I developed this pan bread recipe for my teenage kids so that they can bake tasty and flavorful bread easily, quickly, and fail-proof when I don't have the time for baking. We ended up liking it so much that this has become our new favorite bread. It's very flavorful, soft, and airy inside, with big holes, and a nice golden brown, thin, and crispy crust.
How is this pan bread recipe different?
There are so many fantastic bread recipes out there but many require skill, experience, and time commitment. On the other hand, this pan bread recipe is simple, straightforward, and quick to make. You really don't need much baking experience to be successful with it. It's a cross between my No-Knead Bread and No-Knead Sourdough Bread; it's as quick to make as the no-knead bread but with the robust flavor of the sourdough bread.
Baking this bread in a 9" x 5" bread pan eliminated the stress associated with dough shaping, scoring, and transferring to the oven for novice bakers. There is also no need to own or deal with baking stones, cloches, or hot cast iron cookers. This recipe is as easy as it gets for the big flavor your get from this bread and let me tell you, this bread is extraordinarily good.
I think its taste rivals my favorite French baguettes. The crumb is very similar - open, airy, and with big beautiful holes.
While the shape of the bread is different, the crust has similar wonderful qualities - thin and crispy. It has outstanding texture when straight from the oven. Since we bake this bread in well-buttered pans, the crust absorbs all that butter, making it exceptionally crisp and flavorful.
I can eat this bread like I do baguettes - without anything, or with just a little bit of butter or cream cheese, or with some homemade strawberry jam... It's just as addictive as my baguettes. Even without adding honey to the dough as I do with baguettes. I may try that though... or add a little bit of liquid malt extract for a touch of sweetness and nuttiness.
When this bread cools down the crust softens up while the crumb remains soft and moist. It has very good keeping qualities and stays soft, fresh, and very tasty for a few days. It makes excellent sandwich bread. Toast it or grill it, tear it into pieces, and make Panzanella (bread salad) with it. Now is the best time to make it. Delicious!
Using sourdough discard in this recipe
Another great thing about this recipe is that it uses sourdough starter discard. Rather than throwing my sourdough starter away, I use it to make delicious baked goodies like cinnamon rolls, English muffins, biscuits, and this bread. It's used in this recipe for flavor, not for leavening but the bread tastes like very mild sourdough bread anyway.
How is this bread made?
The process is very simple and takes about 5-6 hours from start to finish. This is another strong point of this bread. We often start making this bead around noon and have it ready for dinner.
Mixing the dough
Combine the ingredients together by hand in a large bowl. When adding yeast and salt, put them on the opposite sides to minimize their contact. Make sure to use warm water to expedite fermentation. We use 85F (29C) water.
Let the flour hydrate for 3o minutes. There is no need to use a stand mixer to make bread. Mixing bread dough in a stand mixer ruins gluten structure, creating a crumbly structure with tiny holes. It will look like grocery store bread.
Stretch and folds
Next, perform three 'stretch and folds' (I go into detail on how to do that in my Artisan Sourdough Bread post) to give the dough strength and wait until it doubles in size. For this bread, space stretch and folds about 20 minutes apart.
Shaping and proofing
After that, divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape it into logs, and place the logs seam side down into well-buttered bread pans. Wait until the dough about doubles in size again.
Baking
Next, place in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes with a pan filled with hot water and 25-30 minutes without a water pan. The baking temperature for this bread is 425F (220C) for the first 20 minutes and 400F (205C) for the rest of the baking. To make sure that enough steam is produced during the first 20 minutes of baking, place the water pan on the bottom of the oven, closest to the heat source.
Resting
It's often recommended to let bread rest for an hour before slicing. Not with this one. While this bread is very good cooled down, it's even better hot out of the oven. Don't worry, it won't be gummy like some bread tends to be when hot.
I like slicing this bread right after it comes out of the oven, just like my French baguettes, smearing some butter on it, and spending the next 15-20 minutes in heaven. It will be hot so handle it with oven mitts and use a good sharp bread knife to make nice cuts.
Storing this bread
This bread has very good keeping qualities. Let it cool completely, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap. It will stay fresh and soft for a few days.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 800 g bread flour (King Arthur brand recommended)
- 576 g water at 85F (29C)
- 200 g sourdough starter sourdough discard
- 16 g kosher salt
- 3 g instant yeast (SAF Gold recommended)
Instructions
- Add water and sourdough discard to a large bowl and stir until the starter is dispersed.
- Add flour, then yeast on one side of the flour and salt on the other, making sure the two don't touch each other. Mix by hand, squeezing the dough between your fingers, until a sticky homogeneous mass is formed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes have passed, perform a stretch and fold, then another one after 20 minutes, and another one 20 minutes later. Let the dough continue its fermentation for an additional hour to 1.5 hours or until it just doubles in size. Don't let it increase in size more than that.
- Gently turn the dough over onto a work surface and cut it in half with a serrated knife. Shape each piece into a log about 9" long, then place the logs seam side down into liberally buttered 9" x 5" bread pans.
