Amish White Bread

Today I am baking Amish White Bread, from a recipe found at Allrecipes.com.  K needs something to spread her Nutella on.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 packet active dry yeast (2¼ tsp of yeast)
• 1/3 cup sugar - I cut the sugar down to 1/8 cup
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 cups bread flour

Instructions:

• Mix sugar and warm water; stir in yeast.  Let sit until yeast gets foamy and frothy.
• Add salt and oil.
• Mix in flour, 1 cup at a time. Knead dough until smooth.
• Let dough rise in an oiled bowl covered with a damp cloth, for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
• Punch dough down, knead for a few minutes. Shape into loaf and place in oiled loaf pan. Let rise for another 30 minutes in the pan, or until dough has risen an inch above the pan rim.
• Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes.

I will be kneading by hand as I don't own a bread machine.  I baked it without the loaf pan, although the recipe says you can bake it in the loaf pan too.  It turned out perfect, soft and white on the inside. I know it's not going to last until tomorrow! Now I can plan to buy the bread flour and yeast in bulk at Smart & Final and make bread like this more often, instead of buying cheap not-so-fresh store brand sandwich bread.

This bread maker has very high customer ratings and so worth adding to any wish list. Some other items I'll consider getting for frequent homemade bread-baking: