Bread

I have been working on this bread recipe for several months now and I think I have it just where I want it. My goal was to make a loaf of bread that used the bread machine to do the tedious part of the bread making and still have a normal shaped loaf.

You may have noticed on my blogs in the past that I often refer to my bread machine and my slow cooker as the “hired help” in the kitchen. They really can be if you use them on a regular basis. I love my bread machine and use it a lot. Sometimes I let it do all the work from start to finish but more often I use it like I do in this recipe. I take advantage of the Dough setting and then transfer the bread to a regular loaf pan to finish up.

Since I am home working most days it is convenient for me to do this. I can still get a lot of work done while the machine does most of the work on the bread. Then at the sound of my timer I can take a break to see to the needs of the bread. At the end of a few hours I have a loaf of bread just as good as the ones that my mom and my grandma put so much work into. That being said I do still make bread the old fashioned way that I learned as a young girl. I still enjoy to work with the dough but face it most days I just don't have the luxury of the time it takes.

I want to cover a few things about this bread before I give you the recipe.

I use ¼ cup of sugar in this recipe. I do that for several reasons the first being that it helps the yeast to get maximum rise. The yeast does need sugar to give it the energy and it helps to make this a practically fool proof recipe (as long as you measure carefully and follow the directions) Also with the addition of sugar you get some of the best toasting bread since the sugar is what helps to brown it in the toaster.

I designed this bread to use plain old All Purpose flour. I love that because I don't always have special bread flour on hand, if you want to add some variety and boost the nutrients a bit you might try replacing up to half the flour with whole wheat flour. The resulting loaf will be a bit denser but equally as tasty. Or try your favorite flour and see how it works. I would recommend that you replace no more than half of the flour with another flour.

About 10 minutes after I start the bread machine I like to go and make a visual check of the loaf. At this point I adjust the liquid/flour ratio. When I lift the lid I want to find a nice ball of dough being worked by the machine. If it is too hard or there is a batch of flour that isn't getting mixed into the dough I add just a bit of warm water (no more than a Tablespoon at a time) if on the other hand the dough is too loose to form a good ball I add some more flour (again about a Tablespoon at a time) After the machine has a few minutes to work this addition in I re-check to see if the dough is forming a nice ball, if not I make another adjustment and re-check.

Another way to add some variety to your loaf of bread is to change the liquid you use. You can always use water but why? There's an entire world out there of wonderful liquids to try. I have used many things I think our favorites so far have been various fruit juices (orange is really good and makes fantastic French Toast) and buttermilk. Be warned the juices will allow your bread to raise a lot taller so keep an eye on it while it is rising in the loaf pan you might want to bake it before the hour is up. My nest experiment will be with some broth to see how that works. What can you think of to try?

At the end of the video I share a tip I learned from my mom (and she most likely learned from her mom) and I wanted to pass it on to you. As soon as you take the baked loaf out of the oven and out of the pan brush it with melted butter and wrap it in a damp towel and then onto a cooling rack. This process not only gives the bread a wonderfully flavored crust but it steams the loaf and softens the crust just the right amount. Don't use your best towels for this, you might get some stains from the melted butter and the steam but it is well worth it.

Bread

1 cup milk (heated to just warm)

1 egg

2 Tablespoons melted butter

3 ¼ cups All Purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

¼ cup sugar

1 Tablespoon dry yeast