Homemade Bread
Posted By: many questions on 2008-08-16
In Reply to:
I'd like to start making my own bread. I can only tolerate easy recipes and not too time consuming. Is making your own bread easy, moderate or difficult? if it's easy, do you have any tried and true recipes?
Should I buy a bread machine? What can you tell me about bread machines and their ability to pop out good tasting bread, also, with bread machines, do you have to use a pre bought packet or can you stick your own ingredients in there and bake?
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Homemade bread
Well, I'm old-fashioned. I've never used a bread machine in my life. But I do make four loaves of bread at least every week and my family can't live without it (I say in all modesty). I've won blue ribbons at the County Fair for it. This is how I do it - This may seem very long and involved, but it's because I'm trying to describe it really thoroughly. Don't let the length of the instructions put you off. Do try it!
The initial makinag and kneading of the dough only takes about twenty minutes - the rest is waiting time, mostly.
I start with dry yeast, one package in a half a cup of hot tap water, stir it up and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. While it's sitting, I put three cups of hot water in a big mixing bowl with two teaspoons of salt, two tablespoons of sugar, and a quarter stick of margarine (or butter if you prefer). I heat that in the microwave for three minutes.
Then I add two cups of flour to the ater/salt/sugar/ butter and stir it up. You'll need a strong spoon because it'll get pretty thick later on. I have a favorite wooden spoon that I use. Once that's mixed in (it doesn't have to be completely smooth) add the yeast, then add another half cup of hot water to rinse the rest of the yeast out of the cup and into the dough. Stir that up, and then start adding your flour. I start with a total of ten cups, usually get close to twelve. You can do that all at once or two cups at a time. After it gets too hard to stir, it's time to put some of the last two cups of flour on the table and dump the dough mixture out onto the table. Then comes the fun, especially if you're stressed. Start kneading the dough, adding more flour when it gets sticky. Depending on how humid it is, you may need another cup or two cups. I usually add about half a cup at a time gradually each time it gets sticky. If you put in too much all at once, it may turn out too heavy. At eleven or twelve cups, you will hit the point when your hands don't stick to the dough anymore. Then just knead it for another several minutes until it's smooth "as a baby's bottom" was how I was taught.
Then I wash out the bowl and dry it with a clean dish towel, spray the inside with cooking spray, put the dough in, then thoroughly wet the towel (not dripping, but don't wring it out all the way either), and cover the bowel. That'll keep the dough from drying out while it's rising. Set in in a warm place to rise. In the summer I set it on my stove with the light on over it. In the winter, I'll put a pan of warm water in the oven on the bottom shelf and put the bowl on the top shelf.
Let it rise to double its original size, about an hour. Can be more. Dough is very forgiving if you let it rise too much. Then fold it in on itself, recover it and let it rise again. I usually let it rise at least two or three times. The more often you let it rise, the lighter it will be.
After the last rising, I spray my four loaf pans with cooking spray, then take the dough out, put in on the table and divide it into four parts with a large knife. Then, fold it in and under to form a loaf and put it in the loaf pan. Set that to rise to double. At about 45 minutes, start preheating the oven to 375 degrees. When the dough is the height you want (it will rise a little more in the oven), stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. It should be golden brown on top when it's done. Take the loaves out of the pans immediately and put them on a cooling rack so moisture doesn't accumulate under them.
The family will attack the first loaf of bread immediately, be forewarned! The other three, when they are almost cool, put them in regular bread bags you have saved from store-bought bread. I freeze mine, because this has no preservatives and does get stale quickly. It's best eaten within a day or two of making it or thawing it. That's never a problem in my house.
I hope you try it. It's a great feeling, getting all the accolades from your family and friends. PS - if you're lactose intolerant, like me, there are no milk products in it. I never eat store-bought bread anymore. It also makes the best toast in the world, and French toast?!? Wonderful!
homemade bread
She's absoloutely correct! I love making my own bread. My kids are gone now, so I don't make as much, but give it away. It doesn't last long if it sticks around here and there is such a good feeling when you've done it yourself. No preservatives and junk included. That being said, I do have a bread machine as well, have rarely used it, but when I do, it does a gresat job and I can make more types of bread because I can just throw everything in and let the machine do the rest. It really does turn out good and I am freed up to do other stuff, like work!!
homemade bread
Thanks for sharing your recipe. I lost my bread book in a flood here in Florida when there was 8 inches of water in my house and my recipes were on the bottom shelf of my cabinet (among other recipes) and have not made any bread since. My mother bought me an "earthenware bowl" that she paid a lot for to rise the dough which retains the temperature. I only have 3 loaf pans but will buy another. I bought a breadmaker machine but did not use it much. I used it for rye bread which is hard to knead because it is more coarse. My family loved my bread and I pretty much loved to have my hands in that dough. I know it is somewhat exhausting, but I find it almost therapeutic and stress reducing. I am going to try your recipe.
