DOUGHY GOODNESS

 Today I felt like making bread! I know its 90+ degrees out, but when you have a craving for homemade bread, nothing else will do but to crank up the oven and toss some flour in the air! (Or something like that!) I got the recipe for my bread out of a cookbook, you know one of those books with recipes in it! This recipe is not one I made up. The cookbook is called "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook."  It was a cookbook my mother received when she got married, meaning its well over 30 years old. I really like this book because it gives you basic recipes, you can make the recipes as stated or you can build off of them. They are great foundation recipes! For instance the bread recipe I used is a basic sweet dough, however, I left some flavors out, the bread taste amazing! (Don't let the cup of sugar in the recipe fool you, it is not really sweet). I have also made this recipe using whole wheat flour, and it is even better (in my opinion) than the white. Today I used white all purpose flour because it is what I had on hand. Nothing smells better in the house than bread baking, and it sure is a crowd pleaser at any meal! Enjoy!:)

BASIC SWEET DOUGH

7 to 8 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 packages active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup butter or margarine

2 eggs

(The recipe in the book calls for 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom or 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon peel. I left these items out, because I can make the dough into rolls, or loaves to go with any meal.)

1. Preheat oven to 350.  In large bowl, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt, yeast (and cardamom if you are adding it). In medium saucepan over low heat, heat milk, 1/2 cup water and butter or margarine until very warm (120 to 130 degrees, butter or margarine does not need to melt). With mixer at low speed, gradually pour liquid into dry ingredients. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in eggs and 1 1/2 cups flour; continue beating 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl. With spoon, stir in enough additional flour (about 3 1/2 cups) to make a soft dough.

2. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Shape dough into ball and place in greased large bowl, turning over so that top of dough is greased. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place ( 80-85 degrees), away from draft, until doubled, about 1 hour. (Dough is doubled when two fingers pressed lightly into dough leave a dent.)

3. Punch down dough. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; cut dough into thirds, or halves, or however you want; cover with towel for 15 minutes.  (When baking don't forget to grease your pans, or use parchment paper on cookie sheets!)

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes