Recipe: Homemade Country Bread — Being the Roberts

The scariest words in my kitchen. There are few words that can bring my children to moaning and groaning like, "I found a new bread recipe."

I am cursed with this desire to make homemade bread from scratch. Delicious, simple homemade bread that goes well with butter and homemade jelly and hearty enough to go with oil and balsamic. My family has endured years of numerous recipes and trials, all of them heavy, chewy, hard failures that were more like hockey pucks than actual food.

I would give up for a while and then summon the courage to try again, always an epic failure, lol. It literally became an inside joke in my house.

One day recently, I decided to try again. I know from experience that the problem isn’t the rising or the baking. It is simply making good dough. So I started over with a new recipe. Even though all these recipes say they can be done in a few hours, I gave it all day to activate, knead and rise.

Homemade Bread

Ingredients

2 cups warm water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast (about 1 1/2 packets)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4.5-6 cups bread flour

Instructions

bowl of bubbly yeast that has been proofed

In a mixing bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand for at least 15 minutes. Yeast will be bubbly.
Add 2 cups of the flour
Add the salt and oil.
Slowly add more flour until the dough is firm but slightly sticky. I rarely need all 6 cups of flour. It is usually closer to 5 cups.
Knead the dough. Use a dough hook in your stand mixer for 7 minutes or turn dough out on a floured surface and knead 8-10. You may need to add a little more flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time as needed.
Place dough in bowl, if needed. Cover, and let rise 1-3 hours depending on the temperature of your house.
Once dough has at least doubled, punch dough down, divide in half. Shape each half into a loaf.
Place in 4×8 inch greased loaf pans. Cover, and let rise 30-60 minutes, or until doubled.
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 30-40 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Brush the top with butter after it cools slightly.
Cool on wire rack

Tip: You can check if bread is done by checking the internal temperature with a thermometer. This bread should be done baking at 190°F (87°C)

A beautiful slice of homemade bread just before I added butter and homemade jelly.