Light and Fluffy Homemade Bread

Directions

• Lightly coat four (8″ x 4″) loaf pans with non-stick spray. (If your pans are 9″ x 5″ you might only have 3 pans of bread.)
• In bowl of stand mixer, add water followed by unsalted butter, then yeast, then sugar. Using the dough hook, give it a stir to make sure the yeast is dissolving.
• Add flour and then add salt. (Don’t add salt directly to yeast because it can kill it.)
• Mix on low speed (#1 on a KitchenAid Stand Mixer) for 10 minutes.
• While dough is mixing, drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil around the inside of a large bowl (preferable metal, but glass would work too). It just needs to be large enough for dough to expand to twice it’s size. Once dough has kneaded for 10 minutes, remove from mixer and place in oiled bowl. Using your hands, grab the dough, smear it around the oil and then flip it over so the whole ball is lightly coated. Cover bowl plastic wrap – my bowl has a large opening so I need two sheets – and proof.
• I have a ‘proof’ setting on my oven (which is ahhh-mazing!!!) but before I had that, I would place a large container of really hot/boiling water in the oven and turn the oven light on. This creates the perfect environment to proof bread – warm and humid. Let dough rise for 45 minutes. It should be doubled in bulk. Remove plastic, punch the dough down to redistribute the yeast, and replace plastic over the top. Let rise for another 45 minutes. If your bread isn’t doubled in size: Go buy new yeast from the store and try again tomorrow. Of course, you can still continue with this batch and just have flatter, tougher bread (great for toast!) or you can turn it into some yummy flat bread pizzas for dinner!
• Turn dough out onto clean surface. If you have a marble-type counter or large cutting board, you shouldn’t need to use any additional flour at this point. The oil that we used to coat the dough should keep it from sticking. Divide dough into four equal parts (I recommend using your scale for this.)
• Working with one piece at a time, use your fingers and squish the bread out into a rectangle about 5″ X 9″. Starting on the short end, roll dough into very tight log – this, and the squishing, will (hopefully!) keep out all the large air pockets so your finished loaves are uniform. Pinch the seams and ends tightly together and place seam side down in greased pans, tucking ends under so top of loaf is smooth.
• Cover loaves lightly with plastic wrap and proof 30-45 minutes. Dough should rise about 1 to 1-1/2 inches past edge of pan when ready.
• Bake in preheated 400˚F oven for 25-35 minutes, rotating once during baking, if necessary. Bread is finished when loaves are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped lightly on the bottom. (If using the same oven to proof and bake: take the unbaked loaves out of the oven and leave them on the counter while the oven is preheating.)
• Remove loaves from pans and allow to cool on rack before wrapping/slicing/serving. But I mean, who are we kidding? You KNOW you wanna cut a slice off the end, slather it with butter and jam it into your mouth so fast you don’t feel your finger tips burning…or is that just me…?