Do you enjoy sandwiches like PB&J?  Do you like a nice slice of bread with your soup or chili?  Then you should try baking your own bread!  Doing it yourself has a host of advantages.  One, you can customize what goes in – making it potentially healthier, more nutritious, most importantly more delicious than store-bought bread.  Plus it doesn’t have all of the preservatives that store-bought bread does.  The best part though is how much money you can save – baking it yourself does take a little time, but saves a lot of money.

First you need to gather ingredients and tools.  First off, get a nice, big mixing bowl.  Also get a stirring implement of your choice – I’ve usually used chopsticks and forks actually, but many people use spoons.  You also need a nice measuring cups and a set of measuring spoons – if you have to read a recipe, you’re probably not to the point where you can eyeball ingredients.  Also get a bread pan (obviously, to put the bread in), and a hand towel.  The ingredients are:

1.5-3.5 cups of flour

1 package active dry yeast

5 tsp butter

1 tsp salt

5 tsp sugar

¼ cup milk

To start with, put some warm water in the mixing bowl, so it warms up for the yeast.  It makes the dough rise a bit better.  Next, mix the yeast, following the directions on the packet, and add it to the mixing bowl while it is still warm.  Now you want to melt the butter, and mix in the salt, sugar, and milk, then put it all in with the yeast.  Mix everything well now.  At this point you want to start adding the flour – add it slowly, being sure to mix well.  Try to only add about ¼ cup every minute, but you want to be continually pouring a little in.  Keep adding flour until it’s a little sticky, but doesn’t really bind to your hands.  If you’ve done it right, it also shouldn’t stick to the sides of the bowl – a layer of flour should be protecting it.

Now you want to knead the dough.  Put some flour on your hands, and get to work!  Just work the dough, flatten it out, roll it up, fold it, pound it, squeeze it, stretch it – do whatever you want.  You want to spread some flour on the counter so you have an area to work with.  Have fun!  Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, and then roll it up into a ball.  Put this ball back in the bowl, cover with a towel, and let it sit in a warm place for an hour.  Use this time to clean up, but leave the flour – you’ll be kneading the dough more later.  After the hour is up, press the dough down so it’s back around its previous size.  Knead it a little more, then spread it out into a square, with each dimension around the same as the length of the bread pan.  Now fold it, roll it, or twist it till it’s as wide as your bread pan.  Coat the inside of your bread pan with a little butter, so the bread doesn’t stick.  Now put the bread in (if there is a seam, put it in seam down), cover with a towel, and let it sit for another hour.  Now you can finish cleaning up.  The final step is to bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.  At the end you should have a nice hot delicious loaf of bread!

So how can you change things up?  Well, you can add herbs and spices freely, especially if they are finely ground or powdered.  You can substitute eggs for butter, or eggnog for the milk.  I’ve also tried adding in coffee (but this requires extra sugar).  If you want a really interesting taste, take some beer and warm it up and add it in instead of the milk, sugar, butter, and salt.  The possibilities are virtually endless!

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