Farmhouse White Bread
recipe from Farmgirl Fare
Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1½ Tablespoons instant yeast
2 Tablespoons white or brown sugar
2 Tablespoons melted butter (or your favorite neutral/mild oil)
4 cups warm milk (about 85° F)
About 6 cups bread (high gluten) flour
1½ Tablespoons salt
Directions:
Mixing and Fermentation (first rise)
Shaping and Proofing (second rise)Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flattening gently with your hands to break up any large air bubbles. Divide the dough into three equal pieces.
If you're using a baking stone, put it in the cold oven now and heat the oven to 375°.Shape the dough into loaves. There are a few different ways to "shape" your loaves (another post for another day) but if you want some help, check out this post here.
I rolled out one of my loaves and spread with a mixture of softened butter, cinnamon and sugar.
Roll it up as you would a plain loaf. It was the "favorite" and eaten in record speed.
Place the loaves seam side down in greased loaf pans and dust them with flour. I like my sandwich breads to be tall, so I use smaller loaf pans.
Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let them rise,
until the dough springs back just a little when you gently poke it with a floured finger, about 40 to 60 minutes.
Bake at 375° for 35 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow if tapped (you need to carefully take a loaf out of the pan to check this).
Remove the finished loaves immediately from the pans and let them cool on a wire rack. The bread will continue to bake inside while it's cooling, so try to wait at least 40 minutes before cutting into a loaf.
Store at room temperature or freeze in zipper freezer bags. Make sure the loaves are completely cooled before sealing in bags.
Here is the cinnamon swirl bread, doesn't that look great?
Farmgirl Fare has a ton of great information on making bread. Although I have been baking bread for a few years, I learned a couple great tips on how to get those TALL loaves - one was to bake your loaf pans on a baking stone (I used my pampered chef pizza stone) and another was to use a smaller bread pan (one pound instead of one and half pound). I was so impressed by how great these loaves came out, I made another batch the next day :)
Even if you are new at bread baking, give this recipe a try! It is a perfect white bread recipe.
Enjoy!
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