- Cover each pan with a piece of paper towel (this will prevent sticking of the dough to the plastic wrap), then a plastic wrap. Let proof for about 1-2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.
- Preheat the oven to 425F (220C). Fill another bread pan or similar with boiling water about halfway and carefully place it on the bottom of the preheated oven.
- Transfer bread pans into the oven and bake at 425F (220C) for 20 minutes.
- After the 20 minutes is up, remove the water pan, decrease the temperature to 400F (205C) and bake for an additional 25 minutes (30 minutes if you want a more crunchy crust).
- Next, remove the bread pans from the oven and place them on top of the stove. Using oven mitts, carefully remove the bread from the bread pans and place it on a cooling rack.
- Using an oven mitt to hold the bread, carefully slice and enjoy it while the bread is hot; or let it cool down completely before eating.
- Once the bread had fully cooled down, wrap it in plastic and store it at room temperature. It will stay fresh for a few days.
Marsha
I'm probably the only person who's really not a sour dough lover... is there a substitute I could use? BTW, love your baguette recipe - I make it all the time!!!
Thanks!
Victor @ Taste of Artisan
Glad you like my baguette recipe. Yes, you can sub the sourdough starter with a mix of flour and water in the 1.2 (flour) to 1 (water) ratio. So, that would be about 110 flour and 90 water. The bread will have less flavor but you will still enjoy it. You can also cold retard it like baguettes to get more flavor.
Patti
I am making this bread now but writing a few comments along the way. Is it just me or does everyone have so much dough left on their hands after mixing that I feel like I could make an extra mini loaf.
So, anyway, I made this bread. The crust and flavor is amazing. So so good. Victor, I will send photos. I don't think I got as open a crumb as you, no idea why.
Here are a few question/observations. The dough seemed to get wetter as it proofed. It started very wet but with stretch and folds it firmed up, but loosened up again after proofing. Because of this it was hard to handle but I'm happy to say that I am not longer intimidated by wet dough. I just envision the amazing result and I'm good. But what I wasn't sure of was when I made the 2 loaves into a log I had an aha moment when I remembered in the past you had told me I needed to shape dough by pulling it in a tight ball. So since I was unsure how II was going to put a seam on the bottom since it was so wet I didn't have a seam, I started shaping it and still had a seam that only one with a good imagination could find. So I went ahead and baked.
The result was brilliant. I'm not sure yup to Victor quality but without tasting his I can't be sure.
BTW, maybe dumb question but does anyone else used a cheap shower cap instead of plastic wrap to cover dough? It's so much easier.
Again, thanks Victor, my bread guru.
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Victor @ Taste of Artisan
Hi Patti, glad to hear that you liked my bread recipe. Thanks for sending me pictures, your bread looks lovely.
I don't know why your dough would get wetter after proofing, usually this is never the case in my experience, the only thing that comes to mind is high ambient humidity. Hence, it's important to keep the dough well-covered.
I am also puzzled as to why you needed to handle it after proofing... in this recipe - and that's one big point of simplification - I instruct shaping the dough after fermentation, then letting it proof in bread pans, then bake straight away in those very pans. No need to shape after proofing. This is much, much easier for any baker, experienced or novice.
A few things that may help. Overall hydration of this dough is about 73.5%, which is not considered high. Note that my sourdough starter, to which I linked in the recipe, is 83% - 120g flour per 100g water. If you use a 100% hydration starter - I never have success keeping such a starter healthy for long - then your dough would have higher hydration - about 75%. This is higher but not too high, this is what your standard French baguette would have. Some people would be intimidated but it, which is why I dropped hydration in my French baguette recipe.
However, in this recipe, this shouldn't matter much as you don't need to handle the dough after proofing and worry about it keeping shape, etc. I've tested this recipe with 75% hydration and even up to 80% and it worked fine for me. Higher hydration helps get a more open, moist crumb with big holes. That said, you can always drop the hydration by 2% (use 18g less of water or so, depending on your starter) or more if needed. I am sure the bread will still taste great. The goal is to get the dough behave such that you are comfortable handling it. That point may/will be different for differnet bakers. When shaping, if the dough is too wet, you can also dust the work surface with some flour, it will help a lot. I rarely do that, I am too lazy;) Your flour may be veyr fresh too, which would impact overall hydration. So, yeah, drop the hydration by 2% and see if that helps. For me, this recipe works perfctly well. My teenage kids have made it too a number of times with no issues so I won't be making any more adjustments to it.
Happy baking!
Steve Denvir
Fabulous bread. But I pulled mine after 40 minutes total. Could be that my oven runs a little hot.
But one more winner from my favourite site.
Steve
Victor @ Taste of Artisan
Hi Steve, glad to hear that you like this bread. As they say, everyone's oven bakes differently. I now use a gas oven so that may be a slight factor as well. Enjoy!
CT
Best bread I’ve made so far and by far the easiest . The big work is done while you sleep.
Victor @ Taste of Artisan
Glad to hear it. I made this bread with 50/50 KA bread and stone ground WW flour yesterday and it turned out outstanding. Richer flavor but slightly smaller holes in the crumb, as to be expected. Enjoy!