Bread

Cakes. Wait no it's bread

Mantou (steamed buns)

Mantou

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Prepare warm water around 35 °C and melt the sugar in. And mix the yeast with the water. Mix well and set aside for around 5 minutes. If you do not want sugar, just skip it.
  2. Place salt and flour in a large bowl. Pour the water with yeast slowly to the bowl with flour and stir with a chopstick.
  3. Then knead the flour into smooth and soft dough. At the very beginning, it might be a little bit sticky. Or you can simple resort to a stand mixer.
  4. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for around 1 hour or until the paste ball doubles in size.
  5. When the dough is double in size, get paste ball out, dust the operating board and re-knead the dough for 3-4 minutes until the dough becomes almost smooth again. Divide the dough into two parts, keep kneading and shape each part into 1 inch thick long log.
  6. Remove the two ends and use a very sharp knife to cut the log to smaller pieces (around 2 cm wide). Try to keep the original shape. Place the buns to a lined steamer one by one. Leave some space among each one as the buns rise after steaming.
  7. Add cold water to your wok or steel steamer. Cover the lid and rest for 10 minutes in summer and around 20 minutes in winter or until the bun becomes fluffy again.
  8. Use high fire to bring the water to a boil and continue to steam for around 20 to 25 minutes (depending on the size of your buns).
  9. Remove off the fire and wait for around 5 minutes before opening the lid. Serve warm or re-steam to soften before serving.

Rustic Bread

"It's just some fucking rustic bread."

- some guy, probably

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Mix water, yeast, and sugar in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer. Let sit for about 10 minutes until bubbly.
  2. Add flour and salt. Mix until combined into a soft dough. (The dough should be slightly sticky to the touch, but not so that much comes off on your hands. If it’s too sticky to handle, add ¼ cup flour at a time.)
  3. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and kitchen towel. Let rise for 1-3 hours, if possible! I’ve run out of time before and let it rise for only 30-60 mins and it still works, but the longer, the better!
  4. Preheat oven to 450°F and put a pizza stone or flipped-over cookie sheet in the oven to heat up.
  5. Fill a baking dish with 2 inches of water and place on the bottom rack to create steam for an extra crispy crust.
  6. Sprinkle flour on the counter, turn out the dough, fold on itself, divide in half and form it into 2 balls. Don’t knead or handle it more than you need to. Add a little flour if it’s too sticky.
  7. Cut an X shape on the top of the balls with a sharp knife.
  8. Place on a lightly floured pan, then place on top of the hot pizza stone or cookie sheet.
  9. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.

Notes

*You can bake it right on the hot cookie sheet and it’ll be just fine. Just be careful handling the hot pan while putting your dough on it and in the oven!

Flatbread

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, salt and garlic powder.
  2. Add milk and 1 tablespoon of oil to a small saucepan. Warm over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir into flour mixture until small lumps form. Turn onto a floured surface and knead dough until soft and smooth (add more flour as needed). Let dough rest for about 5 minutes.
  3. Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll or flatten each piece into a flat circle, about 1/4 inch thick.
  4. Add one tablespoons oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook flatbread until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Add additional oil to skillet as needed.
  5. Sprinkle finished flatbread with garlic salt or other seasonings, if desired.

Focaccia

Ingredients

10–12 servings

Preparation

Step 1

Whisk one ¼-oz. envelope active dry yeast (about 2¼ tsp.), 2 tsp. honey, and 2½ cups lukewarm water in a medium bowl and let sit 5 minutes (it should foam or at least get creamy; if it doesn’t your yeast is dead and you should start again—check the expiration date!).


Step 2

Add 5 cups (625 g) all-purpose flour and 5 tsp. Diamond Crystal or 1 Tbsp. Morton kosher salt and mix with a rubber spatula until a shaggy dough forms and no dry streaks remain.


Step 3

Pour 4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil into a big bowl that will fit in your refrigerator. This puppy is going to rise! Transfer dough to bowl and turn to coat in oil. Cover with a silicone lid or plastic wrap and chill until dough is doubled in size (it should look very bubbly and alive), at least 8 hours and up to 1 day. If you're in a rush, you can also let it rise at room temperature until doubled in size, 3–4 hours.


Step 4

Generously butter a 13x9" baking pan, for thicker focaccia that’s perfect for sandwiches, or an 18x13" rimmed baking sheet, for focaccia that's thinner, crispier, and great for snacking. The butter may seem superfluous, but it’ll ensure that your focaccia doesn’t stick. Pour 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil into center of pan. Keeping the dough in the bowl and using a fork in each hand, gather up edges of dough farthest from you and lift up and over into center of bowl. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat process. Do this 2 more times; you want to deflate dough while you form it into a rough ball. (We learned this technique from Alexandra Stafford, who uses it to shape her no-knead bread.) Transfer dough to prepared pan. Pour any oil left in bowl over and turn dough to coat it in oil. Let rise, uncovered, in a dry, warm spot (like near a radiator or on top of the fridge or a preheating oven) until doubled in size, at least 1½ hours and up to 4 hours.


Step 5

Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 450°. To see if the dough is ready, poke it with your finger. It should spring back slowly, leaving a small visible indentation. If it springs back quickly, the dough isn’t ready. (If at this point the dough is ready to bake but you aren’t, you can chill it up to 1 hour.) Lightly oil your hands. If using a rimmed baking sheet, gently stretch out dough to fill (you probably won't need to do this if using a baking pan). Dimple focaccia all over with your fingers, like you’re aggressively playing the piano, creating very deep depressions in the dough (reach your fingers all the way to the bottom of the pan). Drizzle with remaining 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Bake focaccia until puffed and golden brown all over, 20–30 minutes.


Step 6

Hold off on this last step until you're ready to serve the focaccia: Melt 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Peel and grate in 2–4 garlic cloves with a Microplane (use 2 cloves if you’re garlic-shy or up to 4 if you love it). Return to medium heat and cook, stirring often, until garlic is just lightly toasted, 30–45 seconds. (Or, if you prefer raw garlic to toasted garlic, you can grate the garlic into the hot butter, off heat, then brush right away.)


Step 7

Brush garlic-butter all over focaccia and slice into squares or rectangles.


Step 8

Do Ahead: Focaccia is best eaten the day it's made, but keeps well in the freezer. Slice it into pieces, store it in a freezer-safe container, then reheat it on a baking sheet in a 300° F oven.

Bannock Bread

Fandabi's recipe

It's like that fuckin magic bread from lord of the rings or whatever

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Combine ingredients into a large bowl.

  2. Add a few tablespoons of hot water and mix well. Continue to add water as needed. Mix very thoroughly after each water addition. If you are impatient with this, you may add too much water.

  3. Knead the dough into a ball while in the bowl. The constancy looks like chocolate chip cookie dough. It should not stick to your hands.

  4. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment (baking) paper.

  5. Remove dough form bowl. Add some oats to the bowl.

  6. Tear off chunks of dough the size of an average man's fist. Shape into a patty the thickness of your fingers. Sprinkle one side with oats, rub and pat the oats in, flip and repeat.

  7. Place Bannocks into a 200C (395F) preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes.

  8. If you want them to last longer than a week, turn oven temperature down to 50C (122F - most US ovens only go down to 175F unless really old) and bake for another hour.

  9. Place on wire rack to cool down completely.