Homemade Bread

New Cansino Family tradition: boycotting store bought bread and making our own. Look at the labels of your store bought bread. Recognize most of the ingredients? Neither did I. A lot of it is preservatives. The texture even has more air than homemade to allow it to last on the store shelves and our shelves at home. And it goes from lasting on the shelve to lasting in our gut? Awesome.

I decided I'm making my own from now on. I was surprised how easy it really was, and not too time consuming. I will probably start making double batches once I get it down. It was really fun, and it really makes me feel like a true homemaker. Here's the simple recipe:

Homemade Bread:

bread pan
1 o 2 bowls
measuring cup
spoon

1 package of dry active yeast
1 c warm water
5 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
5 tsp butter
2 1/2- 3 1/2 c flour
1/4 c milk
corn starch or non stick spray

Warm your bowl by filling it with hot tap water and letting it sit for a minute. This is great time to clean your counter well for later. Dump it out, and mix the packet of yeast with 1 c warm water. Stir the yeast until lump free. It will be a light tan color.

Melt the butter. Stir in the butter, milk, salt, and sugar. Mix well. Now add only 2 c of the flour. Save the rest. Stir well, then start adding the flour about 1/4 c at a time, about every minute or so. Keep adding and mixing flour until the dough is slightly sticky, but doesn't stick to your hands.

Take a little flour and rub over your hands. There should be flour sprinkled on your counter now from mixing. Pick up the dough out of the bowl. Throw the dough down on the floured counter and begin kneading it for about 10 min.

After 10 min of kneading, roll the dough into a ball. Clean the bowl or use a second bowl. Spray with cooking spray or sprinkle with cornstarch. Put the dough ball in the bowl, cover with a towel, and leave in a warm spot for an hour to rise. The dough will more or less double in size at the end of the hour.

After an hour, punch the dough back down 3-4 times to get it back to original size. Then remove it from the bowl and on a lightly floured counter, spread it into a rectangle shape. One side should be same length as the bread pan and the other side approx 1 1/2 times the length of the bread pan. Roll it up, starting on one of the shorter sides. The seamed side is the bottom. Roll the sides down and tuck them under, on the seamed side, to create a neat roll the same size as the bread pan. Spray or sprinkle the bread pan, put the dough in, cover with a towel, and set aside for another hour.

Now is a great time to clean up your counter.

After about 45 min or so, start preheating your oven to 400 degrees (depending on how long your oven takes to heat). When the dough is done rising (it will now be two hours total of rising), bake for 30 min at 400 degrees F.

After the bread is baked, remove from oven and immediately remove from pan to cool. After its cooled, slice (segregated knife works much better), and enjoy!

I'm not really a bread fan, and I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed it. Online recommendations say master the basic white recipe, then start experimenting with others, like wheat or flavors. Good luck and enjoy!