Elise's Homemade Bread

Making fresh bread at home is so old fashioned some may say. Why make fresh bread when you can just buy it in the store?  That is the thought of those of you who have never made nor tried fresh homemade bread.  Dear friend you are truly missing out... And that is with no exaggeration.

Fresh homemade bread has a special touch 'your touch' it is hot and freshly baked out of the oven. Nice, soft to the touch and steamy with a crisp crust and luscious interior. Making butter or anything else that touches it a part of it's taste.  Oh dear... I 'm getting hungry all over again. Homemade bread is a must try; and it does not even take hours to make. I made it in 30 minutes.

(This recipe can feed up to 10 people. What you can also do if you are not going to use the entire thing is freeze the rest  of the dough and reuse it when you want.)

Homemade Bread
5 eggs
3 cups milk (lukewarm)
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
2/3 cup oil
2 sacks yeast (7g each) (fast rising active dry yeast)
8 cups flour (or more)

Beat together yeast in milk for about 30 seconds and set aside. Then in a large mixing bowl; beat eggs then add insular, salt, oil and yeast with milk mixture. Beat well; then add flour little by little until the dough doesn't stick anymore and is soft.

( I normally start mixing with an electronic mixture but by the time you start adding in the flour it starts getting thicker and thicker. So I keep using the electronic mixture until my dough looks like this (pictured above). That is when I start adding in a little bit more flour and mix with my hand until it is no longer sticky but looks like this (pictured below).  Once it looks like this (not sticky) cover it lightly with plastic wrap and then a towel and leave it aside to rest for about 1 hour. It will grow a lot... Then knead it by punching it around to get out the huge bubbles it will form. Leave it for another hour and knead it again. Separate your dough into the amount you will need and bake.
Bare in mind this recipe will give you about 6 huge breads so PLEASE don not put this entire batch in the oven because you will have bread enough to feed and army : - ) 

Preheat your oven to 325F about 160C and place your bread in the oven  until bottom starts to brown a bit. For this entire piece about 20 - 30 minutes.  If you want your bread to be a bit golden you can use oil or a beat egg and brush it on top of the raw bread before placing it in the oven. I chose not to do this so I left it without being brushed. Once it was fully cooked I turned my oven on broil for about 2 minutes to lightly brown the top. 

Then once it got out of the oven nice and hot, I brushed a little bit of melted butter sprinkled with garlic salt on top. To give it a buttery flavor place the added color.

I also decided to sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese on top. It was yummy...

Printable recipe

I have baked this bread in the past with fillings inside. Like for example ham and cheese or whatever you want. All you need to do is play with the dough a bit and shape it any style you want. I would open up the dough a bit, throw in my filling (ham and cheese) then roll it back up to close and bake it in the oven. Make this bread as big or as small as you want or evan any shape you choose.  Play around with it. (Remember playing around with play dough when you were a kid? Same thing here)  Only thing to watch out for is to not play around too much with it because the more you roll it and play with it the tougher the bread becomes. Besides that, have loads of fun in your kitchen.

From my kitchen to yours, God Bless. 

Elise