I usually doubt simplicity. When things come too easily, I wait for the catch. But, trust me, this bread recipe is simple and catch-free.
Oh, wait...you need a food processor. There's the catch. I knew it.
Technically, you can't call this a no-knead recipe. There's about one minute of kneading, but I don't want the legal hassle, so let's just call it a knead-a-minute recipe.
There: honesty AND a pun. We all win.
Gather your ingredients. If you want to be all modern, you can just stop here and say you've prepared a deconstructed bread.
You will need bread flour, wheat flour, sugar, yeast, olive oil (or butter), milk, warm water, and salt.
To start, pre-heat your oven. Let the oven heat to a gentle warmth while you prepare your dough.
What is a gentle warmth, you may wonder? It happens when your oven is warm but not so warm you can't gently rest your hand on the oven wall. Eventually, you will be letting the dough rise in this gently warmed oven. I find letting my oven pre-heat to 200 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes and then turning off the oven gets me right where I need to be.
Mix the yeast with warm water and sugar. Yeast eats sugar and then releases carbon dioxide which makes your bread rise nice and tall, which should make your pride puff up a little, too. Let that yeast mixture sit for a few minutes until you see a bit of foam on the top.
Meanwhile in a mixer across the kitchen...
Add the flours to your mixer along with the salt. Pulse a few times to blend and then, while your food processor is on, add your milk, olive oil, and yeast mixture through the feed tube.
Process for about 30 seconds until your dough comes together. The dough will be moist and sticky, but add more liquids or flour, a little at a time, if you think the consistency is off.
Now, a word about kitchen safety: when you dump this dough out of the food processor, it will stick to the blade. Just let the dough stick to the blade. The blade wants it more than you do.
Lightly flour your hands and dump the dough onto a floured surface; knead for a minute. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
Let rise for two hours in warmed oven. For good measure, place a bowl of hot water on the lowest rack in the oven while the dough rises.
When the dough has doubled in volume, punch it down to deflate and place on a floured surface. Knead the dough a few times and let rest, covered, for 15 minutes.
Grease a loaf pan.
Shape the dough into a rectangle and place, seam-side-down, in your loaf pan.
Loosely cover and let rise for one hour until the top of the loaf is just even with the top of the loaf pan.
Brush the top of the loaf with milk or water and bake for 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
When the loaf is done, it will sound hollow when tapped. Remove your loaf from the pan immediately and set to cool before slicing or storing.
If you bake this, send photos.
Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
adapted from the How to Cook Everything cookbook
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 cups bread flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant active yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/3 cup warm water (about 105 to 115 degrees)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (or butter)
- 1 cup milk (scant)
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