Easy & Fast Homemade White Bread Recipe

Start to finish, this easy recipe produces delicious homemade bread in two hours.

Makes two loaves.

• 4 cups all purpose flour (I use Safeway store brand organic,
  non-gmo flour)
• One ¼ oz. packet of rapid rise instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 ½ cups cool tap water
• ½ cup boiling water
• 2 to 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

Equipment:

2 Pyrex 1 quart glass mixing bowls.  This bread can be made in two 9×5 inch, 1 ½ quart loaf pans, but the bread will not rise as high.  Restriction of the dough spreading is important to the rise of this bread; therefore, that is the reason for specifying the size of the containers.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300º F.  Take the butter out of the refrigerator
to soften.

Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl using a whisk to distribute everything evenly through the flour.  Combine the cool and boiling water in a bowl, then add it to the flour mixture.  Stir (with a big spoon) to combine the water and flour mixture until it comes together in a shaggy clump.  Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it on top of the preheated stove – or in a warm place where the dough can rise for one hour.  Turn off the oven at this point.

After one hour, very generously butter two Pyrex 1 quart glass mixing bowls with the softened butter.  Use all the butter or the loaves will stick to the baking bowls.  Preheat the oven to 425º F.  Split the dough in half using two forks, and place the ½ the dough in each of the buttered baking bowls.  Let the dough rise, uncovered, in the baking bowls on top of the pre-heated stove for 30 minutes.

After the second rise, bake the dough in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Reduce the oven temperature to 375º F and bake for 15 minutes longer.  Remove bread from oven and turn out loaves to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before slicing with a serrated bread knife.