Right now, my family is sucking in their breath and trying to conceal their looks of horror. From my title, they are probably expecting some charred black brick that I am trying to pass off as homemade bread. Well, I laugh in the face of your scrutiny family (ha, ha, ha) for I will have you know, my bread came out golden brown and delicious!

Yep, you heard it right folks. Kathleen, the queen of microwave cooking has successfully made her first loaf of homemade bread. It was everything I expected and more and I am really having trouble sharing it with the rest of the hungry mouths around here. Let me also mention, that I do know that there have been long breaks in between days for this challange, but that is due to the fact that I keep forgetting to take pictures. I made a chicken noodle casserole and BBQ pork chops, but I didn't take pictures, so they don't count. :)

Ingredients:

1 package Fleischmann's active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp.salt
1 1/2 tbs.sugar
1 3/4 tbs. butter
3 cups all purpose flour

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, mix together one package of Fleischmann's dry active yeast and 1/4 cup warm water until no more lumps appear.



2. Place melted butter, milk, salt and sugar in the bowl with the yeast and mix until well blended.



3. Place 3 cups of flour into the bowl a little at a time and blend with the wet mixture until you get a slightly tacky dough. If the dough is too loose or crumbly, simply add a little more milk.



4. Flour a section of a counter lightly and knead the dough for 10 minutes. Simply press the dough flat and then fold back into a ball and knead again. When finished, form the dough into a ball and place into a bowl lined with cooking spray. Cover lightly with a towl and let sit in a warm area to rise for 1 hour.



5. After an hour, the dough will have risen to at least twice its original size. Place it back on the counter and pound a few times with your fists to bring it back to the original size. Flatten into the shape of a rectangle about the same length as your loaf pan. Roll into a loaf shape with the ends turned under and place into a loaf pan lined with cooking spray.



6. Cover and let the dough rise in the loaf pan for an additonal hour until it looks like the picture below.



7. Cook in a preheated 400 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown. Remove from the load immediately and let cool on a rack or towel.




Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I try my hand at Banana Nut Bread! So, who else makes homemade bread. I don't know if I could see myself doing this every day, but I could definitely fit it in a few times a week.