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!