Friday, December 12, 2014

James Beard's Basic White Bread

Remember my James Beard Menu Cookbook from just before Thanksgiving?  Me, too.  I used his Mushroom Sauce recipe for the ham during both of the "Meet-and-Greets", and I made his Basic White Bread from the same cookbook one night.



My youngest fussbudget asked me to make more of that bread, so he can butter and microwave it.

What?  That kid never likes anything!  Of course I made it again!

JAMES BEARD'S BASIC WHITE BREAD

2 cups warm milk
3 tbsp yeast
4 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
6 cups flour

In your mixing bowl or bread machine bucket, pour the warm milk (around 100*F), and sprinkle the yeast over it.  Add 4 cups of the flour, the butter, sugar, salt and the rest of the flour, and mix according to your machine's directions, or following my directions to the right-------------->

Let the dough rise for 10 minutes, then punch down, split into 3 loaves and put into greased loaf pans.  Let rise until doubled in size, then bake at 375F or 350F in a convection oven, for 25 to 30 minutes, depending upon how dark you want your loaves.

My post-large-gathering renditions of this have cut the recipe by 2/3, so I'm only making one loaf of bread at a time.  It makes great grilled cheese sandwiches, open faced hot turkey sandwiches, or, as Mark prefers, heated and buttered bread for a snack.

This will be my entry for December's Cook Your Books, hosted by Kitchen Flavors.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

12 comments:

Nellie said...

Have you ever made this bread with white whole wheat flour? The aroma of fresh-baked bread is amazing, and hubby would like to have that happen more often here.:-)

~~louise~~ said...

Ah, bread baking...someday...As Nellie says, I'm sure it smells amazing one loaf or three:)

Thanks for sharing, Marjie...

Catherine said...

James Beard was classic. I love his style of cooking and his recipes never skimp on ingredients. He really was great.
I bet this bread was delish!
xo Catherine

kitchen flavours said...

Lovely bread! I like bread made with warm milk, makes the bread soft and moist. My favourite way of eating plain breads like this is simply with a generous spread of cold salted butter, and a cup of hot black coffee! This book sounds fabulous! Thanks for linking with CYB!

SissySees said...

Too funny. The Knight is quite the "white bread" boy too. I miss having time to bake bread. All I want for Christmas is a nice, sane, mundane job that leaves time and energy for life!

Big Dude said...

I'd say it's hard to miss with a James Beard recipe.

Rhodesia said...

Mmmmmm butter and microwave sound perfect. Have a good day Diane

Cathleen said...

I love a good bread! It smells so good right out of the oven!

pam said...

I think milk makes bread so nice and tender.

Anonymous said...

I've been making the lazy no-knead bread for Christmas parties this year. But what's wrong with the nkb is mostly everything. It's only good when you first slice it, and then it tanks. So I'll have to go back your suggestions. And knead.

Pam said...

I am with your son... nothing better than a slice of homemade bread with butter. YUM!

Sue said...

I so agree with Mark. Whenever I make bread I always have a warm slice with butter. Nothing like it.