Lesson 5: Finally, the Learning Loaf Recipe!

After talking at length about baking tools, ingredients and more ingredients, it's finally time to share a learning loaf recipe that we can bake together.

The Learning Loaf: Orange Boot Pan Bread #

This is our basic white bread recipe, but "basic" is a fib. It's a rich, flavourful, soft yet sturdy bread that you'll want to eat all at once. But because of the enrichments of milk, sugar and butter, the bread will keep for days and stay soft and delicious.

This versatile dough can be used for pan bread, burger buns, pan buns, hot dog buns and any shape you can imagine.

Notes:

1. This page is an overview recipe only.  We'll go into the process steps in much more detail in future posts!  (with pictures too.)
2. Cindy and I chose an enriched loaf as the learning loaf because the enrichments make it easier to get a good result and the dough can be used in many applications. We'll tackle "lean dough" (bread without enrichments) in a future course.
3. Although I really, passionately, STRONGLY feel that you will have more consistent results if you weigh all your ingredients, some people just don't have a scale at home. So I am adding approximate (for that's all they ever will be) cups and spoons measurements for this loaf.

That being said, add a digital scale to your Christmas list right now, ok?

An easy to print recipe, including weights in pounds and ounces, and volumes in cups and spoons, is available here.

Orange Boot Pan Bread #

Yield: Two 750g (1.65 lb)Loaves or 15-20 rolls or a combination.

Ingredients:

857g Unbleached, All Purpose White Flour 574g Water (80F) 17g Salt 8g Instant Yeast 34g Sugar 34g Milk Powder 51g Unsalted Butter (cubed, room temperature)

Process:

1. Mix the flour, salt, yeast, sugar, butter and milk powder together in a large mixing bowl

2. Make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour the water in the well and mix gently with your hand or a large spoon.

3. Once the flour and water have mostly come together, clean off your hand, and cover the bowl with a towel.

4. Set the bowl in a warm place and let the mixture sit in the bowl for 20 minutes (Autolyse)

5. Move the dough to a clean surface. Mix, using the stretch and fold method, for 5-10 minutes.

6. Cover in a greased bowl and let rise for 1h 30m. During this time, fold the dough twice, after 30 minutes and 1 hour.

7. Divide the dough in two pieces, approximately 750g each. Pre-shape into balls.  Cover and let rest on the counter for 20 minutes.

8. Shape into loaves and place in greased loaf pans.

9. Let rise in a warm place for 1h - 1h 30m or until the loaf just barely rises above the pan and the dough holds an indent.

10. Bake at 400F for 25 - 30 minutes, or until golden brown. It'll be darker on top than the sides, but make sure the sides have colour too.

11. Remove from loaf pans and let cool on a rack for 1 hour before slicing and eating.