Friday Bake Day: Homemade Bread

Admittedly, homemade bread is not the easiest recipe ever, but the rewards are worth the time!

And I am not talking about bread machine bread, I mean homemade-in-a-9 x 5 pan-after-kneading-it- for-7-minutes bread. Yum!

Homemade Bread

• 2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 Kosher teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 6 cups bread flour

1. In a bowl big enough to handle 6 cups of flour (when I first started baking this I did not have such a thing!), dissolve yeast in warm water. If you want to heat the water over the stove, just add water to bowl with yeast already in in. Allow yeast and water to mix until whit foam appears (5-7 minutes).
2.  Mix Kosher Salt and vegetable oil into yeast mixture. Mix in flour one cup at a time.
3.  Now the fun part! Knead dough on floured surface until all air pockets are gone (5 or more minutes usually does the trick!). The dough should get smooth and less s"ticky". Add more flour if needed. I have had to add up to a cup more of flour in some dough batches. 
4. Oil large bowl completely. Coat dough with oil in the large bowl. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and place in a warm place for 1 hour. The dough should double in size while rising. Make sure you bowl is big enough of you will have dough spilling out every where!  
5. Knead dough one more time, this time making sure to be aggressive! 
6. Split the dough in half. Try to make loaf shape from kneaded bread and place each in 9x5 bread pans. Let dough in pans rise one more time, for 30 minutes
7. Bake at 350 degrees F  for 30 minutes or until bread is golden brown on top.

Adapted from Amish White Bread Recipe on Allrecipes.com (seriously, that website hasn't done me wrong yet!)

Although this is not as healthy as some of the wheat bread recipes out there, I really like this one because the bread is moist even days after baking. 

This is a great bread to enjoy with a bowl of soup or oil dip. My husband and I just enjoyed it with homemade soup for dinner. 

What kind of bread do you make? Is there a special flavor you invented? I have heard some crazy ones, like banana split bread!