BLT

If I’m at a diner, chances are good that I’m ordering the BLT. But there’s no diner visits during a pandemic, so I’m building a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato) sandwich from the comfort of home.

Problem is, we’re out of basic sandwich bread. But wait, no problem at all because Craig is in the mood to make his first ever loaf of bread: Julia Child’s sandwich bread, no less. Let’s see how that goes.

Craig slightly modifies the recipe to measure by weight and he’s using instant instead of dry active yeast. Here’s his recipe for one loaf:
283g warm water
4g instant yeast
6g sugar
360g+ all-purpose flour
5g salt
27g butter, softened

Weigh the ingredients.

Add the yeast, water and about half of the flour. Stir until well blended. Add the rest of the flour, the salt and butter and stir with the dough hook (or by hand) until well combined and shaggy. Continue to knead (Craig let the dough hook go for about 8 minutes, poking it down once in awhile) until it’s smooth and elastic. You could do this by hand, too.

If you use the dough hook, turn the dough out onto the countertop and knead a few times to make sure it’s evenly smooth. Here’s the dough, ready for kneading.

And after a bit more kneading.

The dough is ready to go into a bowl lined with olive oil for proofing. Cover with a clean damp dish cloth. Let it sit for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, until it’s doubled in size.

Butter a 4″x8″ loaf pan. Punch the dough down (Craig loves that part!).

Pat each piece into a rectangle that’s about 9″x12″, or a bit bigger than a standard piece of paper.

Starting at a short end, fold it in thirds, like a letter.

Place seam side down in the loaf pan, tucking the ends in. Cover with the tea towel again and leave it for an hour, until it puffs right up out of the pan.

That bread is ready to go into a preheated oven (375 F). Put the rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the loaf is honey brown. Immediately turn the loaf out of its pan and onto a rack to cool.

Once it’s cool, we’re ready to make our sandwich. Bake a package of bacon on a foil-lined pan at 350F for about 20 minutes or until crisp. Slice the bread.

I’m making a pesto mayo by combining 1/4 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise with 2 tbsp of homemade basil/walnut pesto that we had sitting in the fridge, like a patient friend waiting to get pressed into service. Always great to have on hand.

Slice tomatoes and avocado. Take iceberg lettuce and thinly shred a few healthy handfuls of it to make the shreddice. Butter the bread on one side only and in a medium fry pan, toast the bread butter side down. Don’t skip this part—I promise you, it elevates the sandwich.

Time to build! Pesto mayo goes down on one unbuttered side of the toasted bread, avocado on the other, seasoned with sea salt.

Add tomato, seasoned with salt and pepper, and shreddice on the mayo side.

Crown with crispy bacon.

And you have got a diner worthy sandwich that I personally think is underrated. Warm toasted homemade sandwich bread, crisp, salty bacon, creamy avocado and pesto mayo, cool tomato and shreddice to complete the deal. Best BLT ever.

— Trish Hennessy and Craig Pickthorne.