Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Getting a Rise Out of Your Day . . .

Of all the things you can scent your house with, the smell of baking yeast bread has got to be at the top of the list. This is a relatively simple recipe. The main thing to watch for is not killing your yeast with hot water. You don't really have to warm up your water or liquids that much. It takes a bit longer to use room temperature but the longer the rise, the more developed the taste.

8 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar or honey
3 tablespoons dry yeast
3 teaspoons salt
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Melted butter

Combine 6 of the 8 cups of flour in a bowl with the sugar and salt. In another bowl, soften the yeast with a small bit of water. Combine the milk, oil and enough water to measure 4 cups and mix well. Add the liquids to the flour mixture and mix well. Add enough of the remaining two cups of flour to make a soft but workable dough. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Grease a large bowl with vegetable oil spray. Place your dough in the bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size.

Divide the dough into three, equal portions and place into three greased loaf pans. Let them rise another 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 30-45 minutes. Brush with melted butter after you remove them from the oven.

If your loaf pans are large, you might only get two loaves from this recipe.

Ideas . . .
You can form the dough into rolls.

You can form each roll from three smaller balls of dough, dip each ball into melter butter, and place three balls of it into each space of a muffin tin for cloverleaf rolls.

Roll out half the dough, brush generously with melted butter and sprinkle liberally with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Roll up the dough and cut 1/2 inch slice to form cinnamon rolls.

Roll out the dough as previously indicated and set the rolled up dough into loaf pans for cinnamon swirl bread.

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