Southern Bread

Ok, so here is the full recipe/instructions for making this loaf bread from scratch. The biggest change, apart from the ingredients and prep is in the wait time for the rise. It takes a lot longer to rise since the yeast isn’t nearly as vigorous in your yeast water as it is when you by it packaged. But, just give it time and it will rise just fine.

The Scratch Version:

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Cup of Bread Flour
• 1 TBSP of Salt
• 2 tsp Cocoa Powder

Wet Ingredients:

• 5 oz. room-temp Whole Milk
• 1 oz. of Vegetable Oil
• 1 TBSP Sugar

Pre-ferment:

• 1 Cup (8 oz.) of Yeast Water
• 1/2 Cup of Milled Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Cup of Bread Flour

Instructions:

1. Mix up your pre-ferment 72 hours before you plan to make your bread using the recipe above. On the day of bread making, move to step 2.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl and dump in your pre-ferment dough.
3. Dump the milk and oil into the mix.
4. Get your hands wet with some water and begin to mix. You will get messy, but it’s worth it.
5. When everything is mixed thoroughly, flour the countertop and dump the dough out onto the flour.
6. Knead the dough for 5 minutes until smooth, adding plenty of flour as needed. Don’t skimp.
7. Now stretch and shape the dough into a ball with the seam at the bottom.
8. Clean and dry out your mixing bowl and then spray it inside with cooking spray or wipe it with oil.
9. Drop your dough ball into the bowl seam side down and shoot it with a light shot of cooking spray also.
10. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a hand towel and let sit for a few hours until it at least doubles in size. Give it plenty of time. I’ve even had to leave them overnight before.
11. After it doubles, uncover and punch down the dough to get all the air out. Don’t punch it hard, just make sure it’s deflated good.
12. Now turn it out on the floured countertop again and knead it very lightly for about a minute. You just want to work it a little to get it back to a good shape.
13. Now, crisco the inside of a loaf pan. Use plenty of lard/crisco. You don’t want the loaf sticking to the pan. That’s a disaster.
14. Cover and let sit again for as long as it takes to rise again. You want it to double in size.
15. Lower your oven rack to a little below center and put the pan on the rack.
16. Set the oven to 400° F and set the timer to 30 minutes.
17. When the timer goes off the bread is done. Let it cool on a wire rack for about an hour.

Now, you’ve just made bread totally from scratch. Little House on the Prarie eat your heart out.