Soft, Fluffy Homemade Bread
… and it’s super easy to make too!
I bake A LOT of bread for my family. A LOT! There are only three of us but my husband and son are bread-a-holics. At least two, sometimes three, times per week this bread finds its way into my oven and makes the house smell amazing while it bakes.
My Grammie Acker made the BEST bread ever, it set the standard for me for homemade bread. A standard that, to this day, I’ve never actually managed to achieve despite actually having her bread recipe in my possession. I often wonder if the recipe (that was found after she died) was written down wrong or if something was left out. Or maybe it was just a lifetime of experience that made her bread so great?
This recipe gets as close as I’ve ever gotten to re-creating her bread. It started out as her recipe and, as the result of trial and error and a combination of a lot of different bread recipes I’ve tried over the years, it has evolved into what I’m sharing with you here. It’s heavier than I remember hers being and not as coarse but I’m happy with it and the boys certainly have no problem gobbling it all up.
Everyone I’ve shared this recipe with has been successful in making it, it’s a great beginner recipe if you’re new to making bread. It stays soft for a few days (if it lasts that long!) and it tastes AMAZING fresh from the oven slathered with butter.
If you give it a try, please come back and let me know how it turned out for you!
Homemade Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- 6 cups all purpose or bread flour
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp salt
- 2 tbsp shortening or butter or cooking oil (honestly I find cooking oil makes the best loaf but it probably isn’t as healthy as butter)
- 4-1/2 tsp quick yeast
- 2-1/4 cups very warm water
Instructions
- Mix 3-1/2 cups of the flour, the salt, sugar, shortening (or butter or oil if using instead) and yeast in a large bowl. Add water. Mix dough with a spoon until combined and then add the rest of the flour a cup at a time until the dough is easy to handle. I usually don’t need the full 6 cups of flour. 5.5 cups or so usually is good.
- Knead 10 minutes until dough is smooth and springy. You may need a bit more flour while kneading but don’t go crazy with it, it should be slightly tacky but not stick to your hands. If the dough starts to feel too sticky, stop kneading for a minute to let it relax and you may find you don’t need to add flour.
- Place dough in a large greased bowl, turning the dough to grease all sides. Cover loosely with saran wrap and put somewhere warm to rise for 40 to 60 minutes until doubled.
- Once doubled, push your fist into the dough to deflate. Divide dough in half, make loaves and place in well greased pans. Cover loosely with saran wrap again and let raise 30 to 40 more minutes until doubled.
- Bake loaves at 425°F for 20 minutes or until they sound hollow inside when you tap them. I like to pull them out of the oven at the 10 minute mark and brush the tops with some butter before I put them back in to finish baking.
Notes
Obviously you can make rolls with the dough as well, I bake them at the same temperature (425°) but only for about 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the rolls. Definitely check them at 10 minutes!
You can also throw all of the ingredients into the stand mixer and let it do the work for you. When I do this, I put in 5.5 cups of flour right at the beginning and that’s usually perfect. I add all of the dry ingredients and then add the wet. Let it mix for 10 minutes, give it a quick 30 second knead by hand at the end and then start the rise cycles as written above.
