Homemade White Bread

Recipe:
1/4 cup milk
5 teaspoons sugar (or 1 2/3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons butter (or 1 2/3 tablespoons)
1 package active dry yeast
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour (get unbleached white for your first attempt)
Corn starch or nonstick cooking spray

Warm up the bowl. Then, mix up the yeast according to the directions on the packet. Usually, it will say something along the lines of “add a cup of warm water to the yeast and stir.”

Melt the butter in the microwave, then add it, the milk, the sugar, and the salt to the yeast liquid and stir. Add two cups of flour to the mix .

Start stirring, and then add the flour about 1/4 cup at a time every minute or so. Keep stirring and adding flour until the dough is still slightly sticky, but it doesn’t stick to your hands.

Lightly cover working surface in flour. Knead for 10 minutes (punch it flat, then fold it back up into a ball again, and repeat.)

Shape it into a ball. Either coat the inside of a bowl lightly with corn starch or nonstick cooking spray then put the ball of dough inside the bowl. Put a cloth over the bowl and sit it somewhere fairly warm for an hour or until doubled in size.

Punch the dough down. Lay the dough out on the floured area and spread it out in a rectangle shape, with one side being roughly the length of the bread pan and the other side being about a bread pan and a half long. You may need to put a bit more flour on it and on the table to prevent sticking. Roll it up from the short side! The roll should be roughly the same size as the bread pan. Tuck the ends of the roll underneath, with the “under” side being where the seam is. Spray the bread pan down with nonstick cooking spray (or coat it with cornmeal) and put the loaf inside of the pan.

Cover that loaf up with the towel, put it back where it was before, and wait another hour.

Uncover, put that loaf in the oven at 400 for 30 minutes. Immediately remove it from the pan to cool.

Recipe from http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/11/04/homemade-bread-cheap-delicious-healthy-and-easier-than-you-think/ . Link has step by step pictures along with recipe.

Changes:
Used 2 3/4 cups flour. Cooked at 375 for 25 minutes.

Review:
Rating 8 1/2. Much easier and quicker than the directions make it look. It only took maybe 5 minutes to mix, the 10 min to knead and then just a couple minutes in between the two rises. Way easier than I imagined. I have never made homeade bread because it always seemed so hard. No more store bought bread for us-I'm going to start cooking two loaves a week!!- Can't wait to start trying some variations! I really enjoyed making and eating this.

Next Time:
Find out how to make bread a little less dense. Cook 22-23 mins at 375.