How to Make: Snowflake Country Bread

Many people believe that the bread making process can be an extremely difficult one, but that is not always the case. Making a simple Country loaf is quite easy and fun. This recipe lets you experiment with the different elements of bread, like the flavor, shape, and consistency. This loaf is a very beautiful one that was such a fun process to score. Growing up with my mother always baking bread, finally learning the process of the basics was so inspiring and I would definitely recommend that everyone learn a basic sourdough starter. You can also get so much inspiration on social media, there are so many videos on the bread making process. I believe that learning the principles of bread is so important when making bread. It is also extremely interesting and entertaining learning and seeing the gluten network. I hope this recipe will guide and teach you about bread and maybe even inspire you to make even more experienced loaves in the future.

INGREDIENTS

• 5 cups bread flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp white sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp active yeast
• 2 cups warm water

TOOLS

• Stand Mixer
• Mixing bowl
• Dough hook attachment
• Scoring lame
• Cooking spray(optional)
• Dutch oven
• Measuring cups

First, you're going to start off by grabbing a mixing bowl and adding 2 cup flour, 1 tsp sugar, and 2 1/4 yeast. Then you will warm up 2 cups of water, we want to make sure that the water warm to the touch and not too hot. Please note that if the water is too hot it will kill the yeast and you will have to restart the starter. While the water is warming up place the bowl in the stand mixer and insert the dough hook. Pour the water into the bowl and slowly mix, the mixture should be liquidy and bubbly. If you don't see bubbles that means that there was something wrong with your yeast, it might've be old or the water could've been too hot. Once you have fully mixed the water and flour mixture together you will cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The starter should've increased in size by a little and be very bubbly after letting it sit.

After letting your dough sit overnight you want to check if it meets the requirements for a good starter. The starter should be very bubbly and should've risen a bit. If your starter did not meet the requirements you have to start over, but don't give up. If your starter did meet the requirements you want it to sit out on the counter and warm up a bit because handling cold dough can be painfully freezing. Put the bowl in the stand mixer and add olive oil and salt. Add the remaining 3 cups of flour into the bowl 1/2 a cup at a time. The mixture should be silky and a little sticky, if it is too sticky or floury, carefully add tiny amounts of flour or water. You have to be very carefully when doing this because when making bread all the measurements have to be very precise, if they're not the bread with not come out nice. Flour a clean surface and place the dough on the surface, knead the dough for 5 minutes. Grease the mixing bowl, you can either grease the bowl with olive oil or cooking spray, whatever you prefer. Place the dough back into the greased mixing bowl and cover it with plastic wrap, let it sit overnight. You may repeat this step the following day if you would like your bread to be more airy and flavorful but it is not necessary.

After letting your dough sit overnight again take it out of the fridge and warm up. The dough should have doubled in size. Flour a clean surface and place the dough on it. Knead the dough for a bit and begin to form the desired shape by pulled its edges into itself, this should start to form a soft and round top. After forming the desired shape slightly flour the surface of the dough and let it sit to rise for a couple minutes. After that you can begin the scoring process, because of the Christmas season we decided to score the bread into the shape of a snowflake. This is best part, you should have fun with it and just do what your heart desires. Make sure that the blade of the lame is sharp enough or else it will tug on the dough too much and mess with its shape. When done with the scoring process place the loaf into your dutch oven and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees, halfway through the preheating process take your loaf out of the fridge. Lightly flour the loaf and add tiny bits of water around the loaf, be sure not too over water it. We want to add water to the loaf because this will cause the load to brown better and create a crispy outer crust. When your oven is done preheating you can place the dutch oven into the oven and let it bake for 30-35 minutes. After the time is up you can take the dutch oven out of the oven and see the loaf you created.

Overall this entire process did take some time but it was definitely worth it by the end, the loaf we created was amazing and I would for sure try it again. the scoring process was probably my favorite part overall and I would really like to do more of it in the future. I hope you enjoyed making the bread and that this recipe helped you.