Mouthwatering no-fail Amish sweet bread
This Amish sweet bread recipe is mouth-watering no-fail Amish sweet bread for every occasion. This is the first bread recipe I ever baked & is basically the only one I use. It is the best sweet sandwich bread I have ever had in my life! I have not made this bread and had anyone say either they didn’t like it or never wanted it again. When this bread comes out of the oven, I have to fend off the household, they’re trying to cut the bread and throw on some homemade cinnamon vegan butter. I’ve been told time and time again I must market this and start selling this bread. Well, that thought did cross my mind a time or two. It was good the first time I made it and now that it’s 9 years later it’s even better now that I’ve made this recipe literally thousands of times! You find what works and what you need to change to make it work for you. Some of the techniques just didn’t work with me so I made them tailored to my needs. As I will state in EVERY article, please use a scale!
This Mouthwatering no-fail Amish sweet bread is very versatile. It can be used for sandwich bread, used in place of a burger bun, hot dog bun, and toast is amazing or whatever else you would use bread. It has a sweetness to it, and it is so moist and soft that it is great for any situation. Learning to make a versatile bread is a very handy skill to have in life, instead of just baking bread that can only be used for that specific use. After all we have all faced the shortages of the supply chain, I'm sure we can all agree learning new homestead and kitchen skills is worth every second of taking the time out to learn it. I have adapted the recipe when I feel like adding something to it such as onions, garlic etc. And it still turns out mouth-watering. I was in the kitchen about 4 years back and decided I wanted onion rolls for sandwiches and burger buns, the vegan burgers I was making that night. I needed to make bread and burger buns, I wanted them both to be onion and sweet. At that point I took a chance and said, “Well I really don’t feel like spending 8 hours in a kitchen making bread and hamburger buns, let’s just go ahead and make the bread” (main reason was because I get 2 loaves of bread, and the hamburger buns are just 12 rolls) and add some onions. So, I went ahead and sauteed up some onions in avocado oil and added some garlic powder to them, I pulled them off when they were nice and caramelized and spread them on a paper towel to cool. I put them on the paper towel because I did not want them to be added to the dough with extra oil. When they were completely cool, I went ahead and started to make my dough, added the cooled onions in and continued the process. As the bread was baking in the oven you could smell this heavenly sweet and savory aroma coming from the oven. When it was done baking and coming out of the oven to cool it was so tempting to just cut into it and start eating it hot! However, I resisted the urge and fought back the hands trying to do what I planned out in my head, devouring this mouthwatering yummy break. And I will tell you the bread was amazing as sandwich bread, buns for the burgers, and even toast the next morning instead of a bagel. I even used it for breakfast sandwiches, and it was yummy. So don’t be afraid to add things to this dough mixture to make it how you want or to fit the situations you need the bread for.
A little back story of why I had to force myself to learn to bake bread. I never liked to bake because you must be precise and patient. And to be honest I am neither of those things. So that right there is one reason, the next is the most important reason why I bake everything. My daughter was diagnosed anaphylactic to peanuts at the age of 1, she is very highly reactive and thus became my new adventure of letting my daughter have a normal life. There are peanuts in things you wouldn’t think, and cross-contamination, which both would kill her or have severe consequences. She cannot eat at bakeries unless they are an allergen free bakery, she can’t just eat out either, research must be done, not a fun life.
So, because of her diagnosis came my new passion cooking and baking! There isn’t anything I have tried that I can’t bake! May have been a few not the best things but everyone still cleaned their plates. I found out I was actually really good at baking. We will move mountains for our children, and I owe my baking adventures to her. But to be honest I’d still rather hate to bake, and she does not have to have a deadly allergy. If you keep one recipe to bake breads, I highly recommend this one, being that it's a great moist bread but also so versatile it’s a win, win recipe.
In this recipe I will give you two sets of instructions when it comes to getting ready to mix the dough. I will give the stand mixer version and the hand kneaded dough version. To be honest I use both methods, it just depends on my mood and time. Kneading the dough is so therapeutic and gives an extra sense of pride when you are finished baking it. Also, take note that the time for the dough to rise will be different depending on where you live and what time of year it is. So, you could be less than 1 hour or more than 1 hour, either way it is ok. The important part of this is to let the dough double in size. Another important factor is to buy a scale and use it for measurement, with EVERY ingredient. It makes being in the kitchen a breeze and whatever you are making turns out to be awesome every time!! I never realized the importance of baking with a scale until someone in a baking recipe mentioned it and I went on Amazon bought a scale and have never looked back! I will have links to all the products I use to make things easier. Who doesn’t like a one click motion?
