This bread has been a family favorite for over 20 years. I am gluten free and I don’t eat this bread anymore, but my husband and kids and grandkids love it, so I still make two loaves almost every week. It also makes GREAT French Toast. Enjoy!
White Bread
I got this recipe from my stepmom and as usual, made a few changes. I am gluten free, but my husband is not and he loves this bread, so I make it for him almost every week.
Equipment
- 2 - 9 inch x 5 inch x 3 inch bread pans
Ingredients
- 7-9 cups bread flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp yeast
- 3 cups warm water
- 3/4 cup powdered milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup butter flavor Crisco regular Crisco will work, too
Instructions
- Mix flour and salt together in bowl and set aside.
- Put yeast in mixer bowl and add warm water. Mix to dissolve (it will still look a little lumpy, that's OK).
- Add - in order - powdered milk, mix to dissolve, sugar, mix to dissolve and then Crisco, in lumps or spoonfuls. Mix some more but the Crisco will be pretty lumpy. That's OK.
- Add half of the flour mix, stirring slowly. Then scrape the bowl and add the other half of the flour mix. If you touch the mixture and it sticks to your finger, add 1/2 cup more flour. You should be able to touch the mix without it transferring to your fingers.
- Turn out onto a floured board and knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling with flour as needed. Place dough in oiled bowl. I also spray the top with a little oil and then cover with saran wrap.
- Let rise. Mine takes about 2 1/2 hours. When it's very cold outside, I sometimes pump up the heat inside my house to help the bread rise.
- This is important! About an hour before the bread has risen all the way, I turn on the oven to 375. Once it's heated up all the way, I let the oven set at 375 for a full 30 minutes BEFORE I put the loaves in.
- After dough rises, put back on lightly flour board and knock down, but don't knead it. Split dough in two and shape for bread pans. I put the dough in bread pans and using my knuckles to push it down and gently knock it down it a little more, making sure the dough fills all the corners and is shaped to the rectangular pans.
Then place bread pans in oven and put aluminum foil over the loaves, not tightly, just gently laying a piece over the pans. Cook for 20 minutes at 375. Remove foil and cook for another 20 minutes.
Notes
Here's a few things I learned along the way. The recipe called for the salt to be added right after the water and yeast and I couldn't figure out why the bread didn't rise well. It was the salt. I add the salt to the flour and sift them together and that way the salt gets in, but at the end so it doesn't mess up the power of the yeast.
Also, I found that leaving the oven on at 375 degrees for at least a half hour before I put the bread in keeps a lot of the heat from escaping because the oven is really warmed up. I had trouble with a little bit of rawness in the middle until I left the oven on for at least 30 minutes before I cooked the bread.