Baking bread

Now that the days are getting shorter, I think ahead to making those wonderful winter time foods. One of them is home made bread. I enjoy making it and eating it more than any other food I can think of. It's frugal, too. Homemade bread can cost much less than store bought and it tasted much, much better.

I've been baking bread for around 50 years now, so changing a recipe, adding or subtracting ingredients doesn't bother me. That's part of the fun of it.

Start with a good basic recipe and once you've mastered that, you can make some changes. A word of warning: Don't make too many changes all at once. Try just one thing and if you're satisfied that it works well, then make another change.

Here's the very basic recipe:

1 cup milk
1 1/2 tablespoons fat (any kind you prefer)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon or 1 package dry yeast
3 - 4 cups of flour

Mix sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Warm milk and fat until it's about the same temperature as hot tap water, add to the bowl and mix well. Let it set for a fee minutes for the yeast to become active. Add flour, a little at at time, stirring.

Keep adding flour until you have a dough that's too hard to stir. Turn it out onto a floured board or table top and knead flour into it until it's smooth and not sticky. Cover and let rise, then punch down and place in greased bread pans. Let rise a second time then bake at 400 about an hour. It will be done when the top, when tapped with your knuckles, sounds hollow.

Have fun!