Muzzy Bread

One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to catch up on photo printing. I hadn’t put together an annual family album since 2012, I hadn’t put together the usual separate “family summer vacation” album for six straight years. Living room wall photos haven’t been added to since 2017. It’s… a lot of catching up, is what I’m getting at.

ANYYYYWAY. I was going through my external drive of old photos, and I stumbled across these photos of my mom making her bread, taken about five years ago. WUT. How. Why? Why. I meant to take these for blogging, and completely tucked it away and forgot. Oops. So hey, here we are, today. Let’s make some bread.

First just know that Muzzy makes the best basic white bread loaf you’ve ever had, EVER. Ever, period. And she’s made it so much that she could do it with her eyes closed at this point.

My mama has always made our sandwich bread, at least a couple loaves a week, for several decades. As a little kid I remember wanting to lick the butter off the tops (my sister and I would instead, stick our preschool fingers in the sides as it cooled, not sure why we felt this was ‘better’ exactly but it always drove Muzzy BONKERS).

She can make this stuff with her eyes closed by this point but my sister Beah and I (she of bread-poking fame) begged her to show us, so we too could make the best sandwich bread ever. Or attempt to, anyway. So one random day we settled in Muzzy’s kitchen, determined to learn her bread magic while simultaneously corralling toddlers.

It was a lot to handle, admittedly.

After documenting in pictures and taking sporadic notes, my side of the family was (as usual) off again toodling around Kansas, back way out West and back again for my brother’s wedding. I got home and tucked my written notes in a cookbook (and filed the pictures away), and here we are. Finding the pictures made me fish back out my handwritten notes, which you can find below along with pictures. 

Muzzy’s White Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 pkgs dry active yeast

• 2 tsp. salt

• 2/3 c. dry milk or creamer

• 1/2 c. sugar

• 2 c. hot water

• 1 egg

• 1 stick butter* (check for asterisks below, yo)

• 4 ish c. flour

Mix the yeast, salt, sugar, creamer/milk, water and eggs together, with hand beaters or KitchenAid with beater attachment.*

*Possibly also butter or margarine here, but I don’t recall nor do I have notes of this being added during our training session! Huh! I personally add it here though.

Add 2 to 2.5 c. flour. Mix well with beaters, will still be rather wet.

You want to mix it until it “sheets” with a spoon (see below):

Now time to switch to working with that wooden spoon. Add about 1 c. flour and mix well.

(Child zooming through the kitchen in a bucket interlude.)

Heavily flour countertop. Plop your dough onto the counter. Hand-knead for 10-15 minutes. Should still be rather soft. Let rest on the counter (covered) about 15 minutes. (I skip this step, mine’s still fine.)

Put in a buttered bowl, cover, and let proof for about 1 hour. Punch down, fold into quarters, and flip. Then proof about another 30 minutes.

Dump on a floured countertop. “Whap on the counter”, says Muzz (lol, she really picked that thing up and slapped it back down, it made us all jump).

Cut into 2 equal pieces. Roll them into rounds, about the circumference of a pan.

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(Sorry I took a break from pictures here.) (Well kinda, we went to SURPRISE!! meet up with my sweet nephew Dyl for lunch here’s a picture, enjoy.)

BACK TO THE BREAD BUT NO PICTURES SO PAY ATTENTION.

Start to roll. Roll a bit, pinch the ends in, roll again, pinch ends in, continue until all rolled up into a wee tube that can fit nicely in a loaf pan.

Flip over so any seam is on the bottom. Crisco up your hands and pat the now tube-shaped roll well.

Put in a greased loaf pan and allow to rise the last time, about a half to full inch over the lip of the pan. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375F.

When ready, pop in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until the tops are nicely browned and when you knock on the loaf, it “sounds done” (sounds hollow). Butter the top generously then cool.

Commence with slicing, buttering, and children noshing, possibly after sticking their fingers in the loaf.

And there you go. Make approximately twelve million times, and you’re all set.