Homemade Bread Recipe Without Bread Machine

There's nothing better than hot, freshly baked bread. My only problem with making bread at home is dealing with a bread machine. I don't really know what I have against them, but I would just rather make it all myself and do it by hand. I think I just feel more accomplished that way.

So I decided to scour the web for some easy bread recipes that didn't use bread machines, and I found a great recipe on Allrecipes.com by a user named Danialle. I tweaked her recipe a little bit and used margarine instead of lard, used a little more flour, and used more than a tablespoon of salt in the dough. I'm a salt fanatic, what can I say. I think it comes from watching too many episodes of Chopped where the judges tell the chefs that they under-salted their food, and then they get Chopped. Salting is an easy and essential step that I refuse to miss or skimp out on.

This is the original recipe I based my bread on, and you can look at the reviews or more pictures of the bread by clicking on the photo above or visiting http://allrecipes.com/recipe/traditional-white-bread/detail.aspx.

SO, the ingredients that the recipe calls for are as follows:

2 packages of dry active yeast (.25 of an ounce each)
3 tablespoons white sugar
2.5 cups warm water
3 tablespoons lard margarine
1 2 tablespoon(s) salt
6.5 7 cups bread flour

This recipe makes two loaves of white bread.

I tweaked the recipe above to reflect the changes I implement when I bake my bread. The process of making the bread is actually very easy and only involves a few steps.

1. Put the yeast and the sugar in a cup of warm water and let it dissolve

2. Mix together the margarine (make sure its softened to at least room temperature), salt, and flour in a large bowl, then add the water, once the yeast and sugar have both dissolved

3. Work the dough with your hands for about five minutes until its formed an elastic ball

4. Coat a large bowl with margarine (so the dough won't stick) and place the dough ball in the bowl, covering it for an hour--try to leave it in a warm place because heat helps the yeast react and the dough rise

5. Once the dough has risen, take it out of the big bowl and divide it into to greased tins, covering the loaves again and letting them rise for another hour. Preheat your over to 425 F

6. One hour later, place the baking tins in the oven and bake the bread for about thirty minutes, or until the top begins to brown slightly

If you want to get fancy, you can coat the top of the bread with an egg white wash and some sea salt before you bake it for a little extra pizzazz.

Here's one of my finished loaves! It was gone from my family's kitchen table in about five minutes, thanks to my younger brother who polished off about four slices--which is a great testament to my culinary skills, so I didn't mind at all.