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| Homemade bread - second rising |
Because there is little that I adore more than fresh, warm from the oven homemade bread slathered with real butter, I make bread on a daily basis. And while the "5 minute a day" bread has its place, I find it just as easy to use my grandma's recipe. This is the recipe she taught me (and my momma) to make bread with many years ago and it is still, hands down, my favorite recipe. It is a simple and basic, but most delicious bread.
Grandma Lucy's Bread
Makes one loaf, can be doubled
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
3 1/2 cups flour (approximate)
In large bowl combine yeast, sugar, salt and water, let sit for 5 minutes. Stir in flour, a little at a time until it becomes too difficult to stir. Add a little more of the flour and begin kneading. Add more flour as necessary and continue kneading until smooth and elastic. Place in a large well greased bowl and let rise until doubled - approximately 1 hour. Sprinkle with a little more flour, punch down and knead again just a little bit.
Shape and place in a greased loaf pan. Let rise for another hour. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. When done, the bread will be a lovely golden color and sound hollow when tapped on the top. Turn bread out onto a cooling rack. If you are like me - force yourself to wait 10 minutes, then cut off a rather large chunk of warm bread and smear with 6 tablespoons of real butter (I exaggerate - but not by much, lol). If you are not like me, leave the kitchen and let the bread cool completely before slicing.
As a side note, if you position the bread sideways on your cooling rack, and lay the bread on its side to cool, the rack will leave perfectly spaced indentions in the bread - which help you to cut uniform slices of bread.
Once you are confident in making this bread - go ahead and experiment. I have used this recipe to make cinnamon rolls, pepperoni rolls, pizza crust, herb rolls, etc.
3 comments:
Do you know, that when you gave me this recipe, I made it and it was doughy - it's me, I know it's me!!!
It rose FINE - I don't know what happened. I'm going to try it again sometime. It's all very discouraging. The yeast was new. I guess I should have left it in the oven longer; I need to know what it should look like before I take it out.
Lisa - it should be a deep golden brown color and should sound hollow when tapped on top. Oh my, the doughy messes I made when I first began baking bread!
On another note - Have you checked your oven thermostat? I was having some trouble with my baking when we first moved here and my momma purchased an oven thermometer for me. The type that hangs on the rack. And would you believe that my oven temperature was 75 degrees lower that what it should have been - i.e., setting the oven for 375 meant the oven temp was actually 300.
Since I can't see just how doughy your bread turned out I would suggest giving it another 5 to 15 minutes longer in the oven. In my opinion, bread baking is an art, not a science and you just have to keep experimenting to find what works best for your kitchen. Don't give up - I know you CAN make bread!
Dondi, thanks for the encouragement! LOL
I have an oven thermometer - it seems fine! (which surprised me)
I have to say that I experimented to a certain degree with the recipe. I wanted raisin bread and had looked at other recipes. So, I added some raisins to the dough. After the first rise, I rolled it out a bit, sprinkled some cinnamon and sugar on it and rolled it up. But I didn't change the essential recipe at all, so that shouldn't have done anything. I will just have to cultivate getting a "feeling" about it, I think.
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