Handmade Soft Italian Bread

With all this uncertainty I have been trying to ground myself in ritual and appreciating the simplest of things. Baking bread always seemed like something I would learn, but perhaps, not necessarily something I had to learn soon. Looking at the days stretching in front of me, I decided I needed to focus on things I could control so I started compile a list of things to learn and a list of things to do. On my daily list of things to do, I put several concrete things like writing a daily poem, going for.a walk, having a cup of tea, and setting the table for the breakfast the next day. The list of things to learn was more varied and ranged from learning Adobe Suite, mastering fishtail braiding with the help of Youtube and even learning Accounting basics….so,yes, baking bread seemed like the goal which seemed most approachable. I have read on the internet where people are commenting about how lovely it is to have so much down time and I have read writings of people who say exactly the opposite and with every day which has passed where my normal has now shifted, I am trying to find the good while giving space to acknowledge the bad. The good? When baking this, giving bread hours to rise and then rerise and then bake seemed totally reasonable, because, well, it is totally reasonable. I hadn’t baked bread before because the time investment seemed so serious but as I type this I know I have recently invested copious amounts of time watching reruns of the same reality shows…I could have been baking instead of balking about baking!

I made it my goal to use this loaf in as many ways as possible, and in the recipes which come in the next days, you will find my finished bread used as bread, in a sandwich, as French toast, as homemade croutons, and yes, even as bread crumbs. After trying this bread recipe, I am excited about trying others. There is something which feels almost sacred about kneading bread in a time of crisis as people throughout history, many of them women, kneaded their way through calamity, famine, war and yes, even sickness. As I made this loaf I delighted in the fact it rose when it was supposed to and when I took it to out of the oven, I felt pride over the fact it actually looked like bread. As a yogi, often a cue I hear in class is to “ground down” meaning to stabilize yourself in the parts of your body which both keep you supported and rooted into the Earth. It is a cue to focus your energy and intention. Baking this bread help me tune out the noise and nervousness of this current chapter in history, and ground down internally to focus on what is real, what are healthy messages to tell myself and others and what is in my control.

The recipe I ended up trying was for 2 loaves with a single egg between them so the egg ratio was slightly off. The bummer about Coronavirus is sharing a loaf a bread would be frowned on so I made a single loaf and the adjustment for a single loaf are written below. In the future I plan I trying handmade pizza dough, sourdough, hell, I might even go a little crazy and try my hand at an olive loaf. Keep checking back for the recipes which were born from this loaf, maximizing my dollar and minimizing my waste. With everything which has been going on, the simple pleasure of eating a hot slice of bread covered in butter seemed like a luxury even I could afford.

Ingredients

pkg of dry yeast

1.5 cups of warm water

1.5 tbls of sugar

1.5 tbls of shortening

0.5 tbls salt

0.5 of a beaten egg

3.5 cups of flour plus more for dusting

tbls of butter melted

Dissolve the yeast int he warm water. Add the sugar, shortening, salt, egg, water and 2 cups of flour. Mix in your standup mixer (I was supposed to use another attachment to mix, but used the dough hook and it worked fine).

nd then add the remaining flour in segments until the dough is integrated.

The dough should be sticky and mixed, and remove it from the mixer and place on a floured surface.

Knead the flour for 6-8 minutes until it has a consistent consisitency.

Grease your medium mixing bowl, and place the dough inside. Let the dough stand covered (I covered mine in beeswax wrap) until it doubles in size.

Punch it down and form it into a loaf on a greased cookie sheet. . Make 5 slashes across the top. Cover.

Llet it rest for another hour while it re-rises. Place the loaf into the oven for 26-32 minutes. I took mine out at 25 minutes because my oven runs hot.

When done, brush the top with the melted butter.