Recession Survival 101 Part I: Baking your own Bread while Dealing with Your Feelings of Aggression

Your Grandma's Homemade Bread

5 cups water
1 cube (1/2 cup) margarine/butter
3 tbsp yeast
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp salt
12-14 cups flour*

Or, if you're like me and have a small mixer, you might need to cut this recipe in half:

2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cube (1/4 cup) margarine/butter
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
6-8 cups flour*

DO NOT ATTEMPT WITH A BREAD MACHINE. ONLY PUSSIES USE BREAD MACHINES.

MIXER: Using a flat mixing attachment, combine water, yeast, butter salt, sugar and enough flour to thicken the dough to roughly the consistency of day-old gravy (about 6 cups for the full recipe, up to 3 cups for the half). Detach the paddle and replace it with a dough hook. Continue adding the flour, 1/2 a cup at a time until the dough reaches a manageable consistency; the dough should be smooth and elastic, and not too sticky.

BY HAND: Using a wooden spoon, combine water, yeast, butter salt, sugar and flour into a large bowl. Add enough flour to thicken the dough to roughly the consistency of day-old gravy (about 6 cups for the full recipe, up to 3 cups for the half). Continue adding the flour, 1/2 a cup at a time and stirring the flour in, until the dough becomes difficult to work, or until you break the spoon, which ever is first. Continue adding flour a 1/4 cup at a time and kneed it into the dough with your fingers. The dough is ready when it is smooth and elastic, and not too sticky.

KNEEDING: After the dough has reached proper consistency, take it out of the bowl (no matter how you mixed the ingredients) and beat on it. I mean, spank it, smash it, squish it, drop it on a lightly floured surface, pummel it, press your knuckles into it make that dough sorry it was ever mixed. If you need to, put a picture of your favorite CEO (the one you think needs his ass beat the most**) where you can see it while kneeding the dough. Then drop it into a well-greased bowl, cover it with plastic wrap (a towel will do in a pinch), and let it rest for an hour until its next beating. Go have a cold drink and think mean, nasty thoughts: the dough will need punched down in an hour.

PUNCH DOWN: After the dough sits covered for an hour, it has a tendency to get cocky. You can tell, because it's usually twice as big as it was the last time you saw it. Yep, it's giving you attitude, so show it who's boss. Jerk it out of that bowl and thump on it some more, making sure to press all of the air bubbles out of it. Sometimes, your dough will get "uppity" and try to stick to your fingers. You can protect yourself by sprinkling flour on the dough and the flat surface you're working it on, but be sure to work it over until all traces of the flour disappear--you wouldn't want to leave any marks. This poor dough has had enough for now. Cover it back up and let it rest for another hour or so. Let's see if that dough decides to grow again.

SECOND PUNCH DOWN: Before the hour's up, you're going to want to grease some bread pans with shortening. Bread with this much yeast comes with a lot of attitude, so no matter how hard you've beaten it, it's going to swell to double in size again. Are you going to put up with that? Of course not, so work it over until you've smashed all of that air out of it.

SHAPE INTO LOAVES: The problem here is that the dough has united against you. You've got to try a new strategy. It's called DIVIDE AND CONQUER. You can divide a full batch of dough into 4-5 loaves, the half batch into 2-3. It just depends on how big you want the loaves to be. For me, it's easier to divide the dough in halves or quarters than it is to figure out fifths or thirds, but go with whatever floats your boat. Once you've divided your dough, flatten each portion out and shape it into an oval, the same length as the bread pans. You may need to spank them to give the loaves a smooth exterior, but it's only as much as the dough deserves. Then fold it in half and squeeze the ends together into a seam. Place them all seam-down into the bread pans, cover them with towels, and give them one last hour to think it over. Just in case they HAVEN'T learned their lesson, crank up the oven to 375 degrees, about 20 minutes before the hour is up.

BAKE: It's just like dough to rise again, even after two smackdowns. There's no point in beating on them again--you're wasting your energy. Now they go into the oven. "No!" they cry, "Don't bake me!" But you've had enough of their fermentation: it's time to end this once and for all. You place the loaves in the oven and set a timer for 30 minutes. If your oven has cold spots, you might want to rotate the loaves once during baking. If it looks like they're getting done too fast on top, you can cover them with foil.

When the time's up your loaves should be a nice brown color. Turn them over and dump them out on the cooling rack. The bottom should be golden brown in color, and should sound hollow when you tap it with your finger. If the sound is a short "thud" you may need to put them back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Cover with foil if necessary.

That dough is now bread. It will never rise again.

* flour is variable, and range is only an estimate.
**do NOT take your aggressions out on corporate CEOs. Take them out on bread. Beating up on CEOs will get you arrested, because it's illegal to beat on criminals who steal more in a day than most people will see in a lifetime. Think of your families and your friends, and realize that just because these overpaid, sick, disgusting, vile people are evil and immoral, you don't have to lower yourself to dealing with them on that level.