Homemade Bread
About once a month my mom (also known as MawMaw) makes a big batch of bread and sends us all home with a loaf for the week. This past Saturday, I was at her house with my three little ones while she was making her monthly batch.
She had about 8 loaves sitting on top of her stove that had risen into the most beautiful puffy loaves of bread I’d ever seen. She had already punched them down once, they had risen for the second time, and they would soon go into the hot oven.
About that time my 5 year old son came running through the back door with his dirty sand pile hands and…Tap! Tap! Tap!. He played the bongos all the way down MawMaw’s fresh rising bread loaves as he was walking past the stove.
Luckily, we only lost two loaves and there were another 6 waiting in the wings, but talk about a heart stopping moment!
I hope you enjoy this delicious bread recipe as much as my family and make sure to keep an eye out for small hands walking by!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Rise Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes
Ingredients:
2 cups water
1.5 tbsp active dry yeast
1.5 tsp kosher salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
⅓ cup sugar
6 cups bread flour
Stand mixer with dough hook
Instructions:
Heat water until temperature reaches 110 degrees F.
In a small bowl add yeast packet, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and ¼ of the heated water. Stir well and let sit for 10 minutes. Yeast should foam and double in size.
Attach the dough hook to your stand mixer.
Add 4 cups flour, salt, and remaining sugar to the mixing bowl and mix on speed 1 until combined.
Add remaining warm water, yeast mixture, oil and mix on speed 1 until combined.
Stop the mixer and scrape sides of the bowl down.
Set mixing speed to 2 and while mixing, begin adding the remaining flour ½ of a cup at a time until fully combined and there is no dough sticking to the side of the mixing bowl.
At this point the dough should all be sticking to the mixing hook.
Continue kneading bread on speed 2 for about 2 minutes.
Remove bowl from mixer.
Spray dough and sides of bowl with non-stick cooking spray.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm area for 1 hour for dough to rise.
Once dough has doubled in size, punch down, separate into two equal pieces, cover with a towel, and let rest for ten minutes.
Press each piece of dough down into a rectangle shape and then roll dough into a loaf shape longways.
Spray two 9x5 loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray and place one rolled dough loaf in each pan.
Place pans in a warm spot and allow to rise for an additional 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake bread for 30 minutes.
Serve hot with butter.
