I made bread. +recipe

The Recipe: White Bread

ingredients:

• 4 cups of white flour (You may need slightly more.)
• 2 cups of water
• 1 tsp oil (Whichever oil is most applicable to your meal! I've used vegetable oil and olive oil.)
• 1 packet of active yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 to 2 tsp salt
• butter (optional)
• eggwash (There are many options/substitutes: For this bread, I used a mixture of Just Egg and water, equal parts.)

• Note: all tsp measurements, you can just use a normal eating spoon, the oil is a binding agent so that's the most important one, but even then I always just use my heart to measure it. The oil makes the bread softer so more oil = softer bread. The sugar is for the yeast to eat, if you add to much it'll give your bread a sweet taste. The salt is also for taste.

steps:

1. Make sure water is around 100F as to not kill the yeast.
2. Mix yeast, sugar and water until throughly mixed.
3. Mix flour, oil and salt.
4. Wait for yeast mixture to start producing bubbles, then mix into flour mixture.
5. Spread some flour onto table.
6. Mix until the mixture sticks to your spoon, then transfer to table to knead.
7. Knead the dough until it stops sticking to your hands. It should feel tacky but not stick to you.
8. (Optional) Butter a bowl, roll the dough in the bowl until all sides are buttered.
9. Let dough rise for at least 1 hour.
10. Roughly shape the dough to the size and shape of the pan.
11. (Optional, makes a softer bread) Let dough rise an additional 1 hour.
12. Preheat oven to 400F.
13. Brush eggwash over dough.
14. Bake for 30-40 minutes. (Baking for longer makes a crunchier crust.)
15. Bread.

The Diary Part:

People seem to always be surprised when I tell them that I am able to make bread. I learned when I was young because it's the same recipe for my family's pizza dough (though the shaping and baking process is different there.) I've always thought the best bread is the bread just out of the oven. I'm glad that I have the supplies and tools I need to be able to make bread whenever I want. I'm planning to make bread more often, it's actually cheaper for me to make my own bread than buy it currently. Baking it myself means I also get to put whatever I want into it, I'm thinking about making chocolate chip bread sometime.