Cooking, Recipes
Easy, versatile and DELICIOUS bread recipe for sliced bread, bread rolls and dinner rolls
Jan
In a world that often prioritises convenience, baking your own bread is making a comeback. Store bought bread may seem convenient, but the benefits of homemade bread goes beyond just saving time. After trialing several bread recipes, I asked my mother in law for her recipe and I haven’t looked back since.
Dan and I live in Australia, but some of you may not know that Dan is actually from Houston Texas in the USA. He moved to Australia and we got married back in 2009 and we have been living here since.
My mother in law has always baked bread for her family. Growing up, Dan has fond memories of cutting off a nice thick slice of fresh bread and spreading on some butter. He was always so excited when she made home made bread because it was so much better than store bought. It would vanish as quickly as she could make it for his family of seven. Some 25+ years later, she is still making bread for the family to enjoy!
Being so far away, it is so nice that Mom and I can connect over bread making as I start to learn and develop my skills in this area. I hope you enjoy making and eating her incredible bread recipe as much as we do!
Mom Franklin’s Bread
Ingredients
- 4 cups white bread flour
- 2 cups *wholemeal/whole wheat flour see notes
- 1 tablespoon instant dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2½ cups warm water
- ½ cup white sugar ¼ cup is also fine if you want a lower sugar content
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil canola/sunflower/vegetable
Instructions
- Combine white flour, wholemeal (whole wheat) flour, yeast and salt in your bowl and mix to combine. Add warm water, white sugar and oil in. Using the dough hook, knead the dough until no flour sticks to the sides of the bowl. Dough should be pliable, soft and almost sticky. Adjust with water or flour if needed to reach desired consistency.
- Leave the dough in the mixing bowl and cover with baking paper and a tea towel. Let it rise until doubled in size (approx 1-2 hours). Turn on the mixer for a couple of seconds to eliminate all air bubbles in the dough.
- Prepare an area for rolling out the dough and dust with flour. Divide out dough according to what you’d like to make (*see notes).
SANDWICH LOAF
- Roll the dough out into a large rectangle with a rolling pin approx 4cm thick. Roll the dough up, gently pressing down on the roll to eliminate any air pockets as you go. Gently tuck your two ends in and underneath the roll.
- Place in a greased or baking paper lined loaf tin. Cover and let rise until doubled in size (approx 1-2 hours). Bake at 180C/350F for 25-30 mins. Cool in the pan for 20 mins. Remove loaf from pan and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.
BREAD ROLLS
- Roll the dough out flat (approx 4cm thick) to remove air pockets. Use a dough cutter to cut small bundles of dough around ½ cup in size for regular bread rolls or ¼ cup in size for dinner rolls. To form into a ball, pinch all your corners together underneath your ball until it becomes more round in shape. *Then roll on the bench with your hand cupped over the top in a circular motion.
- Place your dough balls on a baking paper lined baking tray or a greased oven dish with about a 3cm gap between each dough ball. Cover and let rise until doubled in size (approx 1-2 hours). Bake at 180C/350F for 12 mins. Cool on the tray for 5-10 mins, then carefully move bread rolls onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing or breaking open to eat.
Notes
– 2 medium loaves
– 1 large loaf & 1 small loaf
– 1 large loaf & 6 bread rolls When rolling your bread roll balls on the bench in your cupped hand, you want to do this on a clean part of your bench, and not in flour. You need the slight stickiness of the dough on the bench to be able to roll the bottom of your bread roll nice and flat.
