One Hour Bread--Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Cafe

Prior to learning how to make sourdough bread—good sourdough bread, I worried about having enough yeast to see us through a prolonged crisis.  Doing without yeast breads was unfathomable, so the alternative was to store lots of yeast. 

And since learning to make sourdough, I’ve wondered what I’m going to do with all that yeast.  Would I ever use it up—even if Blueberry Girl and QOTPE take their share of it when they marry?  I’m not too sure that I would.  I probably do need to start keeping the open package in the refrigerator.  I don’t think I’ve used more than a quarter cup in the past year.  But I guess I’ll work my way through it.  Aaron’s been enjoying the loaves of sandwich bread I made a couple of months ago.  He put them straight into the freezer and has been eating a slice or two each week. 

Anyway, I got distracted with writing this afternoon and Aaron came in at 4:00 and wanted to know if I had any ideas for dinner.  I suggested soup and he offered to make hamburgers.  So I heard he was making hamburgers, and he heard that I was making soup. 

I didn’t want hamburgers with sourdough again, so I decided to get going on some buns with a recipe that claimed they’d be ready in an hour. 

And in about 30 minutes Aaron looked in the oven where the buns were proofing.  He wondered why I was making buns if we were having soup.  LOL.  So I told him I’d gotten confused and promised to have soup on the table quickly.  Buns go very nicely with tomato soup. 

One Hour Bread

½ cup water

1 teaspoon yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cups flour, plus a little more as needed

In a medium bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and let proof 5-10 minutes.  Stir in the salt and 1 ¼ cups flour and knead it about 3 minutes.  It will be slightly tacky.

Divide the dough and form into the desired shapes—6 breadsticks, 4 medium-sized rolls, or 1 small-ish loaf.  Let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.  Bake at 400°F, 17 minutes for breadsticks, 22 minutes for rolls, and 25 minutes for a loaf. 

Family reviews:  I really loved that I could have a yeast bread ready in just over an hour.  There’s no way I can have anything with sourdough ready that quickly.  And I love that this recipe is so versatile—rolls, loaf, and bread sticks.  And it doesn’t require milk or eggs, a huge plus, especially with eggs now costing north of 30 cents each.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, the recipe was really easy and the rolls taste good, too.