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Homemade White Bread

September 18th, 2011

Homemade White Bread

A few weeks ago, I posted a tutorial on making homemade jam. That jam was incredible. But what elevated that jam to PHENOMENAL was what it was spread on. And that my friends, would be warm, squishy, fluffy, chewy, yummy white bread. Homemade white bread.

It was my mom’s brilliant idea that we should bake the bread while making the jam, so that we could fully enjoy both to the highest degree. She is a genius when it comes to these types of things.

We started the bread early on a warm day, and I left it on the windowsill to rise (I am a freak, so I made 4 batches of the bread at once) while we made jam. I let it rise longer than 1 hour, and it was nice and warm that day- both of which may have contributed to its extra fluffy-puffy texture.

For some reason, I couldn’t find my old white bread recipe anywhere. (If you knew me and my massive disorganization issues, this would not surprise you in the least.) So I got on-line, and found this recipe for “Amish White Bread Recipe” over and over on multiple sites. I decided to give it a go, and it did not disappoint!

I brushed the bread generously with melted butter before and after baking, which didn’t hurt anything ☺

It is a wonderful, barely sweet white bread recipe that is perfect for amazing sandwiches (PBJ’s are my preference) or simply slathered with butter and jam. And while this bread keeps soft and supple for a few days in a Ziploc, by the third day, it is probably best toasted. However, I am serious in saying that I highly doubt the bread will make it that long! This is a time sequence of me eating a fresh slice with butter and jam. What you can’t see is that this was shot in about 30 seconds. Oink, oink.

Homemade White Bread, adapted from “Amish White Bread Recipe,” makes 2 loaves
-2 cups HOT water
-2/3 cup sugar
-2 envelopes dry yeast
-1 ½ tsp salt
-¼ cup vegetable oil
-6 cups bread flour
-2 Tbs butter

1) First, rinse your mixing bowl out with some hot water. Then dry and place back on your mixer.

2) Next, run the tap water until it is very hot, like 115-120 degrees.

3) While the water is heating, place the sugar in the bowl of the standing mixer.

4) Add the very hot water to the sugar, and stir to combine.

5) Making sure with the thermometer that the water is between 105-110, add the yeast and walk away for a few minutes.

6) The yeast should get about 5-10 minutes to get nice and puffy.

7) Add the salt and the oil

8) Add the bread flour one cup at a time to a mixer fitted with a dough hook.

9) Mix until you have a thick smooth dough, this should take about 3 minutes.

10) Oil a large bowl, and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover with a dishtowel and set somewhere warm and draft-free.

11) Let the dough rise at least one hour, until the dough is very soft and puffy.

12) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two loaf pans with cooking spray.

13) Split the dough in half, and place each ball of dough into the greased loaf pans.

14) Let the bread rise (with a dish towel over them) another 15-30 minutes until puffed up again.

15) Melt the butter.

16) Brush half of the butter over the tops of the two dough loafs before baking.

17) Bake the bread about 50 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the bread is golden on top and just baked through.

18) Brush the tops of the bread loafs with the rest of the melted butter.

19) Let the bread cool until you can turn the loafs out onto a cooling rack.

20) Slice and enjoy!