White Bread

The Date: 2 October 2011

The Occasion: Sunday afternoon

The Recipe: Betty Crocker

Old school Betty.

How it Went:
This bread recipe is perfect. It does take most of the afternoon, but you get two absolutely perfect loaves of bread. You may never buy grocery store bread again. Tonight I paired this bread with the rest of a Chicken Noodle Soup I made with Mom when I was sick a few weeks ago. I had frozen the remainder of the soup, so I reheated it and we had it with warm bread. It set a perfect tone for the week, and I have a good feeling about how things will go - culinarily - this week.

Your Turn:
I reproduce this with some of my own commentary from Betty's book.

Dissolve 2 packages of active dry yeast into 3/4 C warm water.
Dump into your KitchenAid or other full-size mixer.
Add 2 + 2/3 C warm water, 1/4 C sugar, 1 tablespoon salt, 3 tablespoons shortening, and 5 C flour.
Mix with your dough hook attachment. until smooth.
Beat in another 2-3 C of flour until soft enough to handle. (If you stick your fingers in the dough and then have trouble getting the sticky dough off your fingers, it needs more flour.)
Turn dough onto floured board, knead about 10 minutes, adding flour as needed to prevent it from being too sticky, until smooth and elastic.
Smear some shortening on the inside of a large mixing bowl with waxed paper. Place the dough in the greased bowl; turn once or twice so all surfaces are greased.
Cover. Let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until nearly doubled. (Dough is ready if impression of finger remains.)

Punch dough down. Divide in half. Roll each half into a rectangle (about 9x18 inches), then roll up, beginning with the short side. Press each end to seal, then fold the ends under.
Place seam side down in a 9x5x3 loaf pan, greased just as you greased the bowl.
Brush both loaves lightly with melted butter. Let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled.

Sunday afternoon bliss.

Heat oven to 425. Place loaves in the oven on lower rack (or one on each rack and switch them halfway through baking process) and bake 30-35 minutes, until tops are golden brown and loaves sound hollow when tapped with a fork or fingernail.
Remove loaves from pans and transfer to wire rack. Brush with butter again.

This bread is superb with homemade chicken salad, the recipe for which I have not yet posted. It is also good toasted with just a bit of butter.