Definitely the homemade goodies!
Homemade chocolate chip cookies, pecan and/or almond butter balls, sugar cookies, fudge! mmmmm
My mother fed us homemade
formula made from Karo syrup and canned milk. I'm only 36. She also made the nipple holes bigger to get serial in those bottles once we started waking her up too often. Plus, let my husband get up once in a while, darn...., and no I'm not milking myself like a cow so he can feed the baby through a bottle. Another thing, these mothers wind up feeding these babies from their breast until they start school. Ooohhhh ahhhh... duh! Oh the stories!
Homemade gravy, almost every time.
x
What's the best cut of meat for homemade philly...
steak subs? Our family loves them and we usually buy the frozen philly cheese steak meat...but I just can't stomach the smell of it even cooking anymore because it is sooooo greasy. I want to try to make some homemade from a fresh cut of meat. Any suggestions? Thanks!!
homemade chicken soup here
Teenage son just walked in and said, Oh, good. We get to eat tonight. LOL. Guess he is tired of take-out.
I'm in CA and I love homemade mac & cheese -
.
Homemade Pizza Dough
Does anybody have a recipe for a good pizza dough recipe that does not take a long time to make?
Also what do you put on your homemade pizza?
homemade heath bar- sorta
Not a dinner idea- but a cheap way to make a bag-full of toffee:
1 cup butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 12 oz. bag chocolate chips, 3/4-1 cup chopped nuts (i use salted peanuts chopped up) saltine crackers:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Fill pan side-by-side with crackers. Heat butter and brown sugar. Boil for 3 minutes. Pour on top of crackers. Put pan in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle the chocolate chips on top to melt- after a couple minutes, easy to spread around with a spatula. Sprinkle the nuts on top- kinda push them into the chocloate so they don't fall off when done. Chill in fridge and break into pieces.
Keeps well in a zip-lock baggie in fridge. Not the real deal, but sure it good and a lot cheaper than candy bars!
Thanks for the other ideas ladies, always looking for a new meal that is fast, easy and yummy!
last year homemade carmel corn,
this year pumpkin mini-muffins with candy corn on top...
Popcorn, homemade, with butter and a little salt
nm
I've heard they are good for homemade..
pizza because pizza has to cook in a 500+ oven. The stone helps when domestic ovens only go that high.
I'm no cook, that's the 'gist' of it, stones.
You can Google the info tho.
Ever watch Sam the Cooking Guy? He cracks me up.
I found a recipe for homemade latte that I will try.
You liked Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper? I thought it tasted like dirt. But I feel your pain, also, on losing something you love. Most people didn't like Straight Up latte, too, but I loved it.
Thanks for checking. I did try making my homemade version.
Not too bad. Needs a little recipe tweaking, but not too bad. I just made sure not to buy Folger's instant coffee for the recipe 
Super easy homemade pizza
Very yummy and under $10 Serves 3-4
1 lb ground hamburger or 1 bag of pepperoni
1 box jiffy pizza crust mix
1 bag shredded pizza cheese
1 jar pizza sauce
Brown hamburger, drain; set aside. Make crust mix as per directions. Put into pizza pan - bake 3 minutes. Layer sauce, a little cheese, meat, then more cheese. Bake on 350 degrees for about 12-15 minutes. You won't believe how delicious this is!
My grandmother made homemade mac and cheese sm
She died at the age of 93 and I was 27 and I am ashamed to say that I never learned how to make it. She didn't have a receipe. She would also put fried chicken on the stove before church and it would be cooked to perfection by dinnertime. Ask my brother or me what our last meal would be and we both say Mamaw's fried chicken and mac and cheese.
Halfway homemade NE clam chowder sm
I say half-way because I use cream of potato soup as kind of a base. This is enough for my family of 5 to have plenty with a little leftover if there is nothing else to go with it (we sometimes have grilled cheese with it).
6-8 slices of bacon
1/2-1 stick of butter
1/2 medium-large onion, chopped
1-2 Tbsp minced garlic
4 cans Campbell's cream of potato soup
3 cans minced or chopped clams (keep the juice)
Half and half, maybe a quart
Cook the bacon, butter, onion, and garlic in a large pot until the bacon is done. Do not drain. Add soup and clams, including the juice, and gradually stir in half and half, stirring constantly to keep it from curdling or burning, until heated through.
Great idea! How about homemade marshmellows!?
I do cookies and candies every year for all of our neighbors, friends, and family. This year we have to cut back for financial reasons so I am only giving to those who we see often and I know appreciate it.
