Homemade Bread

Well, I did it. I made my own bread yesterday. The recipe I used was this:

1/4 c. warm water
1 tbsp yeast
2 cups scalded (and cooled) milk
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2 1/2 c. white flour
3 c. whole wheat flour

To simplify the directions, you mix the warm water with the yeast and let it sit for a bit so the yeast dissolves and starts growing. Then you add in everything else except the flour and stir it up. Then you add the flour one cup at a time. After the fifth cup, you can start kneading the bread, and you knead in the last half cup or so of flour until you get a smooth ball of dough. Then you let it rise for about 2 hours. After the two hours is up, you punch it down and shape it into two loaves. I wrapped one loaf with plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. The other loaf went in a loaf pan to rise for another 45 minutes. Then, I baked it at 350 for about 40 minutes.

It turned out pretty darn tasty. I had to have a couple slices after it came out and was still warm. There is nothing tastier than fresh bread with a bit of butter. I think with the next loaf I won't keep it in the oven the full 40 minutes. The top crust ended up a little darker and crunchier than I'd like. I'm also considering trying it without milk; I've seen a couple bread recipes like that. I'm also planning to try just plain white bread, all whole wheat, some variations on the blended ratios, and also using the all-white dough to make buns. We'll see how that goes. I picked up a great cookbook of breads at the used bookstore in Chatham last weekend, and it's got some good recipes for cinnamon rolls, tarts, and other cool bread-like things. Stay tuned...