Vegan White Bread 🍞
July 10, 2020
After watching bread week on The Great British Bake Off, I longed for the waft of bread baking in the oven. The rainy day made for the perfect opportunity. That and I have bread on the grocery list. Inspired by the simplicity of this guy’s video and recipe, I made some loaves of some white bread while watching the next few episodes. 📺
675 grams or 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
8 grams or 1 1/2 tsp salt
20 grams or 4 tsp sugar
8 grams or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
20 grams or 2 Tbsp olive oil
438 ml or 1 3/4 cups hot water
Whisk together flour, salt, sugar, yeast in stand-up mixer bowl. ( I used coconut sugar, which was all I had…)
Measure oil into a liquid measuring cup. Then heat water in a small saucepan to 120 degrees. Add warm water to measuring cup with oil and then add liquids to flour mixture.
Affix to mixer and stir at low-medium speed for 2 minutes. Then increase speed to medium-high, kneading for 5 minutes.
Poke the dough for doneness. If it is too sticky add a Tablespoon of flour and knead again on medium-high speed for several minutes. Test again and repeat this process, if necessary, until dough is still visible moist but not tacky to your finger. (I did this on a very humid day and needed to add a few TBs of flour. But don’t add a ton of flour as this will make dough too dry and create an unpleasant bread texture.)
Scrape the dough out of the bowl and spray a coating of oil on the bottom and sides. Return the dough to the bowl and spray a coating of oil on its top.
Cover with a layer damp tea towel. Let rise for 40 minutes in a warm area. (I boiled water on the stove top and put the saucepan in the oven along with the dough bowl and let proof inside with the door closed. This made a nice warm and moist area for rising.)
Prepare two loaf tins while the first proof is happening. Spray oil on all sides of pan.
After the 40 minutes, punch the dough out in the bowl (so satisfying), then scrap the dough out of the bowl. Split it into two equal balls using a scale.
Shape each dough ball to the length of your loaf pan and attempt to get a uniform thickness. Put the dough into pan and oil the top of the dough. Repeat for the second loaf pan/dough ball.
Cover again and let rise for 15 minutes in your special warm place. After 15 minutes, uncover and let it rise for another 15 minutes. You want to preheat the oven to 375 here too. I let the uncovered dough rise during latter 15 minutes on top of the stove with the aid from the warming oven.
After second proof is complete, dough should be about to the top of your loaf pan or above it. Bake for 40 minutes, checking in on it every so often when the smell of the baking bread has got your drooling…
Once done, remove from oven and immediately transfer to a raised cooling rack. If you let them sit in pan they will get too moist and sog the bread.
All done and looking good! Though the rise in the oven wasn’t that great, I think I ought to invest in some bread pans.
One was an overachiever
Airy white bread! Yum.
The bread has a nice crust too.
Enjoying a slice while Paul Hollywood does his thing.
Call me crazy, but I want to make another kind of loaf like right now! What else do I have going on? Maybe a challah? Or another babka? I’m up for a challenge. Stay tuned!