Utensils
Large Bowl with a lid. I use a big glass 4qt bowl that came with a lid.
Liquid measure cup.
Dry Measuring cup. 1 cup, .5 cup and 1tbsp
Spoon, spatula or bread whisk. Whatever bread dough won’t stick to.
Ingredients
1.5 Cups Lukewarm Water
1 Tbsp Yeast
.5 Tbsp Salt
3.25 Cups flour

If you are doing a 50/50 bread do half white, half of whatever other flour you like.
1.75 All Purpose unbleached white
1.75 Other

Instructions

Mix Lukewarm Water(this is important just warmer than you can actually tell) and the full measure of Yeast.
Let stand for 2 minutes so the yeast can activate.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients.

Mix for approx 2-3 mins until ingredients are just integrated with no lumps or dry material left.

There’s your 5 minutes the first day.

Cover the bowls or container but leave a bit of a crack in the cover.
Let rise at least 2 hours.

Putting it in the fridge is so fast it doesn’t count.

Refrigerate with the lid still slightly cracked open.
Regrigeration time can vary from 12hrs to 3 weeks.
The longer you refrigerate it the stronger the sourdough like taste will be.

When you’re ready to take it out and cook it.

Use butter or oil to coat the loaf pan.
Put some flour on your hands so the dough won’t stick.
Take the dough out of the bowl and pull the edges under it so it forms a smooth oval to fit in your rectangle loaf pan.
Put it in the pan!

Let the dough rise in the pan for at least 2 hours. If it looks like it’s rising well sometimes I’ll let it rise 3 hours.

Set a timer for the rise time, we’ll say 2hrs for example minus 30 minutes. So 1.5hrs instead of 2.

The reason you’re cutting off half an hour is because you need to pre-heat your oven for 30 minutes.

When your timer goes off put a broiler tray in the bottom rack of the oven turn the oven to 400F.
Reset the timer for 30 minutes.

When the timer goes off that will signal the end of pre-heat and rise.

Fill a mug with the hotest water your tap will make.
Put the loaf pan in the oven.
Using an oven mit quickly but carefully pour the water in to the broiler tray and quickly shut the oven.

Bake for 40 minutes. Your oven may vary.

It’s an interesting thing to note but there’s a distinct bread cooking smell that you’ll notice. That smell starts to go away and then change in to a sort of over cooked smell. Once you bake the bread a few times you’ll start to notice and recognize the smell. You can adjust your bake time once you get a nose for this.