baking bread: first attempt

i've been trying to think of better ways to spend the several hours i have at home before josh gets done with work and we eat dinner. usually i sit on my lazy butt watching TV and browsing the web. one idea i had was to make my own bread! josh loves fresh Italian and white bread, but it's so hard to keep it fresh and yummy. i usually prefer wheat bread, but i end up freezing it b/c we don't eat it that often, and i've been really disappointed with brands i've been buying at the store lately. i know making bread is time consuming, but i thought it was a productive way to spend an evening!

last night i attempted a simple white bread recipe that was in the booklet that came with our KitchenAid mixer. holy. seriousness. that is the best machine ever. i love that it works for bread dough! it has this awesome "bread hook" (metal) that kneads the dough for you, so no kneading by hand! the recipe called for two loaves, but i only have one loaf pan so i split the recipe in half.

pretty much the recipe goes like this:

1. mix milk, butter, sugar and salt in saucepan. heat to dissolve, then cool to lukewarm.
2. dissolve yeast in warm water in "warmed" mixing bowl
3. add the milk mixture to the yeast, combine
4. add flour, in increments. when all flour is added, knead on speed 2
5. form into ball and put in greased bowl, turning once to coat
6. cover, let rise in warm area about 1 hour (i put my oven on for a little then turned it off and put in the bread dough)
7. roll out dough to rectangle, roll up and plop in your greased loaf pan
8. let rise till doubled in size, bake and enjoy!

this bread was great toasted w/ peanut butter for breakfast. josh enjoyed it last night as the base for a turkey sandwich!


all in all, i enjoyed the process and was very proud of my results. i will definitely continue to make our own bread!! i actually made stromboli dough while i was making the bread dough. pictures/post on that later!

if you are interested in more details on the recipe, let me know!