Can you give me a good recipe for bread that you like to make?!
Can you give me a good recipe for bread that you like to make?
I plan to make this from scratch, and do NOT have a bread machine.
I do have the book "Bernard Clayton's book of BREAD", so if you have a suggestion from that, I can look it up.
Please don't cut and paste from the internet unless it is a recipe that you yourself have made and love. I am looking for a basic white or italian type loaf. No grains, nothing fancy.
I would like to keep it easy...I have an 18 month-old to watch while I make the bread.
I am craving some good homemade bread.
Thanks.
Answers:
Two loaves of bread - crisp of crust and tender of crumb.
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 c. lukewarm water
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. Crisco
1 c. hot milk
5 to 6 c. enriched flour
Soften yeast in 1/4 cup of the lukewarm water for 5 minutes, then stir until blended. Measure sugar, salt and Crisco into mixing bowl, pour hot milk over them and stir, mashing Crisco against sides of bowl until broken into small lumps. Add remaining water and cool to lukewarm. Stir in 1 cup flour. Add yeast and 2 more cups flour and beat with a wooden spoon until batter is smooth and elastic. Stir in 1 1/2 to 2 cups more flour, then, with floured fingers, work in enough additional flour to make a soft dough that does not stock to the fingers.
Turn dough onto lightly floured board and knead for 2 minutes, about 100 kneading strokes. Shape dough into a ball and put it in a bowl rubbed with Crisco. Spread surface of dough lightly with Crisco, cover with a towel and let dough rise until double in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch dough down and turn onto floured board. Cut dough in half and shape each half into a smooth ball. Shape each ball into a loaf and put into bread pan rubbed with Crisco. Cover pans with a towel and let bread rise until the sides of the raised bread reach the top of the pans and the center is nicely rounded above it, about 1 hour.
To bake: Bake loaves at 400 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, or until golden brown.
When baked: Turn loaves from pans immediately to keep crust crisp, and cool on a cake rack. For a soft, tender crust: Brush loaves with Crisco as soon as they come from oven.
gg--- I did indeed cut and paste this recipe
but it's a good one. And you can also use it to make French and Italian bread by cutting the Sugar and shortening in half and handling the make up some what different.
To make French bread mold the dough in to a longer loaf than you would for pan bread, place loaf on a cookie sheet or a sheet pan sprinkled heavily with corn meal.
When at half proof slash the top 4 or 5 times 1/4 in. deep at an angle and wash with egg wash made with 1 egg and 1/4 cup
water beaten togeather well.
sesme seed or poppy seed can be sprinkled on at this time if desired.Finish the proof. For Italian bread pinch off a piece
of dough about the size of a small walnut
and sit aside. Mould the loaf much like you
would for pan bread with the middle beeing
wider and the ends coming to a peak. Place on a corn meal sprinkled pan like with the French bread roll the walnut size piece of dough into a rope shape the length of the loaf and place it across the top of the loaf seal by pinching to each end of loaf.
Wash with the above egg wash and proof.
The loaf should bloom "a slight tear"on the lower side of the rope while baking. This bread can also be sprinkled with seed if desired. NO NEED to cover entire pan with corn meal just where the loaf will be with a little border around the loaf to allow for expansion. Sorry I could'nt give you one of my personal recipes but the smallest one calls for 50 lb. of flour But I have used this one and am satified with it. jim b