Amish White Bread

Awhile back I made Split Pea soup for dinner. I forgot to pick up rolls and I had plenty of flour so I decided to try to make some bread.

With Carol's help I've made pizza dough, which is a favorite, but Gabe is the bread man and I decided to give this recipe a try. He loved it!

This recipe is from Allrecipes. I love reading the reviews on that site. So many good tips.

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water ( 110-115 degrees)

2/3 cups sugar ( I cut the sugar down to 1/4 cup)

1 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast ( I used rapid rise yeast)

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

6 cups bread flour

Directions:

1- Dissolve sugar in warm water in a large bowl. Stir the yeast. Allow to proof ( it will resemble creamy foam)

2- Mix the salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time.  I did this in my KA mixer with the dough hook. Mixed one cup at a time with the dough hook on low speed for 2 minutes. Once all the dry ingredients are combined increase the speed to medium for 5 minutes. Take the dough hook off and remove the dough and knead  by hand and form into a ball. Oil the bowl and take the ball of dough and replace it in the bowl and turn the dough to make sure the whole ball has oil on it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it set in a warm area. It should take an hour to rise.

3- Check out the dough to make sure it doubled in size and then punch the dough down. Knead for a few minutes and divide in half. Shape into loaves and place in two greased 9 x 5 loaf pans. Allow the dough to rise 1 inch above the pan.

4- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom. Take it out of the pans right away and place on a wire rack to cool. Make sure it's cool before you wrap it in foil or plastic wrap.