The Estate Bakery
Basic White Bread
The Strategy:
This recipe completely romanticizes the deeply tactile, slow-paced art of baking by stripping it down to the absolute essentials. By demanding the physical kneading of a staggeringly soft, butter-enriched dough and heavily brushing the resulting massive, golden loaves with melted butter directly out of the oven, the process is inherently luxurious. Delivering two wildly aromatic, deeply golden loaves of fresh bread provides a violently comforting, intensely satisfying sensory experience that fills an entire estate with warmth.
Ingredients
- 1 (.25-ounce) package active dry yeast, 2 ¼ teaspoons
- 7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
- 4 more tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions
- Pour 2 ½ cups warm water into the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast. Wait until the liquid is foamy, about 10 minutes.
- Add 4 cups of the flour to the bowl.
- Add the sugar and salt.
- Pour in the butter.
- Mix everything together with a spatula to form a shaggy dough.
- Using the dough hook attachment, start the mixer on low speed and mix until the dough becomes smooth. This will take several minutes. Add the other three cups flour, one cup at a time. Mix the ingredients to form a smooth dough that pulls away from the side of the bowl. You can increase the speed as the flour works itself into the dough. If the dough is too sticky, add a small amount of flour a little bit at a time.
- Once the dough begins to wrap around the hook, increase the speed to high and knead for 5 minutes.
- Transfer the dough to your lightly floured surface. Knead the dough with your hands for 2 minutes more.
- Form the dough into a ball and set it in a bowl that has been coated with vegetable oil spray. Roll the dough around in the bowl to coat all sides.
- Cover with a clean dish towel and move to a warm place to double in size, about 1 hour.
- Coat 2 (9 x 5 x 3-inch) loaf pans with vegetable oil spray.
- Once the dough has risen, remove the towel and punch the dough down.
- Transfer the dough to your lightly floured surface and divide it in two. Take one piece of dough and shape it into an oval. Fold the bottom 1/3 of the oval into the center. Use the heal of your hand to push the dough together. Turn and repeat with the top 1/3 of the oval. This will help you to form the dough into a loaf shape. Lay it in one of the loaf pans. Repeat with the second piece. Pat the dough down into the pan.
- Cover with the clean towel. Transfer to a warm place, and let the dough rise until doubled again, about 30 to 45 more minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 350°.
- Place the loaves into the oven and bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes. You know the bread is done when you tap the top with a spoon and the sound is hollow. Let the bread cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a rack set over a sheet of parchment paper.
- Melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter. Use a pastry brush to coat the bread with butter.
- Cool completely before slicing.
Thing to Note:
Thing to Note:
The full recipe lives in the Vault
Ingredients, step-by-step method, and every chef-tested detail are reserved for members of the Estate Registry.
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The Heart of the Table
Dropping two massive, heavily buttered, fiercely steaming golden loaves of fresh bread directly onto a rustic wooden board instantly stops all conversation. The intensely comforting, deeply aromatic scent of toasted yeast and melted butter completely dominates the room, forcing guests to eagerly abandon their plates and violently tear into the massive, soft crusts with their bare hands.
Neighborly Grace
- THE PRESENTATION: Do not casually slice these loaves with a knife. Present the two massive, deeply golden, heavily buttered loaves completely whole on a heavily scarred wooden cutting board. Aggressively brush them with even more melted butter right before serving, and provide massive crocks of chilled salted butter and deep red jams for guests to violently smear over their torn pieces.
- THE POUR: The deeply savory, intensely comforting nature of fresh buttered bread demands a fiercely hot, highly robust beverage. A massive, heavily textured mug of wildly dark French press coffee or a deeply rich, fiercely aromatic Earl Grey tea perfectly slices through the rich butter while elevating the warm yeast notes.
- THE VIBE: Deeply comforting, slow-paced weekend mornings. This is the wildly satisfying project you execute on a quiet, fog-heavy Sunday morning, served directly on the kitchen island, demanding an atmosphere of quiet, intensely relaxed, and fiercely unpretentious indulgence.
