Let's Make Some Bread: Bread Maker White Bread

I finally did it, y'all! I finally bought a bread maker. I have been wanting to buy a bread maker for some time for the same reasons everyone does. I love the idea of being able to control what goes into my bread. Having a little one that is just starting their food journey in life, I wanted a healthier option for her. Have you looked at the ingredients list on a bag of bread? Some of it you can not even pronounce. I wanted to make my own, yummy bread that in my mind is a "healthier" alternative. I am no chef, by no means, but I wanted to give it a shot. And you can too!

Here's the gist of how a bread maker works. First, you just dump your ingredients directly into the bread machine. Most recipes for a bread machine list their ingredients in the same formula: liquid ingredients, dry ingredients, then yeast or baking soda on top. Imagine it like a messy, ingredient pyramid within your bread maker. The butter, eggs, milk, water, whatever goes on the bottom. The flours in the middle, the yeast on top. After you've put all your ingredients into the bread maker and started it up, it basically runs itself. No worrying about kneading, rising, proofing, or even baking. The machine does it for you. Of course I would love to do all that fun work myself but as a full-time working Southern Mama, I ain't got the time. Once you begin the cycle, the machine begins the process of mixing and kneading your bread dough. It will take your bread through 3 rounds of rising. Once it has went through the 3 rises, you have the option to pause your machine and remove the kneading paddle. I, personally, skipped this step. I wanted a literal "fix it and forget about it" type recipe. It you want a Insta worthy loaf, by all mean remove the paddle. (Or you could just turn the loaf around with the knot in the back.) The White loaf setting produces a beautifully delicious recipe between 3 and 3.5 hours, depending on your bread maker.

Bread Maker White Bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups water, room temp

• 3 Tbsp butter, cubed and room temp

• 1 Tbsp sugar

• 1½ tsp salt

• 4 cups bread flour

• ¼ cup nonfat dry milk

• 1½ tsp yeast

Directions

1. Dump all the ingredients into the bread machine in the order that they are listed.

2. Press the Program button to select the White bread program.

3. Press the Crust button to select the desired crust shade: light, medium, and dark. I chose the dark setting and it turned out beautifully.

4. Press the Loaf Size button to select 2 lbs.

5. Press the Start/Stop button to begin. Optional: remove kneading paddle after the final rise.

6. Once the bread cycle is complete, remove the bread from the maker and let cool on a wire wrack.

7. Slice and serve!

Recipe tidbits: For butter, I used salted butter and it was delicious. For many bread recipes, unsalted is preferred but I don't keep a lot of unsalted butter laying around. If you prefer not to use sugar, you can use the same amount of honey instead. I used bread flour for this recipe, but all purpose flour works just as well.