When it comes to baking bread, there’s a tendency to look for shortcuts.

“Making bread dough and baking has never been easier or more foolproof for the home cook,” was the promise in a Williams-Sonoma catalog describing the new Cuisinart convection bread-maker. There’s been a deluge of interest in a bread-making method — one devised by the owner of the Sullivan Street Bakery in Midtown, Jim Lahey — that requires no kneading. And a soon-to-be-released cookbook by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François vows to help you create “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” (Thomas Dunne Books). Their technique also eliminates the need for kneading.

Yet each of these methods has its limitations. Bread machines make uniformly shaped rectangular loaves that tend to taste the same whether you make white, whole wheat, or rye bread. Mr. Lahey’s recipes rely on a casserole dish for baking, limiting the shapes and styles you can make. And while Hertzberg and Francois’s method is appealing — you create a very wet dough that can be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks — it leaves out one very important factor: Kneading the dough is a fun and rewarding part of the experience.

Although I will cook just about anything, I’ve always been intimidated by baking, and especially by baking breads. Though decidedly daunted, I recently enrolled in Techniques of Bread 1, a three-session course in the recreational division of the Institute of Culinary Education on W. 23rd Street. Thankfully, in this safe environment, I didn’t have to worry about buying ingredients or tools, and the school’s staff took care of the dirty dishes. The warm, witty British instructor, chef Sim Cass, had the affect of a stand-up comedian. He told us that he has been baking since 1973 — having apprenticed as a teenager — and was the opening head baker at Balthazar. But in spite of his impressive pedigree, he assured us that there was no reason to be nervous.

“You don’t need to have loads of time to bake bread,” he assured the 10-person class. “Mix the dough, let it rise, come back in an hour. Punch it down. Shape it. Even if it goes horribly wrong, it will still be warm and fresh.”

In the first class, our goal was to make eight different varieties of bread, though in fact, they are all variations on basic pan bread. Mr. Cass demonstrated first, then we dove in, hands first. You make the basic dough using active dry yeast (see recipe), and then fold other ingredients into the dough: raisins, cinnamon, chocolate, nuts. You can also substitute whole wheat or unbleached flours or — to make white batter bread — warm milk for water.

Pan breads are good for beginners because the pan supports the dough so it doesn’t have to stand up on its own. While experienced bakers often malign them as inferior as being akin to Wonder Bread, to me, there’s nothing better than a thick slice of slightly sweet, home-baked cinnamon raisin bread slathered with butter. Mr. Cass showed us how to roll out the dough, and then how to fold it until it fits in the pan.

It turns out that bread making is much simpler these days than it was last time I tried it a few decades ago. You no longer have to sift the flour; and you no longer need to let it rise twice before shaping it. And while you don’t have to knead it as much as I thought you did, kneading is a satisfying way to release tension and to feel a connection to the bread you are creating.

My first attempt didn’t rise as much as my classmates’ loaves did. The reason, according to the instructor: insufficient kneading.

For the next class, I was determined to knead more. This time, we pulled out the big guns: a heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook. We were encouraged to use this machine to mix the dough for an Italian bread ring, otherwise it would have been more difficult to develop the gluten (protein in flour) that gives this bread its chewy interior texture. (I revert to the more satisfying hand-kneading when we make the rustic part whole wheat bread.) “We’re all going to make bread differently,” Mr. Cass told us. “Knead it enough so that it keeps its shape. However it comes out, it’s different. Keep making it.” I was sure I wouldn’t be able to shape the bread ring correctly, but it’s surprisingly easy to do. After the dough rose, was shaped into a tight round boule, and rested for five minutes, I pressed it into a disk shape again and used my fingers to poke a hole in the center of the dough. I was a bit off-target, but it didn’t really matter. As I turned the dough in my hands, it formed the rough shape of a giant bagel. We dampened the shaped loaf with water and dipped it in sesame seeds. I was amazed when my ring turned out a bit bumpy and uneven, but still completely appealing and — I was assured by my officemates who gobbled it up the next day – delicious.

We also made an impressive fougasse, a Provençale bread that is flavored with herbes de provence, and then slashed with a pizza wheel to make its distinctive ladder-like shape. My cuts were random, but again, it didn’t matter. The final product is beautiful and tasty.

Our goal in this class, the instructor said, was to get a feel for baking. With your hands in the dough, you learn what the texture, temperature, and elasticity should be. Once it’s risen, or “proofed,” the dough should be cold and clammy. Depending on the heat and humidity, your dough may require more or less flour.

For the third session, the focus was on whole grain breads, moving in the direction of more complex flavors and textures. The class made semolina, Swiss rye, and pumpernickel bread. By now we had developed our sense of how the dough should feel, when it is too wet and needs more flour, or when it is too dry and needs more water. A bread machine may “take the guesswork out of bread baking,” but for me, the pleasure of making bread is in the give and take of trial and error.

Basic White Pan Bread

Chef, instructor, and cookbook author Nick Maglieri designed the recipes and curriculum for the recreational bread baking classes at the Institute of Culinary Education. What follows is an adaptation of his basic recipe for white pan bread, which should be baked in two 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch loaf pans, oiled.

2 cups warm tap water
2 1/2 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast
5-5 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour — not self-rising, pastry, or cake flour.
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, or vegetable oil

1. Whisk yeast into warm water and set aside while preparing other ingredients.

2. Place 5 cups of flour, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl, and stir in yeast mixture and melted butter. Stir until mixture forms a rough dough.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about five minutes). If dough is excessively soft and sticky, add remaining 1/2-cup of flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.

4. Place dough in an oiled bowl and turn to oil all surfaces.

5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow dough to rise until double in bulk. This should take about one hour.

6. Turn risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface (you may need the help of a scraper).

7. Deflate the dough and divide into two equal pieces. To form a loaf, make sure the surface is free of any excess flour, then stretch dough into a rough rectangle. Fold in short ends of dough until it is approximately the length of the pan. Then, fold the far long edge over to the middle. Fold over the other long side and compress to form a tight cylinder. Place the loaf in the pan, seam side down. Cover the pan with plastic wrap. Repeat with second piece of dough.

8. Allow to rise until size is doubled. When loaves are almost doubled, preheat oven to 400 degrees and set a rack at the middle level.

9. When loaves rise completely, place in oven and bake about 30 minutes or until loaves are golden brown and firm and the internal temperature is about 210 degrees. Unmold the loaves to a rack, and cool on their sides.