About 6 months ago, I made the very difficult decision to leave my long-time job at Lower Columbia College for the opportunity to work at University of Portland, which had been a dream of mine for quite a while. During my last few days at LCC, one of my co-workers and friends asked me if I would finally be able to resume my blog and share recipes since I was going from a 40 hour work-week to a 35 hour work-week. At the time, I told him I wasn’t sure but that I would certainly try! Well, it has been 6 months...and all that extra time ended up consumed with a new obsession - gardening! (I’m sure there will be more about that new adventure in the future.) Anyway, I still haven’t been all that active with baking lately but I think this is the perfect opportunity to change that, if for no other reason, than it has been almost impossible to even buy bread in the town of Woodland right now! Lol
Which leads me to my post today - we’re making bread! And though I will end up making many loaves from scratch over the coming months, I’m sure, it is time consuming and I’m out of bread right now. I’m sure many of us have seen the meme on Facebook regarding car napkins and how it is their time to shine...well you know what else is having a time to shine right now? Bread makers! I happen to have one that has been sitting on my kitchen counter mostly unused for the last 2+ years. I bought it when I moved into my tiny apartment a few years ago and used it from time to time but never really gave it the second life I promised it when I rescued it from the shelves of Goodwill for $15. Now that I’m working from home...looks like full-time for the foreseeable future...I will have plenty of time to forget to start the thing before work and go push the button when I walk to the kitchen to refill my coffee cup!
For today, I’m just going to make a quick white bread. I’d like to make some multi-grain but first I’ll have to find the ingredients I don’t already have...yeah...anywho, enjoy! And if anyone has some bread machine recipes they’d like to share or have me guinea pig first, let me know!
Bread Machine White Bread
Recipe from King Arthur Flour found here
Ingredients
For large (1 1/2 to 2-pound) machine (check link above if you have a smaller 1-pound machine)- 1 cup warm water
- 1/3 cup warm milk
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 3/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast or instant yeast
Directions
Warm milk carefully in the microwave for 30 seconds. For warm water, I've found that running the tap for a bit it sufficient for warm water in this case; just be sure to test it with you hand, you don't want it so hot that it burns you or it will kill your yeast too. Add all ingredients to the bread pan. (That's the best part of bread machines, you just dump everything in and ta-da!) Insert pan into bread machine, if it isn't in there already, and program for a basic loaf. I prefer mine a little darker so I usually select medium or dark for the bread color. Press start on the bread machine and let it do it's thing!
When the cycle is complete, I remove the pan from the machine and let rest a room temperature for 30-45 minutes before turning the loaf out. This should allow it to still be warm enough that it should be easy to remove the paddle if it is still in the bottom of the loaf, but not so warm that the loaf tears when you turn it out of the loaf pan. You can eat it right away (I mean what's better than warm fresh bread?) but be careful when slicing as it is very fragile still. To use as sandwich bread, I would recommend allowing to cool completely before slicing and then only cutting pieces as you need them to keep them from drying out too quickly.
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