White Bread
Adapted from America’s test kitchen, this recipe makes a great loaf of basic and delicious white bread. We so seldomly make bread at home anymore, and it’s a real shame. This is easy and tastes so much better than anything you can buy in the super-market. I’ve been making two to three loaves a week and skipping the pre-sliced variety! This makes the world’s best toast!
1 cup milk (I use low-fat, but whole works fine), warm
1/3 cup water, warm
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3 tbsp honey
3 1/2 cups bread flour (plus ~1/4 cup, but this amount you will have to figure out because it can vary everytime)
1 envelope or 2 1/4 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
additional 1 tbsp or so of butter, melted
1. Mix together milk, water, 3 tbsp melted butter, and honey. Microwave at 10-20 second intervals until it is warm, approximately 11o degrees (F).
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl if you’re mixing by hand, mix together the flour, yeast and salt with a whisk or fork.
3. Put the hook on your mixer, turn on low, and gradually add the warm liquid to the flour mixture. Once all is incorporated, knead for 5 minutes (about the same amount if doing by hand, you may need to add additional flour). After 5 minutes if the dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl or feels too tacky to handle, add additional flour 1 tbsp at a time until the dough sticks only to the bottom of the bowl, or until no longer tacky. Knead an additional 5 minutes.
4. Flour the counter and turn the dough out onto it. Knead the dough a couple of minutes until it forms a nice smooth ball. Place into a buttered bowl, cover with buttered saran wrap, and put in a warm place until the dough doubles in size, about one hour to 90 minutes.
5. Turn the doubled dough out onto a floured counter, gently shape it into a 9 inch square (you don’t want to deflate it). Roll the square up and pinch the seam. Place the dough seam side down into a greased loaf pan. Cover with greased saran wrap, and put in a warm place, allowing to double again.
6. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put a pot of water on to boil. Put an empty loaf pan in your oven and fill with 2 inches of boiling water. Brush bread with 1 tbsp of melted butter. Put bread in oven and bake for 40 minutes (the internal temperature of the bread should read 200 degrees F).
7. Turn out of pan and cool on wire rack. Slice and enjoy!
One time I decided to experiment till I had a blue-ribbon, perfect loaf of bread, and learned that it’s not the recipe, it’s the way you handle the dough. I think it took me 7 batches to get it perfect. Here’s a few tips:
Always use bread flour. It has more gluten and makes a smoother, finer textured product. If you do this a lot, get a christmas popcorn tin to store it in, and buy 25 lbs of bread flour and a big package of baker’s yeast at Sams or Costco. Keep the yeast in the freezer and it will last a long time. This saves a lot of money, and brings the price down to a fraction of purchased bread.
The sugar is food for the yeast and to make the crust browner, not to make the bread sweeter. Don’t try to cut it out. Also, don’t cut out the salt, it tempers the dough somehow. All the ingredients have a purpose.
Don’t have the place it’s set to rise in too warm, or it will quickly form big gas bubbles and be coarse. Don’t let it rise too high on the first rising before you punch it down. If you let big bubbles form then, you won’t be able to get rid of them and your bread will have a coarse texture. Same on the second rising. You should keep an eye on it and not let it get big and puffy. In other words, stop when it’s doubled, because tripled isn’t better.
Be careful when you’re forming the loaves and don’t fold bubbles into the shaped loaf. They don’t heal and they come out as big gaps in the finished bread. Try to fold it up in a way that doesn’t stretch the outside of the dough too much or it will tear as it rises and not be as pretty.
If you bake bread regularly, people will think your husband is married to a domestic goddess.