Last year we did homemade marshmellows and they were a big hit. There were green striped mint ones and red striped cherry. This year I am going to do cocoa mix and the marshmellows and just a few cookies. I may just use your recipe. Sounds wonderful!
Andes mints now have a big of pieces in the baking aisle. That might be a nice twist or maybe butterscotch chips. Yum!
If you like to bake you should check out the marshmellow recipe of Alton Brown's. Martha Stewart also has a good one. They are cheap and easy to make if you have a good mixer like a kitchen aid. The mixer really does most of the work, about 15 minutes to get the fluff. The most difficult part is the cleanup. It can be messy but well worth it!
How many of you are making the homemade laundry soap?
I just did this week and I love it. Its going to save so much on laundry detergent. I'm very happy with the results.
HOMEMADE LAUNDRY DETERGENT
Ingredients:
3.1 oz bar Ivory soap or 2 regular bar sizes(Ivory is chosen because it's all natural. You may use a soap of your choice)
1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax
½ cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda or Baking Soda (I used baking soda since I couldn't find the washing soda)
Water
Tools:
5 Gallon container
Knife
Pot large enough to hold 5 cups of water
Long stirring stick/spoon (for 5 gallon container)
Instructions:
Shave the soap into small strips or grate it up finely with a grater and place in the pot with 5 cups of water. Bring the water just shy of a boil and stir until the soap is completely melted. When the soap is just about melted, pour 3 gallons of hot water into the 5-gallon container and let it sit until the soap in the pot is totally melted. Once all of the soap shavings are melted, pour the mixture into the 5-gallon container and stir.
Once the soap and water are thoroughly stirred, add the ½ cup pf washing soda and stir until dissolved. Once the washing soda is dissolved, pour in the cup of borax and stir again until dissolved.
***You can add essential oil flavors for the smell but I prefer without.
Breakfast - homemade biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs,
bacon, fried bologna and potato pancakes. It was scrumptious!!!!
Frito pie made with homemade chili and cole slaw.
x
A blanket in his favorite color, a homemade afghan or quilt maybe? NM
x
Does anyone have a bread machine?
If so, would you recommend getting one and which brand is good? 
Bread Machine
 Hi - I love bread! I have a Hitachi that is old and works great. I am antsy to get a new one though and think I will get a Zojirushi - they are the best I know of. I mostly use mine to mix dough and then I proof it outside the machine (I proof in my dehydrator, you just take out the shelves and set it on low and shortly thereafter all the rising is finished - I use a big dehydrator from Excalibur so a lot of bread can fit in there! Yummy bread. It also saves a lot of money because bread is now about 2.50 a loaf or more for good bread, but mine is better and is way cheaper! I got one for my daughter and got her the one she wanted (a Panasonic), which is half the price of a Zo and she thinks works just as well. Just get one with the bigger size insert so you can make big bread if you want (you can always make it smaller, just by using the small recipe size if you just mix in your machine and get one that has a setting for adding in add-ins (like raisins or nuts or whatever). Those are the important things in bread. Go to King Arthur Flour website and check out the bread! It is the best place to buy ingredients that you might not find in your own town if you live in a small one. Now I am hungry for bread from all this and think I will go put some Portugese Sweet Bread in there for later! Good luck with your bread! Maybe we could quit transcribing and open a bakery! That might be fun!
bread recipes
Would the kind lady who posted her bread recipes please reply to me, even if it is my private e-mail address, with the recipes that she had for 4 loaves of bread. My hard drive crashed and even though I copied the recipe to my word expander, I was not able to print it out.
Bread at Sams
I know this isn't latte, but my husband and I found a certain organic wheat bread at Sam's Club that we absolutely loved. It was 4 loaves in a bag for around 5 bucks....great price and great bread. It was fresh bread, so 15 minutes in the oven and it was ready!!!! They discontinued it and I called them. The marketing guy said he knew exactly what I was talking about because he and his wife loved it also, but the numbers showed it wasn't selling as well, so they placed it in different places in the store locally, but it still didn't sell well, so they discontinued it. I can't imagine that because every time I went in, there were tons of empty boxes I had to move around to get to the new ones. Did they tell you it wasn't selling well?
Bread recipe
When you say you put yeast in hot water, do you mean just warm water?? I thought hot water would make the yeast not work.
Never could get the bread machines
to work really well using fresh ingredients, the boxed mixes worked good but are more expensive than a loaf of bread. I have a few recipes for the oven that turn out great though.
