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Cookbook:Basic Bread Dough

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Basic Bread Dough
CategoryBread recipes
Time1 ¼–3 hours
Difficulty

Cookbook | Recipes | Ingredients | Equipment | Techniques | Cookbook Disambiguation Pages | Recipes | Bread

This recipe makes a little more dough than enough for a 1-pound loaf of bread. It is intended to be kneaded in a bread machine, and baked in an oven.

Ingredients

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Ingredient Count Volume

[note 1]

Weight Baker's % (optional)
Warm water (heated for about 40 seconds in the microwave) 1 cup 237 g 86.5%
Sugar 2 teaspoons (10 mL) 8.4 g 3.07%
Salt 1 teaspoon (5 mL) 6 g 2.19%
High-gluten (strong/bread) flour 2 cups 274 g 100%
Active dry yeast [note 2] 1-4 teaspoon (5-20 mL) 4-16 g 1.46-5.84%
Honey 1 tablespoon 7-21 g 2.55-7.66%
Total 536–562 g 196–205%

Procedure

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  1. Add ingredients to a 2-pound capacity bread machine in the order listed, select dough cycle, and press start.
  2. Remove when cycle is complete.
  3. Preheat oven to 400 °F (200 °C)
  4. When dough is finished, form into desired shape on a floured surface, and place on baking sheet or pizza stone. [note 3]
  5. Bake until lightly brown and firm. Cooking time will vary with altitude (20–40 minutes).
  6. Cool and enjoy.

Variations

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  • To make a twist loaf, roll dough into a cylindrical shape with your hands, but make one end of the cylinder thicker than the other. Then divide the cylinder with a knife down the center of the thicker end, creating a ring with a protruding cylinder. Braid and bake.
  • Brush loaf with an eggwash (1 egg + a scant amount of water) or egg white, melted margarine or butter, or olive oil for a crisper crust.
  • Sprinkle brushed loaf with minced garlic, chopped herbs, ground spices, grated cheese, ground pepper and/or kosher salt for flavor.
  • Toss or roll into a flat disc and top with tomato sauce, olive oil, chopped meat, vegetables and/or grated cheeses to create a pizza (bake until cheese is melted).

Conversion notes

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  1. Original recipe text and ingredient order preserved. Weight conversions from USDA National Nutrient Database. Milliliter values were ignored. Honey was presumed in the range of 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon.
  2. The minimum amount of yeast will result in a slightly strong yeast flavor, and increase with higher values. To reduce this flavor, it is recommend to use no more than 0.75% instant dry yeast expressed as a baker's %, alternatively, 2.5% cake yeast (compressed) or 1% active dry yeast, although you can expect fermentation time to increase somewhat.
  3. There is no proofing time specified.