The Bread You Can't Screw Up

We made bread on Friday night. It's an overnight dough recipe, and has yet to fail me or anybody I've known that has tried it. There are two things my mom actually does consistently well, and that is make gravy and make bread. I suck at both. This recipe cured my bread problem...but don't ask me to make a white gravy!

Ideally you would start this at about 3pm. I started at more like 6, and was up until about 12:30am.

Boil 4 cups water and 1 1/2 cups sugar for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and add 1 cup vegetable oil and let all cool until lukewarm...like baby bathwater warm.

In a LARGE bread bowl beat 4 eggs. In a seperate small bowl, stir together 1 package yeast, 1/4 cup water and 1 Tablespoon salt. Mix into the eggs and also add the sugar water mixutre. Next measure in about 10 cups of flour to start and mix it all up. Total flour will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-14 cups, but add slowly and knead in after each addition!

Once the dough is mixed to a point that its not too sticky, and nice and pliable, leave it alone and stop adding flour! Cover with a towel and let rest for 2-3 hours until double (This would be about 6 pm if you started at 3). Punch the dough down, cover, and let rise again. At about 9pm you are ready to put the dough into pans in whatever form your heart desires.

You should make at least one pan of caramel rolls. I must give mad props to my home-ec teacher Gloria for teaching us how to make this caramel. It's so simple, and doesn't get hard and chewy! You cook together 1 stick of butter or margarine, 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream, and 1 cup of brown sugar until it boils for a couple minutes and is all mixed well. 1 recipe will be good for a 9 x 13 pan or a couple of pie pans. Sprinkle with pecans if you like. Make like cinnamon rolls - roll out a softball size piece of dough into a rectangle - spread with soft butter or margarine, and sprinkle with sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up and slice into 1 inch pieces and put into the caramel. Cover all the pans with a towel and go to bed!

Before bedtime, and waking up in the morning. It's magic! Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until nicely browned. Don't underbake caramel rolls. You want them to be nice and golden or you'll find the bottoms (technically the tops) not cooked. When you take them out turn out onto a platter or baking sheet and scrape any extra caramel onto the tops. Per my great-grandmother, and grandmother, and mothers direction, you also should run a paper towel with shortening on it over the tops of the dinner rolls and bread. I don't know what the purpose is other than to make them nice and shiny!

Going back to the title, upon typing all of this out I realized I actually didn't add the vegetable oil. I know this because I looked at my vegetable oil supply before making this bread, and eye-balled it at about a cup. That "about a cup" is still in the cabinet! It was still very good bread - perhaps baked a little drier though. Oops!