Bread help appreciated sm
The bread came out just "okay" with King Arthur Flour, it was a great experience though and I can't wait to get to the market to get the actual "bread flour;" hopefully will be within a few days. We have a Christmas Tree Shop in the next town and will try to get there to get the flour cheaper. We are also close to (excuse this) Wal-Mart. The aroma alone was great and I was amazed at how it kneaded itself, etc., as this is the part I was dreading when making bread. The Oster does it all for $59 with a $10 coupon good next week at Kohl's. I can't say it was that good this a.m., I did cut a thin slice and toasted it. Our Golden Retriever was salivating but we're watching his diet. I will be looking for bargains and enjoying having the aroma in the house. We have cold winters in NE so the smell of bread and crock pot meal or mac and cheese is a good thing! I feel like Martha! (I could pack on the pounds with this.) The crust was crunchy and the inside well cooked. I may try pizza dough in it one night as well. I could become addicted to this experimenting with bread over $4 to $7 a loaf around here. Thanks for the input.
I have a bread machine but....
how do you bake without using the pan they provide? I have an Oster and the pan has the mixer built right in.
Love white bread. nm
x
Definitely good bread - something dark or rye, or
s
Skip the bread, which is where the carbs are -
Make the rest into a salad to eat with the soup! :-)
bread; soft fruit
nm
I made my own bread for years sm
I have celiac disease, so no more, but the kids loved it.
I have had a bread machine, but they are not friendly in higher altitudes, so I gave it away. I baked by hand and yes, I was an MT at the time. I used to make 6 to 10 loaves at a time, which is a lot of kneading. I found that kneading it as I did clay when I was throwing on a pottery wheel worked best for my hands. It is a spiral kneading technique, hard to explain. I sit on the floor and knead in a very large steel bowl. The angle of my wrists and hands is much better that way.
Anyway, my favorite bread recipes come out of the original Laurel's Kitchen. I don't like the new anniversary edition and I don't like their bread book. You'd need to look in the library for this, but it is worth it.
While I don't own one (have not found one) I understand that the best and easiest way to knead bread is a bread bucket. You can buy them from a couple of places on line that cater to Amish people. It looks sorta like an old-fashioned ice cream bucket, but you put bread in the bucket and crank.
I stand by something called Hungarian High-Altitude flour. I have used it at high altitude and low altitude, it is equally good. If you can, get bulk yeast from a health food store because those packets are pricey and not as fresh as you need for premium bread. Made by hand, the best bread comes from the best sponge beforehand.
Feel free to email me about anything I have said.
NYMT - bread recipe
Just reading over your recipe. What kind of flour do you use? Bread flour or AP?
Half a loaf of bread better than none
My husband (who is union) and I have talked about this and he definitely said he would take pay cut in order to keep his job if need be.
You could use them to make Monkey Bread. sm
You stack and layer them in a tube pan, let them rise as normal. Then take a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon, white and brown sugar and poor over the bread. Bake at 400 for about 40-45 minutes. Delicious for breakfast!
Does anyone every use a KitchenAid mixer for kneading their bread?
I have never made bread before but the mixer has a bread hook attachment, wondering if this works well or not?
My aunts always made friendship bread.
Not sure exactly, but they would get a "start" from someone and always had a little left to use to mix up the next loaf, so on and so on.
People love my bread stuffing sm
I use Pepperidge Farm seasoned bread stuffing, don't know what other brands are out there, this is put out by a bread company. Then instead of water, use orange juice. I once tried chicken broth but too greasy. I add freshly chopped onions, celery and sometimes raisins and small amt. of chopped cranberries. I never stuff the turkey but bake it separately in a casserole. If it looks too dry, I may add a teaspoon or more of the final turkey drippings just over the top. This is one time I use butter. I have tried rubbing the bird with mayonnaise and that works well. Like to experiment but always the turkey comes out just fine at 20 minutes per lb. and use a thermometer. They always ask for more stuffing.
Eat your bread crust and it will make your hair curly! nm
`
The spinach dip in a hollowed bread? Veggies and dip? Sweet
s
I use crackers, oatmeal, bread, or croutons - whatever is on hand.
nm
Baking bread from scratch is hard work, sm
especially for people like us who abuse their hands working. Kneading bread is exhausting!
I have a bread machine and love it. It allows for both bread mixes and scratch ingredients. The bread tastes delicious, too.
bread with spagetti sauce and cheese, over the fire
nm
That's New England - cold winter, warm bread! nm
...
I made Cinnebons with my bread machine one year.
That was the year I heard the most positive comments back. Loved them! Used disposable 8 x 8 tins and wrapped them up pretty with red and green Saran wrap.
Over the years I have gotten the plastic trays that are shaped like Santa or something like that and made cookies, fudge, made 1 of the slots mixed nuts and mints. Those also went over well, especially the families with kids.
Prime rib, some fresh veggies, good bread....
and a fabulous hubby in a cabin in the mountains with no phone or TV!
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