Soft White Bread

Oh! I hear it in the background...the music...Survivor singing "The search is overrrr." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have found it. After years of baking brick bread, poof bread, weird bread, and some downright wrong bread, I found the best bread recipe ever. I made this after work last night and we had some for dinner. Trent said it's so good that I should CSI the recipe, cost it out, and decide if we should start making it for everyday use instead of buying wonder bread.

This was born out of necessity, grocery shopping money is all spent this week and we are adhering to a strict budget, as many are right now. Trent's kids coming for the weekend, so basically, I need bread. I know my kitchen is stocked well enough to solve the problem. I googled something like "Best soft white bread recipe" and found this. Tip: buy yeast in bulk at winco and keep it in the freezer to keep it fresher.

The best part of this recipe...if you have a bread machine, you do almost nothing. If you have a kitchenaid mixer instead, you do a little more than nothing, but still very little work in comparison to most bread recipes.

The directions called out in the recipe (and what I did) were for the bread machine on the dough setting, keep in mind my dough setting takes about one hour because it proofs (raises) the dough the first time in a two-raise loaf, then the 40 minutes of additional raise time in the loaf pan, then bake.

If you use a kitchenaid, one of the comments on this recipe said to mix the ingredients with the paddle attachment (the regular one) then switch to the dough hook and work the dough for 7 minutes with that, then go on to the raising process (raise once in the bowl in a warm place for about an hour, shape into a loaf pan, raise again in warm place about 40 minutes until it's loaf-sized, bake.)

Raising: I always raise any dough I make in my oven, turn the oven on for about two minutes to 350, shut it off, put your hand in there to make sure it's not too hot but nice and toasty warm and raise the dough in there.

Last thing! (I know, I know, get to the recipe already!) A note about yeast...packet yeast contains 2 and 1/4 tsp yeast, so you would not use a whole packet, you have to measure it. Ok! Here's the recipe, geez.

Soft White Bread (makes one loaf)

Add ingredients to your machine in the order called for by your machine (nearly all I have seen are liquid first, then dry over that, then yeast on top, that's how mine is.)

1 cup milk, warmed in microwave for one minute
1 tsp salt
3 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened
1 tablespoon honey
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp sugar (necessary for browning)
1-1/2 tsp yeast (a teaspoon and a half)

Select dough cycle on bread machine. Oil a loaf pan. When cycle is done (which is mixing and raising the dough once), lift dough out with slightly floured hands, DON'T knead it...just shape into a loaf shape. Place dough in oiled loaf pan and flip it over so oil is on all sides of the dough. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and raise in a warm place for about 40 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Bake 30 minutes until golden brown.