Have you ever noticed that the smell of warm bread has the ability to turn even the grouchiest of people into warm, fuzzy love bugs?
I love bread, absolutely LOVE bread! To me, it is more of a comfort food, and to actually make it from scratch and knead the bread, it is therapeutic!
Nobody has ever turned down homemade bread, at least not from me. Why? Because homemade bread has a little love inside, ready to be warmed up, buttered up, or just plain scarfed down!
I figured I would post the recipe I have been using for a while now (courtesy of Homestead Blessings The Art of Bread Making). It is so easy and so tasty, it would be silly not to make some for yourself!
Homemade Bread
4-5 C. flour ( I like to use 2 c. wheat and the rest white)
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. oil
1/2 honey
2 1/2 c. warm water (about 110 degrees. hot to the wrist but not too hot to burn you! )
- In a large bowl, stir together 2 cups of flour, yeast, salt.
- Mix in the oil, honey, and warm water to the flour mixture.
- Continue adding flour so that it is dry and sticky, too sticky to stir with fork any longer.
- Spread flour on a clean dry surface.
- Dump your dough onto floured surface and knead dough, continuing to add flour to the mix.
- YOU DO NOT WANT TO ADD TOO MUCH FLOUR OR KNEAD TOO LONG! This will cause your bread to be dry and hard.
- I usually knead about 5 minutes. The dough should be soft and pliable, bot hard like play dough. It should feel good on your hands. The more often you do it the more you know what to look for.
- Place about 2 Tbsp of oil in your large dis, place dough ball into the oil, spinning it around the bowl to coat the bowl, flip the dough over so that the oiled part is on top. This prevents it from having a skin on the top. Place a large dishcloth over top.
- Let it rise in a warm oven (I preheat my oven to the lowest setting and then turn it off before it is finished preheating), or on the counter for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Til the dough has doubled in size. The optimal temperature for sough to rise is 80*.
- Grease 2 bread pans completely, even the lips and handles. After dough has doubled, punch down, turn onto floured surface once more and knead about 5 more minutes.
- Cut dough in half, place one half into each greased pan. poke hole on top of bread with fork.
- Let rise again about 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350*.
- bake bread for about 30 minutes to until the top is a beautiful golden brown.
- Remove your bread from pans and let cool. You may need to slip a butter knife around the edges to loosen them up.
NOTE: glass bread pans tend to need more baking time, sometimes 15 minutes longer than metal.
Well, that is a lot of notes, but it really is simple. I learned how to knead bread and bake bread my watching youtube.com and Homestead Blessings. I always figure, if they can do it so can I!
So bake up some bread, make your family happy, and let me know how you like it!
God bless you all!
