It was my dad’s birthday on Thursday, and being the great daughter that I am I cooked his birthday dinner. We had spaghetti (a shared favorite), but I wanted to add something special, so I decided to make an herbed bread and it turned out to be crazy delicious and easy. I got the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, which never lets me down.
I know I’ve already raved about stand mixers, but I’m going to do it again–the bread hook. I wouldn’t say I love making bread by hand, but I certainly like it, however it can be so messy and frustrating, and no one wants to deal with that. The bread hook on my stand mixer is one of the coolest inventions ever, you just dump in your flour, salt, and yeast mixture and it kneads it into a ball! It’s a win-win, you feel much more connected to the bread than you would had you bought it or used a bread machine, but you save the crusty hands.
Ingredients:
1 packet active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp granulated sugar
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp herbs
3 cloves minced garlic (optional)
1 cup water
5 tbsp olive oil (divided)
2 tsp coarse salt
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with the sugar. Set it aside for ten minutes (if it doesn’t start to bubble after five minutes, it may be inactive, restart with a fresh packet).
My yeast got really awesome and bubbly so I took a picture.
Mix your herbs together in a little prep bowl. The recipe suggests using fresh rosemary leaves, but I don’t really like rosemary, so I used mostly garlic powder (preface: I initially set out to make find a garlic roll recipe, so I had garlic on the mind). I also used some fresh oregano, ’cause I had it on hand. I added my minced garlic to the prep bowl.
Dump the flour, the salt (not the coarse salt), the herbs with garlic, and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a bowl and mix to combine. Add the yeast and knead (hopefully using your bread hook) until you have a smooth and elastic dough ball, adding water as needed (I ended up using a little more than a cup of water).
Stick the dough in a bowl coated with olive oil, cover it with a damp cloth, and stick it in a warm place to rise until it’s doubled in size. A great tip my aunt gave me for this was while you’re kneading preheat your oven to 200 degrees and turn it off after ten minutes, then you can stick your dough in the oven to rise. It works magically.
It should double in size in 2-2 1/2 hours. Punch it down and knead for a few minutes. Press into an oiled 9 or 10 inch round cake pan. Cover the pan again and let it rise for another hour. Preheat the oven to 400. Uncover the pan brush with remaining olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
The leftover bread was stored in a gallon ziploc bag, and it still tasted great 2 days later! It’s a real winner and is super easy as long as you get it started early.
Radically Delicious 