Bread

I used the bread machine to make a loaf to go with pasta bake, Tuesday night.  The whole house smelled good.  Like my childhood.  

When I was little, buying flour and oil and other ingredients was...well, more expensive than a loaf of bread, but cheaper in the longer run than buying that many loaves of bread.  And flour also made biscuits, cookies, cornbread, and wacky cake.  Grandma bought flour in 25 lb bags, and went through an entire bag of flour every month. 

(I go through a 25 lb bag of bread flour every six weeks or so, making pizza.  It takes...a lot of dough to go through that much flour.)  

Once a week, Grandma made a four-loaf batch of bread.  Sometimes, in the winter, she'd do that in the wood cookstove that sat back in the utility room--which, really, doubled as a second kitchen, when she had that thing fired up.  There was a double-chambered sink and cabinets and counters back there, too.  But, like I said, in the winter, she actually built a fire in that stove and used it.  For bread.  And homemade, from scratch cocoa.  

The smell of bread baking is the smell of home.  One of the few, unmarred, good memories of childhood.  

Basic, white bread

1 c warm water
2.5 tbsp oil
2-3 tbsp sugar 
1/2 tbsp yeast
3.5 c all purpose or bread flour
1 tsp salt

This basic recipe works in a bread machine OR mixed and baked.  If you're using a bread machine, use all purpose flour,* follow your machine's order of operations (i.e., which ingredients go in what order), then push the button and forget.

If you're mixing then baking...I strongly recommend a stand mixer.  Start with the paddle, then use the dough hook for kneading.  

Normally, I add things in the order I've listed them.  And I run the stand mixer on speed 2.  When the dough balls up in the paddle, grab a rubber scraper, clean it out, and switch to the dough hook.  Then  keep it going until the dough's no longer shaggy looking, but smooth and elastic.  Turn the mixer off, and cover it with a towel.  Give it an hour or so to rise, then check.  If it's doubled, it's ready for a second knead.  If not, then cover it back up and check in about another fifteen minutes.  It's okay if it rises too much at this point.  You're just going to punch it down again.  

When it's doubled, turn the mixer back on to knead it a bit more.  While you're doing that, use cooking spray in a bread pan, and turn on your oven light (it'll make sense in a minute).  Turn off your mixer, and squash your dough ball into the pan, and spray the top with cooking spray or spread melted butter over the top to keep it from drying out.  Then, cover it, and put the pan in the oven with the light on to give it some warmth for the yeast to work.  Give it half an hour to rise, then check.  It should be doubled, peeking up over the top of the pan.  

Turn the oven on.  I bake the loaves I make at 375.  It'll only take about thirty minutes or so--start checking on it when you really start smelling bread.  When it looks done, tap it.  If it sounds hollow, it's ready.  

And boom!  Hot, homemade bread!  All the experts will tell you to wait for it to cool before slicing into it, but I call bullshit: slice into it as soon as you can hang onto it, then butter it generously.  There's absolutely nothing so wonderful as fresh bread with a lot of butter melted into it.  Add cinnamon-sugar if you want, or just chow down without it.  

Your whole house will smell wonderful for hours.  

*Do not, for the love of all that's holy, use bread flour in a bread machine with that much yeast.  Reduce it to a teaspoon. Or do like I do, and just use all purpose flour.  If you use bread flour and that much yeast, the result is...well.  I'm not sure how what caliber you'd use for mutant bread dough trying to push open the bread machine to escape into the wild.