Homemade Bread

I love the smell of homemade bread, it is among the greatest smells on Earth.  A couple weeks ago I found a bread maker at a garage sale for $8!  I am considering it the steal of the summer.  I started baking homemade bread every morning and it is Wonderful!  My kids will actually eat bread slices as a snack now.  It's especially good with a little butter and some homemade strawberry jam.  ☺

The base recipe for this bread is from the King Arthur Flour Company I added one ingredient but other than that it is the same. 

White Sandwich Bread
(add ingredients in this order)
4 Tbsp. Melted Butter
1/2 C. Cold Milk
2/3 C. Hot Water
3 C. Bread Flour
2 Tbsp Rye Flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 1/4 tsp. Salt
1 pkg Active dry yeast

place all wet ingredients in bottom of breadmaker pan, add dry ingredients on top, all except yeast.  Use spoon to make a small indent in the top of the dry ingredients, put yeast in there. 

Turn bread maker on to Dough Only, let it to it's thing, should take about 1 1/2 hours between kneading and rising.  Carefully remove dough from breadmaker pan and place in a lightly greased bread loaf.  Careful not to disturb too many air bubbles.  Bake at 350° for about 30 mintues or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped, the inside temperature of the bread should be 190°.  Remove bread from loaf and let cool on a wire rack.  Do no cut bread until completely cooled, it will cut much easier if you wait.  If you desire a softer crust rub a stick of butter gently over the top of the hot loaf until you have buttered the top completely (this only uses a little bit of the butter stick, set it back in the fridge and save it for your next loaf).

This bread is amazing.  I love it.  We use it for sandwiches and snacking.  It's so easy and with the breadmaker requires less than 10 mintues hands on time.  Which is Awesome!