Cute Round Loaf of Bread

When you have deli and cheese sitting in the fridge, bake this hearty bread and make a delicious sandwich! Well, that is what I did. I wanted to have some homemade bread before starting the Keto (Low-carb) diet so I decided to bake this bread. You can also enjoy this with a bowl of soup or stew. We were so excited to see the hot bread straight from the oven that we couldn’t stop ourselves from having a nice thick slice with loads of butter.

If you love baking but don’t know how to do it, let me be your guide. As a self taught baker there have been many hits and misses in my experiments but in that process I have discovered a few recipes which work for me every time. 

If you do try this bread, please let me know. 

Good luck and happy baking!

Ingredients:

• Active Dry Yeast - 2 teaspoons 
• All-Purpose Flour - 2 cups, plus more for dusting
• Salt – ½ teaspoon 
• Sugar - 4 tablespoons 
• Unsalted Butter - 4 tablespoons, softened

Directions:

• In an oven safe dish, pour ½ cup lukewarm water (the water should not be too hot or cold, it should just feel lukewarm on the inner side of your wrist), sprinkle in the Yeast, cover and set aside until foamy.

(See the measuring cup? It’s the Yeast all foamy and ready to work its magic on the flour)

• After 7-8 minutes add the All-Purpose Flour, Salt, Sugar and Unsalted Butter. Attach the dough hook and run for a few seconds or if kneading by hand, mix for about 30 seconds. 
• Add the Yeast water and knead into a smooth and soft dough. 
• Transfer to an oven safe dish and cover it.
• Set the oven temperature to Warm (or the lowest you can find on the temperature knob, example: 170 degrees)
• Place the dish in the oven (The dough should feel warm and cozy inside). Switch off the oven.
• After an hour, take out the dough it should have doubled. 

• Again set the oven temperature to Warm (or lowest) and punch down the dough.
• To form a cute round loaf, I used a round baking pan of 6 inches. I greased it with butter and kept it aside.
• Now clean a surface on your kitchen counter and dust it lightly with the All Purpose Flour. 
• Turn all the dough onto this floured surface and knead 50 turns. Pull a part of the dough and fold it inside, press and push the dough a little with your palm, flattening it, then repeat the steps.
• Shape the dough into a round loaf and place it in the greased baking pan.
• Score the dough – Now this is a very important step and I should tell you I don’t have a proper scoring knife at home. Thankfully you can just use a sharp knife or a serrated bread knife to make cuts in your dough. Why we are doing this step? So that the dough can rise properly and through these cuts. If you choose not to do this, then the bread will just crack from wherever it pleases. To score, hold the knife firmly and make single slashes on the dough in a design you want.
• Loosely cover it and let it rise in the warm oven for an hour until almost doubled. I usually place the baking pan in a big container and loosely cover it with a kitchen towel. It helps to give it a beautiful rise without any obstructions. Remember if you don’t cover your dough, it will develop a hard top layer.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
• Bake till it is light golden in color, about 10 minutes. 
• Once the baking part is complete, transfer the hot bread to a cooling rack.
• After 5 minutes, run a sharp knife around the edge of the baking pan and using a kitchen towel carefully transfer it on the cooling rack.
• Enjoy with butter or with soup/ stew or make a sandwich!

Recommended Reading:

• Jalapeño and Cheddar Cheese Bread
• Breadsticks
• Whole Wheat Bread
• Bread Dipping Oil with Parmesan and Herbs
• Homemade Puff Pastry Dough