CWB: Bread For Your Soup

Bake some bread with a recipe that works around your class schedule!

It’s soup season. What’s better than that is if it were soup and bread season. It’s the perfect duo. I’ve been using a great bread recipe (if you want the original it’s here) that works pretty well around class schedules: just do the few things you need to do and head to class while it rises, no work necessary. It’s also very easy to do in a dorm room kitchen: the only equipment you need is measuring cups, a bowl, a baking sheet, and a water spray bottle (this last one is a bit weird but you can get one for like two dollars at University Hardware).

The shape of the recipe is pretty simple: just mix the things together, knead, let it rise for an hour, shape the bread and let it rise, and bake. In total it takes two and a half hours.

Ingredients needed:

2 cups water
2 Tablespoons salt
2 1/4 Tablespoons yeast (that’s 1 packet)
2 Tablespoons sugar or honey
5 1/2 Cups flour

Instructions

Mix the water salt sugar and yeast together. It’s easiest to dissolve the salt and sugar first and then add the yeast. If you use honey make sure you do this after the salt to save on cleaning dishes.
Add the 5 1/2 cups of flour. It’s going to be a bit sticky at first but it will come together
Knead for 8 minutes. The bread will go from feeling a bit sticky and lumpy to being smooth and a bit elastic. This is a long time, so find a song that’s that long and you’ll be done in no time. I usually listen to Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets, but other bwoggers recommended:
- A Little Priest from Sweeney Todd
- All Too Well ( Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) by Taylor Swift
- “Cry”
- february 2017 by charli xcx [3 times]
- I Bet On Losing Dogs – Mitski [3 times]
- I Will Possess Your Heart by death cab for cutie
- Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day
- Purple Rain by the artist formerly known as Prince
- Runaway by Kanye
- The Mariner’s Revenge Song by The Decemberists
- What’s New Pussycat by Tom Jones [4 times to be 8 min, 21 times for John Mulaney approved bread]
Put it back in the bowl you used to mix it and let it rise for an hour or so. Do some readings or get some coffee. Really you can do any hour long activity here, you could probably even go to a class here as long as you can get back in less than two hours.
The dough will have around doubled by now: punch it.
Knead the dough for another two minutes and then divide it into two balls. If you want to make it now them into two baguette shapes and cut a couple slashes on the top. If you want to make it later (or make 1 later) put it into tupperware and put it in the fridge.
Let it rise for another 45 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400℉. If you had put it in the fridge you will want to roll it into a baguette shape now and let it a bit longer, maybe 1 hour.
Put it in the oven and use your spray bottle to spray down the surface of the bread and the sides of the oven. This will make steam that will let the bread rise more. Spray some more water into the oven every minute or so for the next 5 minutes.
Turn down the oven to 375℉ and bake for another 25 minutes.
Enjoy your bread with soup!