I Made Some Dough

And then I made bread with it. 

For a lot of years I was intimidated by the thought of making homemade yeast-risen bread.  I wanted to beat this one though.  And I have!  Hooray!  I've had plenty of failures along the way... like fallen bread, dense funky bread, dry bread, etc.  But I finally made some good loaves, and these loaves are perfect for sandwiches, with dinner, for toast, sacrament bread, french toast... you name it.  And I've done it more with repeated success, so I think I've got it... for now.

I got a Kitchen-Aid mixer this past year, and I vowed to use that sucker for bread-making.  I know it's not the real earthy and snobbishly proper way to knead one's dough, but so what?!  I like the one-bowl contained mess of kneading the dough, and I'm more likely to flip a switch than make sure I have an entire counter cleared off for the kneading of dough.  Just sayin'.  Inevitably, I will somehow miss a stuck little chunk of dried flour/dough on the countertop and creep myself out when I find it later.  {not that my own messes creep me out}  Anyway, my goal was to put this mixer to good use, and good use I have!


This is a proper first rise.  Originally the dough in the bowl straight from the mixer was about the size of a cantaloupe.  And then I punched that bad boy down!
 

This is what the dough looks like after its second rise.  So pretty!

 

Aren't they beautiful!

Good Old Fashioned White Bread

INGREDIENTS
3 cups warm water
2 packets of Active Dry yeast (each packet = 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 T. table salt
6 cups A/P flour {I use King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour.  Use 6 cups, but keep a 7th close by if you live in an area that's humid, like Virginia Beach.  You're gonna need it, at least a little at a time.}

In the bowl of your Kitchen-Aid, with the dough hook attachment, add water, sugar, and both packets of yeast.  Give it a quick stir with a spoon & just let it be for about 7 or 8 minutes.  It will bloom/get a little foamy on top & start to smell yeasty good.  Then add your oil.  (If you'd like, b/c I do, mix your 6 cups o' flour w/the salt in separate bowl).  Now add the flour & salt. 

Start your mixer out on the 1st setting until the top of the flour starts to get a little moistened.  Then gradually turn it up to the third setting or so.  The dough will look really wet and sticky for a couple minutes.  Check it.  If it's just a gooey mess that doesn't come away from the bowl at all, and when you tilt up the mixer head the dough just falls all goopy like, then it needs more flour.  Add 1/4 cup of flour at a time, letting it be fully mixed into the dough, until you see the dough just starting to come away from the bowl on its own.  Let it mix for a good 8 minutes total (up to 10).  The dough will be just a bit sticky, look smooth, and it should be rather elastic. 

Put the dough ball into a sprayed large bowl and cover it with sprayed plastic wrap.  Put the bowl in a place with no drafts, like in your oven.  **Be sure that your oven isn't too warm from leftover baking!  If your bread rises in too warm of a place, your rise will collapse and you'll be disappointed.  Trust me, I know.**  Let the dough ball rise for 60 minutes.

After the first rise, it will be all puffy and it is just begging for your to punch it in the gut.  Go ahead, punch that bad boy down!  Once you've gotten out your meanness, evenly divide the dough into two loaves, and place them into two well-sprayed 9" loaf pans.  {I use Pampered Chef stone loaf pans.}  Cover each loaf with sprayed plastic wrap, and allow to rise in a draft-free place (oven) for about 35 minutes.  Check it.  If the dough is about an inch above the side of your loaf pan, then take the loaves out of the oven, and then preheat your oven to 375*.  Once your oven is ready to go, take the plastic off the loaves, and bake the loaves for 25 minutes.

Take the loaves out of their pans immediately and cool them on cooling racks.  If you can handle it, let them cool thoroughly and then store them in airtight bags.  If you can't handle it, which truly, who can handle warm bread being in the kitchen and NOT maul it?  Anyway, if you can't handle it, this bread is just begging for butter, apple butter, cinnamon butter, honey butter... you get the picture.  It's good stuff.  And if for some reason you've had a loaf hanging out in the kitchen for almost a week, it's a good time to make either bread pudding or french toast with it.  So. Stinking. Good.

Let me know how it works for you!