When you have fun toys.... use them.

Something good about the last seven months of crazy has been my love of baking bread. Not just the same recipes, but finding new recipes and giving them a whirl. One of them was this Amish Sweet Bread. It's amazingly soft and puffy. It is not sweet like Hawaiian Bread, but it's delicious with soup or toasted with butter. We opted for this bread to have with a bowl of veggie soup and oh man it's good. I think the sugar in the recipe really works with the yeast to puff up the bread, it's really good and worth the effort... especially if you have an amazing Nutramill Mixer to do all the work. I'm happy to have a new motor base for mine, my kids made cookies one day and let it just turn and turn and turn and well... turns out... you can burn the motor out, or at least overheat it. Thankfully the company replaced it under warranty, the electrical burning smell was a sign of not good things. This was my first bread I made with the new motor and it worked perfect! I’m guessing it works well in a stand mixer too, but I’m spoiled and have a fun toy to play with.

Homemade Amish Sweet Bread
Ingredients
2 cups water
2/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
5 1/2 to 6 cups All purpose flour

Instructions
Heat 2 cups of water to 110℉.
Add the sugar to the water you just heated and stir it.
Add the yeast to the sugar water and let it set for exactly 10 minutes. It will become frothy.
Mix in the oil and salt into the yeast liquid.
Slowly add one cup of flour at a time to this yeast mixture. You might not use all of the flour. It depends on how wet the dough is towards the end. You want to get to a good non-sticky dough consistency and it will form a ball.
Once the dough forms a ball, you will need to knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the surface with flour before you begin. When you feel the dough get sticky, sprinkle more flour over the top of the dough as you are kneading it. When this process is over you should be able to lift a small piece of the dough without it tearing.
Spray a large bowl with non stick cooking oil and place the dough into the bowl. Cover this bowl with a damp towel.
Let this dough rise for about 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.
After the dough has risen, punch the middle part of the dough and pull the dough from the sides of the bowl.
Use a dough cutter and split the dough into two equal parts and place them in a greased loaf pan
Let these loaves sit uncovered for another 30 minutes to rise again.
Now place them in a preheated oven at 350℉ for about 30 minutes or until they are baked thoroughly.