King Arthur says that this bread is basically the one that appeared on the back of flour packages as “The Easiest Bread You’ll Ever Bake.” They’re probably right; although it’s not as easy as, say, a no-knead recipe, it’s certainly one of the nicest and easiest to work with doughs I’ve ever made. I substituted the final bits of my 12-grain flour blend and some semolina to give it some more heft, and divided into individual rolls for sandwiches throughout the week; the recipe divided well into twelve sandwich sized rolls.

The recipe is written originally for active dry yeast, so it has built in activation time at the beginning of the recipe. I use instant yeast, so I didn’t really need that step, but I kept it in anyway.

Instead of waiting for things to dissolve, I just whisked everything together and the sugar dissolved well enough. The yeast really broke up as well from their clumps and the whole liquid became kind of milky.

In goes the flour; the original recipe called for 5 1/2 to 6 cups, depending on how humid your environment is, I suppose. 5 1/2 cups was plenty for me and turned the dough into a very workable, only slightly sticky dough.

I mixed it up a bit with my hand mixer, but then I just kneaded it by hand for the most part. Like I said, this has got to be the easiest dough I’ve worked with, very pleasant to knead.

After rising you can see just how pretty this dough ball is. At least, it’s pretty to me. Nice and smooth and easy to work with, you don’t have to worry about this one welding itself to your hand as you try to shape it.

Shaping these little guys was really easy too: just tuck in the bottom all the way around until you have a smooth surface on one side, then put the bottom down on a baking sheet covered in cornmeal.

After the buns rise another time, brush or spray them with cold water and slash them. They go into the oven with a pan of water that has been preheating; this is meant to create steam and result in a crustier loaf, but I even though I did this and let them cool in the oven with the door slightly propped (also supposed to create a crustier loaf), the crust softened like it does in all my breads. Oh well, it’s probably better for sandwiches that way. To be fair, the crust was more robust than in my previous loaves. The crumb was light and the semolina and the whole grain flour added a nice tooth to the bread. While not strictly the absolute easiest bread I’ve ever made, it was certainly one of the nicest in the making process.

Easy Whole Wheat Hearth Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon (1 packet) instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups warm water (not over 110°F)
• 1/2 cup 12-grain flour blend
• 1 cup semolina
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• cornmeal

Directions

1. Mix together the first four ingredients. Let this stand until the yeastt, sugar and salt are dissolved. Gradually add the flour to the liquid and mix thoroughly until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface to knead. Knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling only enough flour on your kneading surface to prevent sticking. Let the dough rest while you scrape out and grease the mixing bowl. Knead the dough again for 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Return the dough to the bowl and turn it over once to grease the top. Cover with greased plastic wrap and keep warm until the dough doubles in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours.
4. Punch down the dough with your fist and briefly knead out any air bubbles. Divide the dough into as many pieces as you want rolls (I chose 12). Place the rolls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover the rolls and let rise for 45 minutes.
5. Lightly slash the tops of the loaves 3 or more times diagonally and brush them with cold water.
6. Preheat the oven and roasting pan with water to 500°F for 15 minutes. Brush the loaves with cold water, place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 400°F and bake for 15 to 20 more minutes, until the rolls are golden brown.

How do you eat a sandwich on a pretzel? Pretzel rolls, of course!

I’m constantly searching for new and interesting breads that I can use to make sandwiches for lunch during the week. Most of the time I just pour through King Arthur Flour’s website for recipe ideas, but I got this one while photograzing over on Serious Eats. I love pretzel bread, so I had to give it a try, and boy did they turn out well. I decided to use Alton Brown’s recipe for soft pretzels, but formed into small loaves instead of pretzel shapes. Fortunately, making pretzel bread is really that simple, and with fun differences from your standard bread recipes.

The recipe starts out like any other, with wet and dry ingredients being mixed together. The original recipe calls for proofing your active dry yeast; since I use instant yeast, I just combined everything at once.

I managed to get the dough to come together completely just with the dough whisk, after which I busted out the electric hand mixer and the dough hooks for kneading.

The dough was neither too dry nor too slack; it was fairly sticky, but didn’t weld itself to your hand when you picked it up. The dough only rises once, until doubled in size.

The dough is divided up into 8 equal pieces. If the dough is too sticky you can use some oil to manipulate it more easily, but I didn’t really have any trouble.

Pretty good shaping! This dough didn’t seem to deflate as much after it’s first rise and was pretty robust, which I think contributed to my ease in shaping it.

The fun part! Pretzels get their trademark brown, glossy sheen from taking a hot bath in baking soda and water. Thirty seconds in a pan of boiling water and baking soda, and they were ready for baking.

You can see the difference between the one loaf on the right side that hasn’t taken it’s bath and those that have. Make sure you flip the loaf top side down in the water, otherwise your nicely shaped top becomes your bottom (this happened to the first one I did, seen here in the bottom left corner). They also got an egg yolk and water coating after they were boiled.

This time I slashed! Pretzel loaves just have to be slashed so that you can see the white insides peeking out from underneath that shiny, brown top. The loaves grew a substantial amount in the oven, so much so that at least two of the rolls were too large for as single sandwich. I could have definitely gotten a couple more loaves out of the recipe if I had made several of them a bit smaller. The loaves themselves were awesome; they tasted just like pretzel bread, and were fantastic for sandwiches. I decided to forgo the salt this time, since a lot of pretzel breads seem to not include it, but I think a light sprinkling of kosher salt would be a good addition to these rolls. They’ve inspired me to make actual soft pretzels, too; it was so easy and fun, with such fantastic results. Gotta love recipes like that!

Soft Pretzel Rolls (adapted from Alton Brown)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) instant yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt (optional)

Directions

1. Combine the water, sugar, salt, yeast, flour and butter in a large bowl and mix until well incorporated.
2. Knead with an electric mixer or by hand until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes (by mixer).
3. Transfer the dough to an oiled dough rising bucket or bowl, cover and let rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
4. Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
5. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in a large stock pot.
6. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a small, oval loaf. Place onto the parchment-lined sheet pan.
7. Place the loaves into the boiling water, topside down, one at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return them, right side up, to the sheet pan.
8. Brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Slash with a sharp bread knife once or twice. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.