Best 1 Hour Bread
Simply delicious bread. Easy to slice. It's moist, chewy and great for sandwiches. Wonderful slathered with honey and butter straight out of the oven.
Servings: 24 slices
Calories: 80kcal
Ingredients
- 4 1/2-5 cups flour
- 2 T yeast
- ¼ cup sugar
- 4 tsps salt
- 2 1/2 cups warm water (not too hot and not tepid)
- 2 T olive oil
Instructions
- Pour 1/2 cup warm water into a small bowl and sprinkle with 1 tsp of the sugar. Sprinkle the yeast over the top and stir gently to combine. Set aside and allow yeast to work about five minutes while prepping the pans and ingredients in the mixer.
- Grease two bread pans. (Glass or ceramic preferred.)
- Combine 2 cups of the flour with the rest of the dry ingredients in mixer using dough hooks for a few seconds on low. (The salt in the flour will not harm the yeast.)
- Pour yeast mixture and 1 cup warm water and olive oil over the ingredients in the mixer. Mix ingredients on slow speed.
- With mixer on low, add 1 cup of warm water and then 2 cups of flour.
- After ingredients are combined, turn mixer speed to medium. If dough is too wet and sticky add up to 1 cup flour 2 tablespoons at a time while mixer is running (or while kneading) till it comes away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. Dough should still be soft, stretchy and a bit sticky.
- Mix for 5 minutes on medium. Dough should mix together and come away cleanly from the sides of the bowl during this time. Dough will be smooth at the end of mixing. Optional hand kneading: Turn dough out onto a clean, floured surface and knead turning it a quarter turn each time for 5-8 minutes till dough is smooth.
- Oil or grease hands and remover dough from bowl onto clean and lightly-floured counter or silpat and knead it 4-6 times. This is a soft dough, but if it is too sticky too handle, knead in a bit more flour.
- Divide dough evenly into two balls and shape into loaves and place in prepared pans.
- Lightly cover loaves with plastic wrap or clean dish towel and sit in a warm place to rise till dough is about double in volume up to 30 minutes.
- While dough is rising, heat oven to 400°.
- Bake loaves for 15-20 minutes, till golden brown. Turn them out onto cooling rack. (And of course while it will slice better when it cools, it is irresistible when warm out of the oven, dripping with butter and honey. Enjoy.)
Notes
Please Note: Only add the last 1 cup flour as needed to absorb the liquid. (This last cup will vary slightly according to climate and weather. You may use some or all of it to get the dough to come away cleanly from the sides of the bowl, but it should not be stiff.)
The dump method: Stir all the dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Add all the liquid and mix on low till ingredients a make a dough. Then turn up to medium and continue from #6. This method works, but the yeast will not fully dissolve and will be visible in the sliced bread.
Baker’s Secrets: To make the crust pliable and the bread easier to slice after it cools, brush a tiny bit of butter or olive oil over the loaf tops when they first come out of the oven.
Variations: Cinnamon bread: Heavily grease two pans. After kneading, pat and spread each dough ball on floured surface into a rectangle shape about 7” x 10”. Stir together ½ cup brown sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon. Divide and spread 1 T. butter on rectangles. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture evenly over rectangles, leaving about an inch on one end (7” side) plain. Roll up dough firmly toward plain end. Pull plain end over dough and press to seal. Gently pull open sides toward seam and place seam side down in pan. Bake as directed.
Artisan Bread: This is sooo good! Grease a large cookie sheet and dust with a small amount of cornmeal. Shape loaves into rounds or elongate them to look like French bread. Deeply slash the loaves (I use kitchen shears). Sprinkle with a bit more cornmeal over the top for authenticity if you like and allow them to rise. Place a cake pan with about 2” of hot water into oven and heat oven to 450° while loaves are rising. Bake 20-30 minutes till crust is deeply golden. (Do not butter the top.)