After years of watching The Great British Bake-Off and swearing to myself that I could replicate the recipes, quarantine finally brought the day: I was going to bake bread.
Making my own bread terrified me. It just seemed… complicated, you know? But with my Netflix queue and snack supply dwindling, I figured it was time to face my baking fears.
To start, I looked for the easiest bread recipe I could find and went with this one.
I gathered my ingredients and started by activating the yeast in water. As I watched it, I realized that the recipe called for 5-6 cups of flour, but I had… much less than that on hand.
But the yeast was already doing its thing, so I decided to keep going. How bad could it be? I added my 4½ cups of flour.
I ended up with something resembling water-logged clay. As I tried to knead it, I ended up with dough-coated hands—a very unpleasant situation.
I would’ve taken a picture for proof, but I didn’t want to be picking dough off my phone for days. Note, the recipe said the dough was supposed to be sticky to the touch, but not stick to your hands.
I had the sinking feeling that the dough was in charge, not me.
With that came a Frankenstein moment—looking down at the gooey, lumpy mass and thinking what have I created? You may ask, Morgan, how does it feel to know that a glob of water, yeast, flour, sugar, salt and oil is control of you? Not great, thank you for asking.
Standing there in my pajamas, unbrushed hair contained in a scrunchie, I wondered if it was already time to abandon ship.
Thankfully, my brother, Andrew, came to the rescue when he dove deep into the pantry and found more flour.
After I added another cup, the dough started to look less like something that crawled out of a bog in a horror movie. Okay, I thought. Maybe I can do this.
Then, it was time for the first rise. I put the dough in an oil-coated bowl and let it sit until it had doubled in size.
Watching the dough rise came with a sense of gleeful satisfaction that made me feel like this endeavor wasn’t so hopeless.
After, I punched it down (which feels like playing with Play-Doh), and shaped it into loaves to rise for a second time. Finally, it was time to bake. I decided on thirty minutes.
So as I watched the oven, I also had the pleasure of fending off a hungry mother. I’d barely taken my creations from the oven before she snatched them away and cut into one.
It was beautiful.
To my mom’s credit, hot bread straight from the oven is wonderful—the butter got all melty and delicious.
I could not believe how good it had turned out, especially considering the mess I began with.
I was ridiculously pleased with myself, and a few days later, I still am.
Plus, it was a great quarantine activity, simply because it took a good chunk of time I wouldn’t otherwise have (and, you know, fresh bread).
1) Make sure you have all the ingredients before you start. Obvious, but tricky. That way, you don’t end up like me, hands coated in dough and shouting for your brother to look for more flour.
2) Begin your baking time at the lower end of the time spectrum—I cooked my loaves for thirty minutes and parts of the crust were darker than I would’ve liked.
3) The recipe advises you to let the loaves cool before you eat them, but TBH, I blatantly disregarded that and had delicious, warm bread.
4) I can see why baking bread is so addictive! I’m already planning to make more.
Happy baking!!