~A photo session from our second Adventures at Home series. Written & photographed by our bud Hannah. (Featuring our bud Oliver.) See our first feature, A Walk In The Garden here.~
We’ve all seen them: the bread makers. Those people in quarantine that rolled up their sleeves and got to work creating fluffy, salty and experimental bread loaves. So I thought I’d take a minute to share with you all that my kitchen has also been taken over by bread. How does this pertain to Soul Flower? Well my partner joined our Soul Flower family over quarantine as our new assistant screen printer. Now he can print you a t-shirt and make you a beautiful garlic and chive loaf. So put on your fave SF tee and some fresh tunes and let’s make some bread. Or just look at these pictures I took instead.
First things first: INGREDIENTS and Stuff
You will need:
- 3 cups of flour (all-purpose or bread flour works best)
- 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 tsp if you want a quick rise and don’t plan on waiting 24 hours to bake your bread)
- 1 tsp sea salt (pink himalayan also works, as well as table salt)
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (105 degrees F, run your hot water for a few seconds usually gets it up past 100 degrees)
- Fillings! In this recipe we used Garlic, Chives and Onion Powder
- A dutch oven + oven mitts
- A mixing bowl or two (depending on if you want to wash the bowl or not)
- Something to stir with
- Something to pick the bread up with (we use a pancake spatula but you can use a bread scraper)
- An oven and some time
- Oh and parchment paper
- And a good kitchen towel
As you will notice I am not the bread maker so I will explain in photographs and then I’ll give you a link to a recipe at the bottom if you need more direction!
Stir the 3 cups of flour, yeast, salt and hot water together in a bowl, depending on if you want a long rise of 24 hours use the 1/4 tsp of yeast, if you want a quick rise of 1-3 hours use 1 tsp of dry active yeast. Once you mix it together and it forms your typical dough lump, cover it with a towel (or some sort of wrap/lid) to keep the dough baby warm. Once your time limit is up, remove the lid and begin the next step.
SANITIZE YOUR COUNTER BEFORE YOU FLOUR (Covid aside it’s best you don’t get dust, dirt or pet hair in your dough baby). Lightly flour your surface and dump your dough baby out on top of the flour.
Sprinkle more flour on top because nobody likes a sad wet dough baby.
Pick out your flavor combo dream team. Here you see Garlic, Chives and Onion Powder (and more salt because Oliver likes everything salty). You can also do Rosemary & Thyme, or Pesto and Sun-dried Tomatoes, or Olives and Feta and Basil, really whatever you want to try JUST GO FOR IT!
Prep your second bowl (or your washed out first bowl) with a liner of parchment paper. Please do not use wax paper…it will end poorly.
Look cute and take plenty of photos to remember your bread making experience… or skip this step if you’re not living with a photographer
Okay back to the dough baby. Sprinkle on the amount of flavor you want, this is a lot less than what he usually does (he was going light & classy for the camera).
Fold in the sides of your dough baby to tuck all that yummy goodness in the middle. This is a no-knead recipe so don’t overwork it, just fold it up like a dumpling.
Only add more flour if it feels too wet, otherwise this is Oliver being extra for a photo.
Here’s an artsy shot of the folding process.
Crap. Our pancake spatula broke.
Luckily we had a brand new Tape Knife sitting in our closet….guess it’s a kitchen utensil now.
Slide that freshly flavored dough baby on to your tool and plop it on in your lined bowl for the second rise.
Like so.
P.S. Now would be a great time to preheat that oven to 450 Degrees while you give your dough baby another 1/2 hour to get all fluffy again. Cover that baby with a towel while your oven heats up. DON’T FORGET TO PUT THE DUTCH OVEN INTO THE OVEN WHILE IT PREHEATS otherwise it can break so just put it in the oven.
Make a mess. Don’t bother worrying about who is going to have to clean it.
Maybe don’t make a mess that you’ll find all over your house later when your cats decide flour is a fun thing to walk in and then go outside the confines of your kitchen.
When you hit that 1/2 hour mark pull out your dutch oven (with oven mitts because 3rd degree burns aren’t cool) and take your whole parchment paper and dough baby and plop it into the dutch oven. Put the lid back on and put it back in the big oven. Set timer for 35 minutes. Once 35 minutes is up take the lid off and if your bread is pale, leave the lid off and let it toast for 5 min or less in the oven to brown up the top.
Take it out when it looks the best to you and let it cool on a cooling rack, or your make shift cooling rack you made out of your microwaves rack. Hey it works just fine.
And there you have it. Here’s a solid recipe for you.
Here’s what Oliver does at work, and we will have another blog for you soon with some behind the scenes in our Screen printing shop! You can read more about our eco screen printing practices here.
LindaLeigh
August 7, 2020 at 2:31 pm (4 years ago)Thank you! This is great.
Melisa Lombard
August 7, 2020 at 5:34 pm (4 years ago)That bread looks great! I will definitely be trying that!! Good work!