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Perfect White Bread
This soft, homemade white bread from scratch is perfect for beginning bread bakers! Delicious for toast, sandwiches or just hot and fresh, oozing with melted butter. It rises three times to make it extra soft and fluffy.
Course
Bread
Cuisine
Amercian Heritage
Prep Time
20
minutes
Cook Time
30
minutes
Rising Time
2
hours
30
minutes
Total Time
3
hours
20
minutes
Servings
16
slices
Calories
173
kcal
Author
Marye Audet-White
Equipment
Heavy Duty Stand Mixer
Glass Bread Pans
Ingredients
1
cup
Milk
110F. If you have sour milk you can use that.
2
tablespoons
Sugar
¼
teaspoons
Ginger
it is a yeast activator, you wont taste it.
2
teaspoons
Salt
I use kosher salt - if you use table salt use about ¼ teaspoon less
2
tablespoons
Butter
room temperature
2
packages
Active dry yeast
½
cup
Water
5
cups
All-purpose flour
you may need a bit more
Oil
to grease pans
Instructions
Stir the sugar and butter into the warm milk and set aside.
Sprinkle yeast, ginger and a pinch of sugar on the water.
Stir to dissolve and let it stand until bubbly.
Add to milk mixture and stir in 3 cups of flour.
Stir in the salt.
Beat at medium speed about 2 minutes or stir by hand until batter is smooth.
Add enough remaining flour to form a dough that leaves the sides of the bowl.
Turn on to lightly floured surface, cover and let rest 10 minutes.
Knead until smooth and elastic-about 10 minutes.
Round up into a ball and oil all sides.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a tea towel.
Let rise in a warm place until doubled about 1 ½ hours. (The inside of the oven with the light on is perfect).
Punch down.
Cover and let rise again until doubled, about 30 minutes. You may omit this rising if you are pushed for time. It does help the texture, however.
Shape into a loaf and place in an oiled bread pan.
Lightly oil the tops.
Let rise until almost doubled, and bread is rounded above the pan, 30-45 minutes.
Bake at 375 for 20 to 30 minutes, or until loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Cool in pan for 5 minutes, remove from pan, and finish cooling.
If a soft crust is desired cover the loaf with a clean tea towel during the cooling process.
Video
Notes
Variations
Add 1 ½ cups of raisins during kneading for raisin bread.
Use honey for the sugar.
Use brown sugar.
You can substitute almond, soy, oat, or other non-dairy product for the milk. You can even leave the milk out and use plain water.
You can use any light flavored oil instead of butter.
Pinch off balls of dough and use as dinner rolls.
Add an envelope of dry onion soup mix during mixing for onion bread or rolls.
If you have questions you can find more answers in this
Bread Baking FAQs list.
Nutrition
Calories:
173
kcal
|
Carbohydrates:
32
g
|
Protein:
5
g
|
Fat:
2
g
|
Saturated Fat:
1
g
|
Cholesterol:
5
mg
|
Sodium:
311
mg
|
Potassium:
70
mg
|
Fiber:
1
g
|
Sugar:
2
g
|
Vitamin A:
68
IU
|
Calcium:
23
mg
|
Iron:
2
mg