Cookbook:Easy Batter Bread

Easy Batter Bread
CategoryBread recipes
Time3 hours
Difficulty

Cookbook | Recipes | Ingredients | Equipment | Techniques | Cookbook Disambiguation Pages | Recipes

A batter bread is a type of bread made with a relatively high liquid to flour ratio. As a result, it forms more of a batter than a dough. This bread takes about three hours to make and about ½ hour of hands-on work.

Ingredients

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Ingredient Count Volume[note 1] Weight Baker's %
Lukewarm water cup 79 g 15.8%
Sugar ½ teaspoon 2.1 g 0.42%
Active dry yeast [note 2] 2 packets 14.4 g 2.88%
Butter 3 tablespoons 42.6 g 8.52%
Light brown sugar 4 tablespoons 55 g 11%
Salt 1 teaspoon 6 g 1.2%
Hot water or buttermilk 1 cup 237 g 47.4%
White flour 4 cups 500 g 100%
Total n/a n/a 895 g 178.97%

Procedure

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  1. In a bowl, mix the lukewarm water, ½ teaspoon sugar, and active dry yeast. Let stand until yeast mixture becomes frothy and increases in volume.
  2. While the yeast mixture is standing, in a separate large mixing bowl, mix the butter, 1 tablespoon light brown sugar, salt, and hot water or buttermilk.
  3. Once the yeast mixture becomes frothy, add the yeast mixture to the separate large mixing bowl.
  4. Add 2 cups of white flour to the large mixing bowl. Stir at slow speed with an electric mixer for 1 minute. After that, mix at medium speed for 3 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl frequently.
  5. With the remaining 2 cups of white flour, add the remaining flour at about ¼–½ cup at a time to the large mixing bowl, and continually mix with a spoon until the mixture begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl or it becomes difficult to add more flour.
  6. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap and a towel. Place in a warm room with no drafts until the batter doubles in volume (about 45 minutes to 1 hour).
  7. After the batter was allowed to sit, stir it down with a spoon (about 25 strokes).
  8. Divide the batter into 2 loaf pans. Wet fingers and push into the corners and smooth out.
  9. Cover both setups with plastic. Place in a warm room and let the batter rise until it just reaches the tops of the pans (about 25 minutes). Watch carefully and don't let the batter rise too high (if it does rise too high, punch it down a little bit and let it rise again).
  10. Bake at 375°F for 30–45 minutes. The bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom of the pan and is browned to the baker's preference.
  11. Turn out on a wire rack and let cool.

Conversion notes

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  1. Weight conversions from USDA National Nutrient Database. Original recipe text and ingredient order preserved. All purpose flour and packed brown sugar presumed. "Hot water" used for conversion value (water is 237 g per cup), buttermilk weighs slightly more, 245 g per cup, but will be close to the same value, within 2%. "Hot" not well defined, so density adjustment not applied to any water values. Hot probably means the temperature perceived by the hand as hot.
  2. This excessive amount of yeast will result in a strong yeast flavor. To reduce this flavor, it is recommend to use no more than 0.775% instant dry yeast expressed as a baker's %, alternatively, 2.5% cake yeast (compressed) or 1.05% active dry yeast, although in all cases you can expect fermentation time to increase somewhat. Further reductions will result in less yeast flavor and longer bulk fermentation times.