Homemade Braided Sweet Bread
The last time I made this bread I woke up to my daughter eating the entire loaf while watching cartoons...forget the cereal, or yogurt, or the basket full of fruit. This bread really is that good.
Homemade Sweet Bread:
print recipe here
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of water
- 1 can sweet and condensed milk
- 1 tsp. of salt
- 1 tbsp. of butter
- 3 1/2 cups of flour
- 2 tsp of yeast
This recipe can make 2 loaves of bread. If you only make one loaf it will cook all the way through, just not be as pretty. Still tasty though!
This is also a great recipe to make with the kids. It's messy, gooey, and a whole lot of fun. It provides and interesting sensory experience and ties in great to a texture unit. What's more fun than an experiment that you can eat?
You can use a kitchen mixer if you want...but, in this house we love any chance for messy learning we can get!
Directions:
Melt the butter and mix all the ingredients except the flour together. Add the flour into the mixture 1/2 cup at a time until you have a nice not very sticky ball. If it is sticky enough that more of it sticks to your hands than the dough ball you need to add more flour.
Once you have a nice ball, cover and leave it in the bowl for about an hour. You want the dough to rise to the rim of the bowl...in this case I forgot about it. If it goes over the rim it is still usable, will just be a lighter bread.
This is also a great recipe to make with the kids. It's messy, gooey, and a whole lot of fun. It provides and interesting sensory experience and ties in great to a texture unit. What's more fun than an experiment that you can eat?
You can use a kitchen mixer if you want...but, in this house we love any chance for messy learning we can get!
Directions:
Melt the butter and mix all the ingredients except the flour together. Add the flour into the mixture 1/2 cup at a time until you have a nice not very sticky ball. If it is sticky enough that more of it sticks to your hands than the dough ball you need to add more flour.
Once you have a nice ball, cover and leave it in the bowl for about an hour. You want the dough to rise to the rim of the bowl...in this case I forgot about it. If it goes over the rim it is still usable, will just be a lighter bread.
Once it has risen, separate it into three sections. If you are making two loaves separate into six.
Roll out the balls into three ropes. At this point pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. For a crispy crust place an oven safe bowl full of water on the top rack. This bowl will stay in the oven while you bake your bread.
Once your ropes are rolled out, pinch together the three ropes on one end. Make sure they are blended together well or it will come apart while it cooks.
Braid the bread together and pinch together the opposite end. Gently push the bread together. Let it rise for 30 minutes to an hour.
Bake the bread for 15-20 minutes. Once done let the bread cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting. Serve and enjoy!
This bread is excellent with a honey butter!
Hi!
ReplyDeleteBread looks delish :-) Do you use warm or cold water, or it doesn't matter? Thx!
I use room temperature water and instant yeast. Some yeasts don't do well with cold water. I would check the package. A trick for using cold water is to mix the some of the flour in with the yeast before adding the cold water.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. I'm trying out the recipe today!
ReplyDeleteDo you use all purpose flour or bread flour?
ReplyDelete