1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter (or margarine)
2 packages active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (105 to 115 F)
5 to 6 cups of all-purpose white flour (I used 5 cups).
ALWAYS PREP! Get all your ingredients ready before you begin. This makes clean-up easier and you’ll feel more prepared throughout the whole process.
Ok, the most important part of bread is the yeast. If you kill them, your bread won't rise. So you want to make a lovely habitat for them.
First things first, warm up your stainless steel bowl by filling it with hot tap water.
Meanwhile, put the milk, sugar, salt, and butter in a small saucepan and heat it (using LOW heat) on the stove until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Once you get to that point, you have to let that mixture cool to lukewarm (about 5 to 10 minutes).
Using a thermometer, get 1 ½ cups of very warm water (110F is pretty ideal) to bloom your yeast. I just ran the tap on hot and filled up a measuring cup, and played around with the temperature until I got it right.
OK, the fun part! Dump the hot water from your bowl and add your very warm water and yeast. Swirl it around to bloom the yeast. It will smell really yeasty and look kind of tannish-yellow. Take your lukewarm mixture from the stove and add it to the yeast mixture. Then add 4 ½ cups of the flour to the bowl. Attach the bowl and dough hook to the KitchenAid. Turn to speed 2 and mix for about 1 minute.
Continuing on speed 2, add the remaining flour ½ cup at a time until dough clings to the hook and cleans the side of the bowl (about 2 minutes). (I only had to add ½ a cup for a total of 5 cups. Don’t add too much flour – it will make your loaf really dry.)
Knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes more, until dough is smooth and elastic. It will be sticky to the touch, and you might think you should add more flour, but you shouldn’t. Unhook the dough hook and bowl from the mixer and take dough out. Form it into a ball and put it in a greased bowl, and turn it to grease all sides. Let it rise in a warm place for about an hour or until it doubles in size (leaves an indent when you press it with your finger). I turn my oven on 400F for one minute and then turn it off to give it a warm, draft-free place to rise.
Punch dough down and split in half. Roll each half out into rectangles about 9” by 14”. Starting from the small end, roll up tightly and pinch the seam to seal. Place each half seam-side down in a greased loaf pan. Let rise in a warm place for an hour or until it doubles in size. (I did the oven trick again.)
Pre-heat your oven to 400F (after you take the rising dough out, of course) and bake for about half an hour. Crust should be a deep golden brown. My oven cooks hot so I took it out at about 25 minutes, but every oven is different.
Remove from loaf pans immediately and cool on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!
TIPS:
• Use a thermometer! Don’t guess!
• Don’t use too much flour.
• When rising, cover with plastic wrap or a towel to keep your dough draft-free and trap in warm goodness for your yeast to do its work.
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