If you are anything like me, you love bread. It smells delicious, it tastes delicious, it goes with almost anything, there are endless different kinds… the list goes on and on. Most people would agree it is an easy way to round out most meals. If you buy it. 

I let the thought of how intensive baking bread looks scare me away from actually trying to make it for years. Not only was I convinced that I would mess it up, but I was worried that I would put in hours of work with nothing to show for it. Quite simply, I was not interested in wasting my time. 

Then day came when I looked at an ingredient list on the back of a store bought bread package and it made me more than a little uncomfortable. Let me show you an example of what is in a generic loaf of whole wheat bread.

Store bought bread ingredients:

Whole wheat flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, wheat gluten, sugar, yeast, soybean oil, salt, dough, wheat bran, guar gum, distilled vinegar, corn starch, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Perioxide, Datem, Wheat bran, Vitamin D3, Corn Starch, Milk

This is not a complete ingredient list but you get the gist. To break it down further, Datem, monoglyverides, diglycerides, and sodium stearoyl lactylate are dough conditioners. The whole point of using a dough conditioner is to manipulate fat. Unfortunately, the use of those conditioners can cause health issues over time. High fructose corn syrup is a sweetener made from corn that has been chemically modified. It has been linked to weight gain including increases in abdominal fat and trigycerides which increase risk factors for high blood pressure and diabetes. Not every ingredient listed is inherently bad but I think it is safe to say that most of us would rather limit the amount of chemicals we are digesting. 

After scrolling through Pinterest I found a fairly simple white bread recipe that I tweaked to fit my taste. While you can mix by hand, this recipe involves an electric stand mixer to save time as well as your arms. 

Ingredients:

bread ingredients
  • Two cups of warm water
  • Two tablespoons of yeast
  • ¼ cup of sugar
  • Two tablespoons of salt
  • Five cups of flour
  • ½ cup of olive oil

Instructions

This recipe is fairly straight forward.

  1. Combine two cups of warm water, two tablespoons of yeast, and ¼ cup of sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir, then let sit for at least five minutes. (* Be careful the water you use is warm and not hot or you will kill your yeast). Let yours yeast/sugar mixture sit for five minutes.
  2. The most tedious part of making bread is the waiting period while proving. While I am waiting on the yeast, I turn the oven on to 200 degrees. This helps speed up the proving process.
  3. After letting your yeast sit for five minutes, you can add in the salt, oil, and flour.
  4. It’s then time to attach your dough hook to your mixer and set it at a low speed, mixing your flour, yeast, sugar, water, oil, and salt for ten minutes.
  5. Prep your loaf pan by rubbing it with butter or oil.
  6. Turn off the oven.
  7. After you have your mixed your ingredients, it is time to let your dough prove. Transfer the dough to your loaf pan. Place the pan in the oven and set a timer for 23 minutes.
  8. After the timer goes off, pull your bread out and set your oven to 350 degrees. You can put your bread back in after the oven is done preheating. Your last step is to set a timer for 23 minutes.
  9. After 23 minutes your bread can be removed from the oven. To make it extra indulgent, I will rub butter on the top of the loaf.

That’s it. The hardest part of baking bread is waiting and I am more than willing to wait an hour for fresh, homemade bread. 

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