Homemade Bread

Originally posted 2015-11-26 12:30:54.

I’ve run into a situation here, where grocery prices are out of control! Feeding this family decent food gets absurd! When I went to get the kids some bread yesterday, the prices were 3$ plus for ONE loaf of boring white bread! No wonder my bill has gone up! I used to make our own bread all the time, and it looks like I’ll be back at it! No way I am paying those prices! So here it is! A recipe for white bread.

Original recipe can be found here: White sandwich bread

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons active-dry yeast
• 1 cup (8 oz) warm water
• 2 tablespoons (1 oz) unsalted butter
• 1 cup (8 oz) milk – whole, 2%, or skim
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 5 1/2 – 6 1/2 cups (24 3/4 ounces – 29 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour

The website uses a big mixer for the bread, since I don’t have one (yet!) I did it by hand.  Step one: put the warm water into a large bowl and then add the yeast.  Let the mixture sit for about 5 mins. While you are waiting for that, in a measuring cup melt the butter.  Add the sugar, salt and milk to the melted butter.  After your 5 mins is up, pour the butter mix into the yeast bowl and add 1 cup of flour.  Mix it all up! I use a fork for this part, no sense getting your hands all messy yet!

Once you have all the liquid pretty much mixed in, go ahead and add the other 41/2 cups of flour. Now use your  hands to knead the mixture until it is elastic and smooth.  There are links in the original recipe for troubleshooting your dough and how to tell if it’s kneaded enough.  Once it’s ready, sprinkle a little oil in your bowl, and coat the bread with the oil.  Cover the bowl and let it rise until it is double it’s size. This takes about an hour, my house was so cold yesterday that my bread took forever to rise, I had to cover it in blankets and boil some water in the kitchen to warm it up enough to get some action in the bread bowl!

After the bread has doubled in size, dump the dough on a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into two balls roughly the same size and allow it to rest there for about ten mins. Shape the two balls into loaf shapes and put them into greased bread pans. We are going to let them rise again, about 30-40 mins until the bread just pops up over the tops of the pans.  Again my bread didn’t rise! So cold! I had to use my oven to trick the bread and lots of blankets and hours later I was only able to get them to rise a little bit! So we ate stumpy bread hahaha!

About half way through this rise pre-heat your oven to 425F.  You can slash the tops of your bread with a serrated knife you like to have that line or a design in the tops of you bread.  Pop the bread into the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 375F where you bake them for about 30-35 mins.  The loaves will turn golden brown and will have a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.  Remove the bread from the pans (otherwise condensation gets in and makes the bread soggy) and allow them to cool on a rack.

Your done! Nice fresh bread, and a fraction of the expense!