Sunday, 5 August 2007

White Bread

Mixing the Dough

In a measuring cup, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water.
Mix together salt, sugar, and 5 cups flour in a large bowl.
Add milk, oil and yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Start by stirring with a wooden spoon, but you might graduate to your hands after a few minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for 10 to 15 minutes, adding as much as flour as necessary if the dough feels sticky.
Form the dough into a ball.


Preparing and Baking
- 1/2C lukewarm water
- 2t salt
- 1 1/2 C warm milk
- 1T sugars
- 2T vegetable oils
- 5-6C bread flour
- 1T dry yeasts

Put the smooth ball of dough into a clean bowl coated lightly with vegetable oil. Turn the dough once so that the top is oiled.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place until the dough rises to roughly double its original size. Check after 45 minutes.
Dump the dough back onto the floured surface and punch it down.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces and let rest for five minutes.
To make a pan loaf, use your hands to roll each piece into a thick cylinder a little longer than your bread pan. Using the heels of your hands, press the cylinder in to compress it to the length of the pan.
Put the loaves into oiled bread pans. The sides of the loaves, especially the short ends, should touch the sides of the pan.
Put a kitchen towel over the bread pans and let the dough rise in a warm place until it is roughly twice its original size, about 35 to 40 minutes.
Put the loaves in the oven at 400 degrees F and bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until golden brown and the bottoms have a hollow sound when thwacked with your hand.
Remove from pans and cool on racks.

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Friday, 25 May 2007

Bread cake!!!! (gateau de pain)

Bread cake is easy and cheap!
That's what we like....

The basic receipe is just like this:


_Old hard bread (more baguette like, not sandwich bread)
_Milk
_Sugar





Pre-heat the oven at 180 °C. Break the bread into small pieces in a big bowl and add milk to soak the bread. Put enought milk so the mixture becomes moisty but not drowning into the milk. Add a bit of sugar depending how sweet you'd like it.
Put the cake into the oven for 45 minutes keeping the same 180°C all along.
Try out from time to time to poke the cake with a knife, it must not be sticky.

But my favourite thing about this cake is the creativity around it. The picture here is actually a bread cake with fresh banana, raisins and a sugar crust on top of it.
I made it once with fijoas and nuts!

So take the basic receipe as such but let your imagination do the rest! And do not throw away any old bread now, keep it and when you have enought of it, change it into a bread cake!!

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