The Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make

This recipe is truly the easiest bread I have ever made.

Period.




There is no kneading involved or any special equipment to mix it, it's made with 3 ingredients (4 if you count water), it makes 3-4 loaves (depending on the size), and takes minutes to shape.  You can keep the unused dough in a container in the fridge for up to 14 days before you bake it off, making it easy to serve fresh hot bread even on a weeknight. 

I found this amazing recipe off the back of a sack of Gold Medal Flour.  My favorite flours to use in baking, and well...just about anything that calls for flour, is either King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose Flour or Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour.  It just so happened Gold Medal was on sale last week and lucky for me, just so happened to be a sack with this bread recipe on it!

You can just see how crispy and crunchy the outside is....

And the inside is soft and fluffy.  The taste, really reminds me of a good Italian bread.

Even if you have never made a loaf of bread in your life, give this recipe a try.  It's so easy even a child could do it!!

The Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make

Printable Recipe

Yield: 3 - 4 small loaves

*I am not going to furnish nutritional information for this recipe, as how big your slice of bread is depends on how big your loaf is and how you cut it.  Servings and serving sizes will vary greatly.  For me, I weighed my slice and used WW P+ closest to any generic white bread that has no added sugar for tracking purposes.

Ingredients:

3 cups of lukewarm water (about 100 degrees F)

1 pkg of regular or quick active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

1 TBS kosher salt

6 1/2 cups Gold Medal® Unbleached All Purpose Flour (2 pounds)

Directions:

1. In an extra large bowl (at least 5-6 quarts capacity), mix water, yeast, and salt.  Stir to dissolve the salt and the yeast.  
2. Add all of the flour.  With a wooden spoon, mix until all the flour has absorbed into the water mixture.  It will be a giant, sloppy, shaggy mess.  This is good!  
3. Cover bowl loosely and allow to rise at room temperature for 2 hours.  
4. After 2 hrs, punch risen dough down.  Cover again, loosely, and put into the fridge for 1 - 3 hours (if you want to bake a loaf the day you make the dough) or up to 14 days.
5. To bake:  Pinch off a piece of dough, about the size of a grapefruit.  Put the rest of the dough back into fridge, loosely covered and store up to 14 days.  Shape dough into a ball by pulling the dough around itself and under so the top is somewhat smooth.  Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper, cut to be just a bit bigger than the dough ball itself.  Allow to rise for one hour at room temperature.  No need to cover the dough during the rise.  (the bread my not rise much during this time)  Make three small slashes with a serrated knife (about 1/4" deep) across the top of the bread and lightly dust it with flour. 
6. About a half hour before the dough is done rising, Place a pizza stone in the middle of the oven, the tray of a broiler pan on the rack below the stone and preheat oven to 450 degrees F. 
7. Once oven has heated to 450 degrees F and the dough has been rising for one hour, take the parchment and place right on top of the pizza stone carefully so you don't burn yourself.  (you can also use a pizza peel if you have one) 
8. Take one cup of hot water and pour into hot broiler pan (or I just throw it into the bottom of my oven.  I have an electric without the coils on the bottom..but if you aren't sure you can put the water right in the oven, use the broiler pan!) This will create steam to give you that nice crust!!
9. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and firm to the touch.  Cool completely before cutting. 

Adapted from Gold Medal Flour®

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Truth is...I totally could not wait until it was completely cool to cut into this bread.  Wow.  So good.  I finished off the dough this week and was able to get three loaves out of it!  

You can bake the bread after the first rise and omit the refrigeration step.   You will end up with a bigger loaf that is not quite so tight on the inside.  Still good though.  The loaf pictured is my second loaf out of the dough, so it was refrigerated for about 2 days before I baked it off.  Personally, I love that this dough can keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks!  

Like I said, even if you aren't a bread maker or have never made bread before, you MUST try this recipe.

You might notice a few changes going on with the blog.  I finally purchased my own domain!  yeah!  But since the name "mykitchenadventures" was taken, I went with ReneesKitchenAdventures.  (Nicole from Heat Oven to 350 suggested it! since everyone knows me as Renee anyway!)   You can now find me under www.Reneeskitchenadventures.com.  Right now, either the old URL or the new one should direct you to the blog.  As time goes on, I will be changing everything over to the new URL. 

Don't forget to try your luck at winning a copy of the cookbook, Sprinkles! Recipes and Ideas for Rainbowlicious Desserts by Jackie Alpers in my latest giveaway!  Go HERE for details.

I love making my own bread, especially this time of year.  How about you?  Do you like making bread?  What's your favorite bread recipe if you do?

Looking for more yeast bread recipes?  Check out these:

Honey Buttered Cheesy Soft Pretzel Knots from Anyonita Nibbles.  The name says it all! 
Sourdough Starter and Sourdough bread and other goodies from The Tip Toe Fairy