Yeast bread baking: Homemade white bread recipe

Freshly baked bread is a true joy. This basic white bread recipe produces soft, flavorful loaves that are excellent for sandwiches. No chewy, hard, crusty multigrain health food bread here. Just good old white bread that beats the crust off anything you can get at a store.

When approaching bread baking, do not consider the time involved to be a barrier. Just because the dough needs to spend a couple hours rising twice does not mean you have to stand there and watch it. You can do other things. Bread baking with this recipe involves about 20 to 30 minutes of actual work. Now that’s not so bad.

Recipe ingredients:

6-1/2 to 7 cups all purpose white flour

2 Tablespoons or packages of active dry yeast

1 Tablespoon of salt

2 Tablespoons of shortening

3 Tablespoons of sugar

2-1/4 cups hot water (105 to 115 degrees F)

Butter and oil for coating dough

Begin with 3 cups of the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the salt, yeast, sugar, and stir briefly. Add the shortening in small chunks and then pour in the hot water. Begin to mix ingredients well. You can use a big spoon, but the hand works the best. Be sure to break up the clumps of shortening and mix in to the dough that will be very sticky and paste-like at this point. Once ingredients are moist and well-blended, add another cup of flour. Mix this in well and then add another cup of flour. This is the fifth cup and at this point the dough will begin to stiffen and become harder to work with a spoon or hand. Pour another cup (the sixth) onto the counter and scrap dough onto the flour. Begin kneading the dough.

Kneading is a crucial process for blending the ingredients and stimulating the yeast, which is alive and respirating at this point. To knead, push the dough ball with both hands with a slightly forward and downward pressure. This will smear the dough forward. Then with your fingers curl the dough back under your palms and push again. As you do this, the dough will become a longer and longer coil. Rotate it every few kneads to work it back into itself. Sprinkle with flour as necessary during kneading to keep it from sticking to the counter.

The dough must be needed for 8 to 10 minutes, and it will be a bit of a workout. By the time the kneading is done, you will have used about 6-1/2 to 7 cups flour. After the required time for kneading, the dough should be smooth, elastic, not sticky, and if you poke it with your finger, the dough immediately expands to fill in the hole. Shape the dough into a big ball. Take a clean large bowl and drizzle oil in the bottom. Olive oil is nice but any vegetable oil will do. Put the dough ball into the oil and turn it to coat bottom. Then flip the dough ball over so that a nicely oiled surface is facing up. Cover loosely with a cloth and set aside to rise until its bulk has doubled. If your home is cool this may take up to 2 hours. If it is a hot day, the dough might be ready in an hour.

Once dough is sufficiently risen, punch it down. This means that you uncover the dough and press your fist into the center of it. Then proceed to smash the dough down all around with your fist. Cut the punched down dough into two parts. It is now time to form loaves.

Because you want bread with small evenly distributed air pockets, it is best to use a rolling pin and roll the dough to about 1/2 inch thickness and then fold over itself in thirds. Then roll the dough into a big rectangle again and then shape a loaf by rolling the dough up into a cylinder shape. Try to keep the roll as tight as possible. (If you want to make cinnamon bread, you could spread butter and cinnamon sugar onto the dough at this point before rolling it up.) Repeat the loaf shaping with the second part of dough.

You can put your loaves into bread pans for an upright loaf that will make an excellent sandwich-shaped bread or you can put the loaves on a cookie sheet to create more free-form loaves similar to a French bread. Spread softened butter onto the loaves with your fingers to keep the dough from drying out.

Allow the loaves to rise until double for about 1 or 2 hours. Then bake in 425 degree F oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Or, bake in a sun oven for about 1 hour to 1-1/2 hours until lightly golden. Once loaves are taken from oven, immediately spread more butter onto the crusts. Let them set for about 10 minutes before removing from pans. After a couple more minutes, you can start cutting into them. You can freeze or refrigerate the loaves if they are not going to be consumed within 2 or 3 days.

As a final note, when planning time to bake bread, be aware that it is also possible to prepare the dough at night, let it rise overnight in the refrigerator, and then finish the process and bake the bread in the morning. Bread dough rises much more slowly in the cooler temperatures of the refrigerator, but it does rise. You can do the first rising overnight and then punch down and shape the loaves in the morning. Or, you can let the second rising take place in the refrigerator overnight with the shaped loaves already in their baking pans. Then you can bake the bread first thing in the morning, even before you go to work.

© Falbe Publishing.

Other websites from this publisher: The Fantasy Tavern - Home Canning - Halloween - Christmas - Star Trek - Dogs - Tattoos - Dragons - Swords - Global Warming