Some herbed breads are potent while the herbs in other breads are barely noticeable. This loaf of bread has medium potency. There are enough herbs to flavor you sandwich and not drown out the flavors of your lunchmeat.
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup water, room temperature
- 2-1/4 tsp or 1 pkg. (1/4 oz.) active dry yeast
- 1 cup milk, room temperature
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp soft butter or margarine
- 1/2 tsp dry basil
- 1/2 tsp dry dill
- 1/2 tsp dry crushed rosemary
- 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour, about
Preparation:
- In large bowl, mix water and yeast. Add milk, sugar, salt, soft butter or margarine, basil, dill, and crushed rosemary. Stir. Add 2 cups of flour and mix well. Add in enough flour to make a dough that follows the spoon around the bowl. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 8 minutes, adding more flour as needed until the dough is soft and smooth to the touch. Place dough in medium greased bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so that the top is also lightly greased. Cover with clean cloth and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Punch down dough. Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead for 4 minutes or until the bubbles are out of the bread. Shape dough into loaf. Place loaf in greased bread pan. Cover and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
- Bake bread at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when the top is tapped. Remove bread from pan and let cool on rack.
Bread Baking Tips:
- Use bottled water instead of tap water to make your breads. Water softeners and chlorinated public water can sometimes kill the yeast needed to make your bread dough rise.
- Keep yeast stored in an airtight container and in the refrigerator. Heat, moisture, and air kills the yeast and prevents bread dough from rising.
- Breads made with milk have a soft crust while breads made with water will have a harder crust. To soften a crust that is too hard, store the bread in a plastic bag.
- If you are using powdered milk instead of fresh milk, measure the dry milk into the bowl and add the correct liquid amount separately. For one cup of milk, use three tablespoons of dry milk and one cup of water.
- Bread flour has a higher amount of gluten than all-purpose flour. This means that bread made with bread flour will rise higher than bread made with all-purpose flour. You can make your own bread flour by adding 1-1/2 teaspoons gluten to each cup of all-purpose flour you use in your bread recipe.
