bread!!

You guys, I totally made bread. From scratch! With yeast and everything! Not going to lie, I'm pretty impressed with myself. I followed the recipe from here pretty exactly.

• 4 cups of all purpose or unbleached flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt      
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 package dry yeast     
• 1 3/4 cups hot  water

First: mix the flour, salt, and yeast in a big bowl. Then it said to "form a well" in the dry ingredients and stir in the water and then the oil until it looks like dough. It specifically said to use a wooden spoon but I don't have one so I used a plastic one?? It turned out okay. I don't know what effect a wooden spoon would have but use it if you've got it, I guess.

Then, on a "well-floured" work surface knead the dough for 10 minutes or until it feels "elastic." I have no idea what that means because if you ask me it was elastic to start out with? So I just set a timer for 10 minutes and did that.

Then I put it in in a big bowl (the same one from before but I rinsed it out and then sprayed the inside with olive oil spray) and covered it with Saran wrap for an hour and a half.

Here again I diverged from the recommendation of that website because I don't have any "bread bowls." I have one metal loaf pan. And after the dough has risen for an hour-ish, you're supposed to divide it in half and put the halves in whatever you're going to bake them in (greased) and let them rise again for 20 30 minutes. But only one batch of the dough went in the loaf pan and the other half stayed in the bowl. It turned out okay I guess?

I forgot to say, pre-heat the oven to 375 and bake it for 20 minutes or until it turns "golden brown."

OH and I decided to make one loaf of cinnamon bread so I just mixed 1/4 cup of sugar and a couple good shakes of cinnamon in with the dough. There is maybe a more scientific way of doing that but it turned out pretty tasty.

It is tasty! Kind of dense and I wondered if maybe I didn't knead it enough, or whatever, but my friend Mary (who is an accomplished breadstress and sent me this recipe) says the recipe is for kind of dense bread and if I want something lighter I should try this recipe. WHICH MAYBE I WILL.

Oh and Mary says this recipe also makes good pizza dough which I will definitely try in the future. 

Also I have to say that clean-up after this was a bitch and there is still bread dough stuck to my sponge. Worth it? I guess?

PS I consulted with Mary and she said I should leave it out longer for the second rising and it will be fluffier. I made another batch of bread and left it out for more like 30 minutes on the second rising and it totally worked. Yeah bread!