Penny Pinching Sunday

Homemade Bread

On my last post, Penny Pinching Sunday - saving at a grocery store, I wrote about saving money by making some of the staple items yourself.  One of my favorite things to make is bread. It tastes so much better then store bought and there is something very therapeutic about kneading out that dough. 

Of course you can get a bread maker and do it that way, but if you don't want to go out and buy a new bread maker this is definitely the way to go. 

I have tried tonnes of bread recipes and this one is by far my favorite. It makes a very fluffy bread that never last very long in my house.  I found the recipe, along with many other fantastic recipes, on this fantastic blog.

High Rising Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

3 cups of all purpose flour

2 tablespoons of sugar

1/4 cups powdered milk

2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons butter

1 cups hot but not boiling water (roughly)

1 large egg

Combine flour, sugar, powdered milk, instant yeast, salt, egg and butter in a large bowl. Add the water and mix until it is a rough (shaggy) mix. ( See that egg in there? That is an egg from my own back yard! Big thanks to these lovely chickens )

 Rest it for half and hour.

Place the dough onto a lightly floured bench and start kneading.  I took some pictured of the dough during the kneading process so you can see how it changes.  You are looking for a very soft and elastic dough ball. 

After about 4 minutes.

Almost there (about 7 minutes).

And your done!  Its now smooth to touch and when you pull it a little you can see it spring back.

Place the dough in a clean and lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in size (roughly 1 1/2 hours).

  

Temperate does play a big part in how long it takes to rise.  My house gets very cold so I like to start pre-heating the oven to 180 degrees Celsius now and place the bowl on top of the stove to rise.

Once it has risen place the dough onto a lightly floured bench and punch the dough down. 

Shape into a rectangle the same length as your bread pan then roll it up and place it in.

Place some more cling wrap over the pan.

 Only place the cling wrap over very lightly, if it is to tight it will stop the bread rising above the pan.  Place the pan back on top of the stove to rise until it has risen roughly 1-2 inches above the rim of the pan.

I had to use my larger bread pan with the pictures, so it doesn't rise above the pan in the photos.  Usually I will use my smaller size for this recipe but my toddler decided that was the perfect pan to make his play dough bread in (ha ha). 

Once it has finished rising place it in the pre heated oven and bake for 35-45 minutes.  You will know when it is done when you tap the bottom on the bread and it sounds hollow. 

And voila!  You have just made your own bread.  Know all you have to do is slice that end crust off, lather it in butter and enjoy!

I like to double that recipe and make two at a time. That way you always have one in the freezer to go.

How simple was that!  

Tiffany.