Just a "plain" white bread, but it's really so much more--at least to
my family. This was my great grandmother's recipe (with a few
changes) and she made it for the hotel guests in the hotel my family
used to own.
Old Mission White Bread
2 pkg Dry Yeast, or 1 tbsp Instant Yeast
3 1/4 cups Milk
1/2 cup Butter, 1 stick
1/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Salt
9 1/2 cups Bread Flour, approximately
Scald milk. Add butter and sugar and stir until melted. Continue
cooling if needed. Milk/butter should be no more that 110F (barely
warm on your wrist). Cool further if needed. Mix in yeast and let it
sit for 5 or 10 minutes.
Mix in salt and flour until dough pulls away from the sides of the
bowl. Turn out on floured surface and let rest 10 minutes.
Knead 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary to keep the dough from
sticking to hands or surface.
Place in oiled bowl and oil the top of the dough. Cover pan lightly
and place in warm place to rise until doubled.
Punch down and divide into 3 loaves. Place in oiled 4x8 pans and let
rise until the dough is slightly above the edges of the pans (30 to
45 minutes). About 20 minutes prior to baking, preheat oven to 350F.
Bake bread 35 minutes or until it makes a deep thumping noise when
tapped on the bottom of the loaf. Remove loaves from pan and cool on wire rack.
The original recipe was to make 7 loaves and used 1 cup sugar! It was
a very sweet dough. Also, if you would like to make raised doughnuts
with this dough, add an extra 1/3 cup sugar. Let rise, punch down
then form into doughnuts. Let rise, again, and deep fry in vegetable oil.