Generic White Bread

Generic White Bread
How I make it.

I don't use a recipe as such, just this general approach ...

1. In a large bowl, whisk ½ a teaspoon of 'easy bake' yeast (the sort you use with breadmakers) into 300 ml of warmish water (100 ml boiling mixed with 200 ml cold).
2. Gradually stir in 200 g of strong white bread flour. You'll end up with a thick batter.
3. Let the yeast do its thing for an hour or two. If after that you don't think it's active enough, leave it longer. If your not sure that it's active enough, it isn't.
4. Mix 1½ teaspoons of salt into the batter, and mix in more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until you have a dough that's still pretty wet, but dry enough to knead. The amount of flour needed varies, but will usually be another 250 to 300 g or so.
5. Knead the dough. I use a stand mixer with a dough hook. It can take up to 10 minutes before the dough looks and feels right.
6. Cover the dough and let it rise. I normally allow up to a couple of hours for it to double in size, but will give it longer if needed.
   
   
   These days I cook bread at a very high oven temperature in a round or oval cast iron casserole or Dutch oven, which traps steam and simulates a proper bread oven. If you want to do the same, and have a casserole with a plastic handle on the lid, you will want to remove the handle (as I found out the hard way with a somewhat expensive Le Creuset casserole).
   
   
7. Cut a one-piece baking paper liner for your casserole, but don't put it in the casserole yet.
8. Put the casserole, with the lid on, in the oven and heat the oven to its highest temperature setting (or the highest temperature that's safe for your casserole)
9. Oil the baking paper liner (I never used to do this until I encountered a brand of baking parchment that bonded securely to the bread when not oiled).
10. Knead the dough again to get it back to its original size (which at this stage I do by hand), then shape it to suit the casserole.
11. Put the dough on the (oiled) baking paper, cover it and let it rise again to twice its original size. (I normally just drop the dough, on the paper, back into the bowl if I'm using a round casserole). This rise usually takes about an hour. Again, giving it a bit too long is better than not giving it long enough.
12. Cut slashes in the top of the dough to help it rise without splitting during baking.
13. Take the preheated casserole from the oven, lower the dough into it and put the lid back on.
14. Return the casserole to the oven and cook for 35 mins, lowering the oven temperature to gas mark 7 (220 °C) after 10 mins.
15. Remove the bread from the casserole, turn it over and tap the base. If it’s cooked through, it will sound hollow. (35 mins always works for me, but in a different casserole, in a different oven … ).
16. Cool the bread on a rack.

This bread has a poor shelf life. It is really good when it’s fresh but goes stale quickly. It’s only good for toast by the day after it’s cooked (but it’s good toast).