The year is not so new anymore, but that isn’t stopping
me from bringing you greetings and best wishes!
If you’ve been wondering what happened to me, I’ll tell
you. I have been super, super busy with work and home and – best of all – my
old kitchen is finally getting re-done. It’s been slow going since the weekends
are the only times we can do a little bit of work, but thankfully we are
getting there. For about six weeks I was unable to cook anything, and it felt
like I was going through withdrawal, actually. However, before the old
tabletops and counters were demolished, I was able to do a few recipes, which will also explain why you'll still be seeing the old kitchen, lol.
This week, I am giving everyone something they have
been asking me to do on this forum for a long time now, and that’s how to make
a good loaf of homemade bread.
Whenever I think of homemade bread, I think of Granny. I
can’t help it. She’s the one who called me to stand next to her when she
measured the flour. She's the one who let me put the ingredients in. She’s also the one who would pinch off little pieces of
dough for me to play with, like plasticine, and I’d make tiny little animals
out of them and hide them under the bed. Of course, the ants would find them
first… but I digress.
Now this bread recipe in particular is something that I
developed from Granny’s tried and true method of rubbing both butter and lard
in the flour, then adding the milk, the water, the yeast, the salt and the sugar.
I decided to start heating things up in a little saucepan – before getting the
microwave, of course. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
In breaking with
tradition, I am listing the ingredients first, so here goes....
For two loaves
you will need…
½ cup milk (you can also use skimmed milk if you want to)
3 tablespoons sugar (brown or white, it doesn't matter)
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter
1 ½ cups warm water
4 ½ teaspoons
instant yeast
5-6 cups all-purpose flour - but measure out 4 cups separately as you may not use all six
5-6 cups all-purpose flour - but measure out 4 cups separately as you may not use all six
(For my two loaves, I replaced a cup of all-purpose with whole wheat flour.) |
In a small
saucepan over low heat (or in a microwaveable dish or cup in your microwave,
which I did here), add the milk, sugar, salt and butter and heat until the
butter melts. Cool to lukewarm.
|
Next, in a large
bowl, pour in the 1 ½ cups warm water and sprinkle in the 4 ½ teaspoons of
instant yeast: do not mix it; just leave it until it’s frothy. (This will take
about 5 minutes.)
|
Add the lukewarm
butter mixture to your yeast, followed by 4 cups of the flour; gently begin
mixing it with a large spoon. The dough will gradually get very sticky.
|
Check that out! What did I tell you? The oven trick is a life-saver. It looks just like a beautiful cloud!
|
See how nice they've risen? All I had to do was put them to bake in a
preheated 400°F oven for 30 to 35 minutes. |
Voila! All done. |
After baking, I removed the loaves from their pans and gently tapped the bottoms; once they're done, you get a hollow sound.
See how the seam looks when it's baked? |
Next, they were placed on my cooling racks to cool. (Don’t ever, ever leave them in the pans to cool, because condensation will make the bread bottoms damp, and we don't want that!
Of course, the next step was the cut into a loaf and spread on some "I Can't Believe it's not Butter" and enjoy. Needless to say, these loaves disappeared fast.
With Christmas almost upon us, I will definitely be doing this recipe again so we can have something to eat with the baked ham, which incidentally, is a perfect match up for this. (Hey, Granny knew what she was doing!)
Hope you enjoyed this recipe. Until next we meet again - and like I always say - don't forget to mind the pot!