I don't have my Mom's bread recipe and I'm not going to ask for it, I found out a year or so ago that she used to monkey with it every time she made it. And by monkey I mean she'd sometimes make the recipe as directed, other times she'd rummage through the fridge where anything starchy and white, like leftover mashed potato, would be viewed as filler and she'd mix that into the dough - no lie, she's admitted this. Which explains why sometimes we'd have loaves of bread so fluffy and huge that a single slice would look like a giant cross section of a mushroom and had to have the sides trimmed to fit into the toaster and other times they'd be so squat that you'd need four miserable little slices the density of roofing shingles to make a full size sandwich. So now we all know.
But despite her varying successes I love fresh bread on a deeply rooted level, the warmest, homiest, safest, most emotionally soothing of all smells is fresh bread. So many times I can remember coming home from school to home baked warm crusty bread and thinking that my mom was some sort of magician, and I feel so highly accomplished when I make bread myself. While loaf bread is highly practical, I have to admit that it was fresh baked buns that were my favourite, in our family there was many a war over getting the crust slice of the loaf, buns were all around crust.
So it's a given that my Mom's bread recipe is not going to be recovered and even if it could be who knows which version would emerge. If I'm honest, I don't even think it's necessary to get back to her recipe, I just want to be able to make a medium density loaf of white bread or a batch of buns with a reasonable hope of consistent results. Also, I'm not going to be a purist to laud the merits of kneading by hand (you learn the texture of the dough better / it's good for your arms), I paid good money for a high-end stand mixer that is supposed to be a 'tough' machine, I let it do all the hard kneading. This is my recipe for bread, the result of a few years of trial and error, mixing and matching several recipes to get the right loftiness, softness and crustyness of the home-made bread of my childhood memories (I block out the funny bread when I reminisce). Lastly, I'm sorry for being all over the shop with the measuring units, that's what happens when you mix recipes.
Bread
Mix together
1/2 pint of water
1 tsp sugar
14 gram dry active yeast (2 sachets if you're using them)
Put in a warm place for 5 - 15 minutes to check that the yeast is alive and happy to work for you. I used to mix the dry yeast straight into the flour, because some yeasts you can do that, but I think one time a box of yeast got a bit old and it stopped working so well, a nice frothy head of yeast bubbles makes me feel assured that the rest of the work isn't going to go to waste.
Measure into the bowl of your mixer
400 grams white flour - all purpose / plain flour works fine, bread flour does too if you have it
1/2 tsp salt
Give it a little mix to distribute the salt then pour in the yeast liquid, attach the dough hook and start the machine.
When the dough starts to come together add
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
Then let it run on low speed for about 10 - 20 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. I always used to wonder what that meant, smooth and elastic, this is my conclusion: basically it goes from looking/feeling slightly clumpy and sticky to a solid wad of dough and looks almost like there's a bit of a sheen on the surface it'll want to stick to itself more than to the bowl. The difference is minimal in the photos, hope they help though.
Then put it back in your warm place covered with a clean tea towel. I don't bother with all the take the dough out, wash and oil the bowl, form it into a nice round ball, cover with oiled cling-film, what ever else you're supposed to do, you can if you want, I just plunk it by the radiator and leave it there for half an hour, give or take, until it's double in size.
The fun bit, gently punch it down to knock out the big air bubbles, then scrape it out of the bowl onto a lightly floured counter and give it a few kneads by hand then roll/stretch the dough out into a log.
If you're making a loaf turn the log 90^ so the length faces away from you and starting like a snail but pushing down like you're trying to compress a sleeping bag, roll it up into another log - if you rolled it perfectly to the right length (wow, well done!) give the ends a good pinch to seal up the roll layers, if not tuck the ends under to shorten it to fit or roll/stretch it out if you need to lengthen it - put it seam side down into a greased loaf tin. It will relax a bit when you drop it in there, the dough should half fill the tin, be level on top and touch all four walls of the loaf tin, if it doesn't, take it out and manipulate it until it does, roll/stretch, tuck, punch with your knuckles, cut some away, whatever you need to do.
If you're making buns divide the log into 6 to 12 even sized pieces (however big you want them), then one at a time, with a claw hand over each piece roll it in circles on the counter into a ball until the surface is smooth (I'm still working on my two-at-a-time-two-hand technique) circle away from you with the heal of your hand circle back using your fingers, then place evenly space on an greased baking tray. You can give it a push to flatten it out a bit if you want a lower wider shaped bun.
Put your dough back in your warm place covered again with your tea towel for half an hour, give or take until double in size - don't let it over-rise thinking 'yeah - big loaf' it will deflate in the oven and disappoint greatly.
About 15 minutes into your wait for the dough to rise, take a peek under the towel to see how fast things are working to gauge when to start pre-heating the oven.
For both bread and buns pre-heat the oven to 200^C, at this point make sure that your rack is in the middle of the oven.
When the oven is hot and the bread is ready to go pop it in the oven, for buns bake for 15 minutes at 200^C, for a loaf turn the oven down to 180^ as soon as you close the oven door and bake for 30 minutes, the higher initial temperature helps to make a nice brown crust on the top early in the bake and that should help the loaf rise straight up out of the tin rather than bulging sideways over the top (doesn't always work but ya gotta try). It's done when you knock on the bottom of it and it sounds hollow.
I've never done the trick of putting a pan with some water in the bottom of the oven to add steam for an extra crusty loaf, I've heard too much steam can mess with your oven's thermometer and I don't need an extra variable in my bread making just yet.
After they're done, transfer to a wire rack to cool as soon as you can to stop the steam condensing against the tin/tray and softening the crust. A loaf of bread will not react well to being cut open while too warm, leave it alone, let it cool properly to keep as much of that steam inside the bread as possible, that's what makes it soft. Buns on the other hand, as long as they haven't merged together in the rising you can rip one open, melt some butter in there and munch away. Be careful not to burn your mouth but you're not going to ruin the batch by eating one, which might be a contributing factor to them being my favourite, that and the all around crust.
