Loafing Around

Recently, a West Milford-born and Jersey City-based colleague of mine, Erin Clinton, began telling me about a new hobby that she and her husband are pursuing: bread baking. Erin spoke like someone deeply passionate, possessed, (let's be honest) addicted. The way she presented this new hobby made me want in.

She wasn't using a bread machine or anything fancy, just a loaf pan, yeast, flour, water, perhaps an egg or two and some butter. She could talk for 15 to 20 minutes about this hobby without taking a breath. She was becoming an obsessive yeast geek. I wanted to be a yeast geek too.

Then, while working in Las Vegas, I met another, similarly addicted woman. This mother of three came from a baking family, and baked bread for her children as her mother had baked for her. She made two loaves a week and plowed through them, easily.

When I asked where she got her recipe, she seemed embarrassed, "Aw, it's nothing. Just some white bread recipe I got from Good Housekeeping. It's a nothing recipe."

A recipe that you return to, week after week, and use to feed your family, is not a nothing recipe. Simple, yes; dependable, certainly. But those are the cornerstones of a hand-me-down classic. One need not make Thomas Keller's boules to be proud of one's bread recipe.

The first thing I did when I returned from Las Vegas was to pull the Good Housekeeping book from my shelf and make my family some white bread. It was as much fun as I was promised it would be.

The cooking process was not like roasting a chicken or making cupcakes; it was more like blooming a garden (but in a matter of hours). You wake that yeast up, then you feed it. Then you tuck it in for a nap and look how it grows! There's something quite nurturing about finding a warm corner of your house where your dough can grow into the bread you just knew it could be.

Plus, and I'm not even sure how to adequately prepare you for this, but the smell that drifts from the kitchen when that bread is baking...especially toward the end; it's just...well, forget the flowers and chocolates. It's a primal, toasted butter and yeast scent that grows and builds and brings out all kinds of urges.

But, the most important test: how does it taste? Well I liked it, but I'm easy. The thing that got me is that my 10-year-old stepdaughter is now *requesting* this bread at lunch for her sandwiches. She's slicing herself a piece for breakfast. Of course, I've got to make sure she doesn't OD on bread but for now, watching her grab that homemade loaf and pop it in the toaster makes me puff with pride.

And so, my friends, that is how I've fared in my first bread-baking foray. My family is converted, and at present I've got an oatmeal-and-molasses bread in the oven, and a cinnamon swirl rising. My family is converting to a "home-made bread, please" pose. It's extremely gratifying to make something so basic that is that much better than store bought, in each and every part of the process.

And here's the recipe:

White Bread
Adapted from The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1986)

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 packages active dry yeast
About 8 1/2 cups AP flour
2 3/4 cups milk
Butter

1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, salt, yeast and 3 cups flour. In a 2-quart saucepan over low heat, heat milk and 4 tablespoons butter until very warm (120F to 130F). Butter does not need to melt.

2. With mixer on low speed, gradually beat liquid into dry ingredients just until blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes. Beat in 1 1/4 cups flour to make a thick batter; continue beating 2 minutes, scraping bowl often. With wooden spoon, stir in 4 cups flour.

3. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, working in more flour (about 1/4 cup) while kneading. Shape dough into ball; place in greased large bowl, turning dought to grease top. Cover; let rise in warm place (80F to 85F) until doubled, about 1 hour.

4. Punch dough down. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; cut in half; cover and let rest 15 minutes. Grease two 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pans.

5. Shape each half of dough into loaf; place, seam side down, in loaf pan. Cover; let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

6. Preheat oven to 400F. If desired, brush loaves with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Bake loaves 30 to 35 minutes, until golden and loaves test done. Remove loaves from pans; cool on wire racks.


Allison Fishman is the host of Yahoo's Blue Ribbon Hunter and author of You Can Trust A Skinny Cook. For delicious humor & recipes, visit allisonfishman.com or follow @allisonfishman on Twitter.