with combining yeast and warm water. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast; if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t activate. It should be between 105 and 115 degrees. Test it against the inside of your wrist – it should feel comfortably warm, like a baby’s bottle.
• Use bread flour (it’s unbleached and high-gluten) or unbleached all-purpose flour. Bleached flour has weaker proteins, which can compromise the bread’s texture.
• Always start with the smallest amount of flour listed in your recipe and add more, bit by bit, only if needed. Too much flour will make the bread heavy. On dry days, you generally need less flour than the recipe calls for; on really humid days, you need more.
• Create a warm, moist, draft-free environment for your dough to rise in by placing it in an unheated oven (regular or microwave) with a cup of hot water. Change the water every 30 minutes.
• Let the dough rise only until it has doubled. Check it by pressing two fingers about 1/2 inch into the dough. If the indentation remains, the dough is ready to shape.
• Almost any dough can be kneaded with an electric stand mixer equipped with a dough hook.
• Remove bread from the pan as soon as it’s baked and let it cool on a rack so the bottom doesn’t become soggy. Let it cool until just warm before slicing with a serrated knife.
Rosemary Focaccia
1 package active dry yeast
12/3 cups lukewarm water
4 1/2 to 5 cups bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Stir yeast into water in a large mixing bowl, the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer fitted with a dough hook or a large-capacity food processor fitted with a steel blade. Let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. Add 41/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt.
By hand, stir with a wooden spoon until a soft, smooth, sticky dough forms. With electric mixer, combine ingredients on low, then beat on high; it will take 3 to 4 minutes. With a food processor, it will take about 1 minute. Add the additional 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup at a time, if needed to form dough.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1 to 2 tablespoons flour. Knead 1 minute; dough will still be slightly sticky. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and turn dough to coat. Let rise, covered with plastic wrap, at warm room temperature, until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Generously oil a 15-by-10-inch baking pan with olive oil. Press the dough evenly into the pan, and let it rise, covered completely with a kitchen towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Stir rosemary into 3 tablespoons olive oil. Make shallow indentations all over the top of the dough with your fingertips and brush on the oil, letting it pool in indentations. Sprinkle kosher salt evenly over the top.
Bake in middle of oven until golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Immediately invert onto a cooling rack, then turn right side up. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares.
Yield: 1 loaf, 12 to 24 pieces.
Approximate nutrition per piece (based on 24): 130 calories, 4.2 grams fat (.6 grams saturated, 29 percent fat calories), 2.8 grams protein, 20 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 340 milligrams sodium.