White Bread – Delicious and fastest to produce
Key: make bread rise in Microwave in lieu of letting Mother Nature do it.
You can have 2 loaves on the table, in 2 hours from inception!
Ingredients:
9-10 cups Bread Flour
1 cup gluten
3 Tbls dry yeast
1 cup 110 - 115°F water
3 Tbls butter – melted
1 egg
½ tsp salt
3 cups hot tap water
1 cup dry milk powder
3 Tbls Sugar or honey
3 Tbls Sesame Seeds (pan toasted) for topping -optional-
Directions:
In a small bowl (custard cup size), mix 1 egg with ½ tsp. Salt, set aside.
In a 4 cup Pyrex measure, put 3 cups hot water. Microwave on high for 7 minutes (make sure water is boiling). Leave in microwave and push to the back.
In a 2 cup measure, put 1 cup 115°F water, 1 Tbls. sugar and the yeast. Mix well and let rise – (to test yeast if active)
In a large bowl, put two cups warm water, mix in the powdered milk, the yeast mixture and melted butter. In a 8 cup measure, mix 3 cups bread flour, gluten, remaining sugar and salt. Add this to the liquid in the large bowl *** Mix in enough flour mixture to create a sponge to the consistency of heavy waffle batter ***. Cover the bowl with an oiled plastic wrap, right down onto the sponge. Put the oil/plastic wrap covered sponge in the microwave oven with the boiling water mixture for 12 minutes at 10% power.
When doubled in size, remove, add enough flour to release sponge from sides of bowl and pour out onto a floured “oil cloth”. Mix in remaining flour and kneed for approximately 5 minutes or until no longer sticky. Put this dough into a oiled plastic zip lock bag, with all the air pressed out. Put oil lined, dough filled bag in large clean bowl and back into the microwave oven with the water mixture along side for another 10 minutes at 10% power or until doubled in bulk. Remove from microwave, punch down, reseal and let rest for 10 minutes.
Cut dough in half and form into two loaves, put in oiled, parchment paper lined, bread pans. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and put in 150°F preheated oven (with heat off) on pot holders until dough has risen to 1” above top of bread pans. Remove bread pans from oven, set oven to 350°F. When oven reaches that temperature, remove oiled plastic wrap from bread, brush top with egg and salt mixture from step #1, sprinkle with the sesame seeds and put in center of oven. Bake for 35 minutes.
When done, bread will sound hollow when tapped on top. Remove from pans to wire rack to cool.
Enjoy