Have you ever heard someone say “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread?” Well, let’s pause and consider what that really means. The reality is that the convenient, pre-packaged white bread has only been around since about 1928. Although you could still get bread from the store, you’d have to do all the cutting yourself. Beyond that, many people were still baking their own loaves of bread for their families.
As time has passed, the kind of bread you might find at the store has changed—many of them are now packed with preservatives and different filler ingredients. Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what was going into your bread? And if you could just make it yourself? Fortunately, the late world-famous chef Julia Child has a simple and delicious recipe for white bread that you can make right at home.
Here’s what you need:
- 2 1/2 cups warm water
- 1 tbsp dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 6 to 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 2 4” x 8” bread loaf tins
Here are the steps:
1. First, pour a half-cup of warm water into a bowl. If you have a stand mixer, pour it into the mixer’s bowl, ideally. Next, stir in the yeast and the sugar. Let your mixture sit for about five minutes until it starts to get foamy. This step is important—if the yeast doesn’t foam, you need fresher yeast and you may need to start again.
2. After it foams, add the rest of your water and roughly half of your flour. Stir the mixture together until it’s all blended. Next, add the rest of your flour along with the salt and butter and stir it up (you can either do this with a dough hook on your mixer or by hand). Keep going until it all looks roughly combined.
3. Keep kneading your dough for about eight minutes more, poking it and prodding it until you can tell that it’s all smooth and has some elasticity. Keep doing this until the entire thing is evenly textured and smooth.
4. Next, sculpt your dough into a nice round ball and put it back in the mixing bowl. Cover it up with a dish towel and let it sit for an hour to an hour-and-a-half, long enough for the dough to rise and double in size. After that, your dough should be ready to go!
5. Now that it’s ready, get your two bread tins and butter them up. Punch your newly risen dough down in the middle, split it in half and pat each piece down into thin rectangles that are each a little bit bigger than a standard piece of paper. Next, fold those rectangles back onto itself in thirds like a letter, tucking the ends in. Put the seam-side down in each of the bread tins.
6. Once that’s all set, cover your tins with a towel again and let them sit for about an hour so that it rises back up again.
7. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Once it’s ready, throw your loaves in on the middle rack and bake them for 30-36 minutes. Let them bake until the top turns a beautiful, golden brown and take them out. Take the loaves out of the tins immediately and let them cool on a rack and you’re done! Wait for your loaves to cool a little before slicing into them.
Although the entire process of making fresh bread takes a few hours, the recipe is simple and Julia Child’s recipe still holds up throughout all these years.
Have you tried this recipe? What did you think? Tell us in the comments below.
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