"Brown, brown all around."

The father of a friend of mine said that once. If I remember correctly, her family had been on vacation and were eating breakfast at a restaurant. They normally ate brown bread at home and my friend was looking forward to having white toast while on vacation only to be foiled by her father, who when the server came by told them: "Brown, brown all around."

I thought I would post my regular bread recipe (after my sourdough experience yesterday). As a different friend would say, "it's a gooder." I had also at one point (several months ago) promised I would.

White or Brown Bread
Recipe makes 2 loaves.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of yeast
2 (2 1/2) cups of water
1/2 cup (3 tablespoons) of sugar
2 eggs*
2 teaspoons of salt
4 tablespoons of oil
0-2 cups of whole wheat flour**
3-5 cups of white flour**

*The measurements in brackets are for if you wish to make the bread without eggs. Additionally...you have to omit the eggs.
**If you wish to make plain white bread omit the whole wheat flour and use 5 cups of white flour.

Method:
1) Thoroughly mix all of the ingredients.
2) Allow the dough to rise for a minimum of 1/2 hour.
3) Kneed the dough for 5 to 10 minutes.
4) Split the dough in half and place each half into a greased loaf pan.
5) Bake bread at 375F for 20 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when it's tapped.

Additional Notes from Andrea:
1) I'm lazy and use instant (breadmaker) yeast, therefore I don't have to activate it. If you prefer regular yeast, you will need to soak it in the water before you use it. The water needs to be warm, but not boiling. Boiling water will kill the yeast.
2) I mixed everything by hand with a wooden spoon.
3) I like to add only half of the flour at first, let it rise for 1/2 hour and then add the rest of the flour. I never measure the flour, I just keep adding it until the dough won't hold anymore...and it "looks right." Then I let the dough rise some more before splitting it into loaves.
4) I bake the loaves one at a time, although you can do it simultaneously. Sometimes I will bake the bread for 20 minutes, then remove it from the pan and bake it for another 5 minutes or so, to make sure it's cooked all the way through. I don't like it when the middle of the loaf is doughy.

I think that's just about it...and oh, this is what my recipe looks like (the actual paper is about 4"x6").



Ciao,

Andrea