I have found a few things helpful when making this bread. Right before I am ready to let the dough sit to rise, I put the oven on like 100° F (37° C) just until it slightly warms the oven then I turn it off, it is about 2 minutes or less. You don’t want the oven to be very warm or hot, you want it slightly warm, so the dough does not start to cook or dry out while we are waiting for it to double in size. If you have a warm place in your home such as a pantry or you can put it outside (make sure the bugs can’t get to it, haha) you can always do this to help the bread rise faster than if in a cold or cool place. I live in South Florida so I was able to put it on my screened porch and it would double in size very quickly, I have moved to a different house, and we do not have a screen porch so a warmed oven it is. I found placing a bit of flour in the bread pan before you set it to rise for the second time helps with the bread not sticking to the glass (even when oiled). You do not have to put a lot just a tiny amount, I have also just rolled the dough in some flour as I was shaping it to put in the pan and this works just as well, I actually prefer this method I feel like I don’t have to worry about flour chunks on my freshly baked bread. As far as slicing the slits on top of the bread I haven’t found a specific way that does it better. It basically just changes the shape of the bread. I have done the cross slits and noticed that the bread doesn’t rise extremely high as some of the other slits, I prefer this method when I am wanting a standard bread height. I cut them angled a bit sometimes for a fancier look when I am using it for a dinner party or as gifts. You can also cut a slit from front to back right down the middle. This cut makes the bread have that bakery feel. Where you sliced the bread in the middle will stay that height and each side of the bread will rise giving it an 80’s big hair feel to it. This is the style you see for food photography, displays, or when you want a bigger surface for your bread. If I am planning for a picnic or something where we would want a large bread surface, I use this cut, I also use it when I am doing my food photography. I experiment with different cuts to see how they work with the bread and what the final product looks like, after all it doesn’t matter how it looks this bread will be eaten by everyone! The most important this here to remember is do not forget to make these slits on the top of the bread. If you do end up forgetting to make the slits your bread will basically rise so high that it splits because it can’t release the steam that keeps it at a good level. I have done this and had my bread severely disfigured because it rose so high the sides split open, it made slicing the bread very hard, so learn from my mistake and make sure you put slits on top of the bread! Now this last piece of information I will give you is based on your preference. If you want a more firm and less moist bread, make sure you take the bread out of the pans as soon as you take them out of the oven after baking. This will let the bread release moisture and your final product ends up firmer. However, if you are going for a soft and moist bread you will let the bread cool down inside the pan. So, make sure you know what type of texture you want for the bread so you can do the cool-down process correctly.
Let’s get this thing started!
Amish Sweet Bread
This makes 2 loaves Total time: 2 hrs 15 min (Depends on temperature)
479g (2 cups) warm water
137g (2/3 cups) Organic sugar (I use BJ’s brand)
25g (1 1/2 tbsp) Yeast (Fleischmann's Instant Dry Yeast)
10g (1 1/2 tsp) Kosher Salt (San Francisco Salt Company Chefs salt)
58g (1/4 cup) Organic coconut oil (I use Azure Organic Coconut Oil)
981g (6 cups) Organic all-purpose flour (I use Azure Market Organics All Purpose Unbleached flour or King Arthur’s Organic All-Purpose Flour), you will have to add small amounts of flour to the dough to make it not sticky.
Avocado Oil ( I use Chosen Foods Non-GMO 100% Pure Avocado Oil)
Use 479g of warm water (Around 110 °F) in the stand mixer bowl or your mixing bowl.
Add 137g of sugar to the water and whisk until sugar is dissolved.
Stir 25g of yeast into the sugar water, and let it set for 10. It should be nice and frothy. If it is not, that means the yeast was bad and you might need new yeast.
Add 10g of salt and 58g of coconut oil to the yeast mixture and whisk until blended.
(Stand mixer) It’s time to start adding the 981g of flour to the yeast mixture, you will add it one cup at a time on low speed to ensure that it is mixing well. After all flour is mixed you can turn the speed up so that the dough will start working. This process can take a while as you want the gluten to fully form so it is a softer bread. This process can take anywhere from 3-5 minutes, you can stop the mixer and pull some dough away from the ball to see if it bounces back quickly and doesn’t tear. You want to get a good non-sticky dough consistency and form a ball.
(Hand kneading) It’s time to start adding the 981g of flour to the yeast mixture, you will add one cup of flour at a time while kneading the dough into a ball. This process can take a while to do and requires some good elbow grease and lots of shoulder work! You will need to keep adding flour to the board or counter to keep it from sticking. If your dough is still sticky after adding all the flour and kneading the dough you can sprinkle flour over it. You will stop kneading when you have a perfect ball formed that is not sticky and when you pull it away from itself it bounces back quickly and doesn’t tear.
Grease a large bowl with Avocado oil and place the ball of dough into the bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel or wax paper.
Let the dough rise for about 1 hour until it has doubled in size. (This could take more or less time depending on the humidity and temperature).
After the dough has risen, punch it down and pull the dough from the sides of the bowl.
Grease your two bread pans with avocado oil to prepare them for the dough.
Use a dough cutter/scraper and split the dough into two equal parts. Shape the dough into a load shape. Put them into the two greased bread pans.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C)
Let the dough sit uncovered for another 30 minutes to rise again.
When the time is up and the dough has risen again above the rim of the bread pan, slice a slit either from end to end, or you can make a few diagonal slits. Here is where you make the choice of brushing melted butter on the top (which will make for a more tender delightful crust), egg wash, olive oil, something simple as a water coating or simply just baking it with no coating. The choice is yours and before you make your choice be sure to check out my article about different coats you can use depending on the type of bread you are baking.
Now place the bread pans in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes (this time can vary due to differences in ovens). It might take a few rounds to figure out the best time to take the bread out of your oven.
You have two choices here 1) to remove the bread from the pans right away. This will give a crisper crust, less moist inside, and stop the residual cooking. 2) Leave the bread in the pans which will make for a crispy, golden exterior yielding to a soft and tender interior. Truthfully removing right away is best used for artisan bread making, but hey everyone loves bread in different ways!
Affiliate links to the products I use. Please remember that you still must call or email companies to make sure lines are still safe. The ONLY ALLERGEN we avoid is PEANUTS, therefore I am not sure if other allergens are in the facility or made on the same lines. Unfortunately checking lines is something we will all have to do frequently.
Fleischmann's Instant Dry Yeast - https://amzn.to/49VjUE4
San Francisco Salt Company Chefs salt - https://amzn.to/3TJdoLc
King Arthur’s Organic All-Purpose Flour - https://amzn.to/4a0uwl2
Chosen Foods Non-GMO 100% Pure Avocado Oil - https://amzn.to/491rtaU
(Any of these scales will work perfectly, it just depends on how much you want to spend)
Ozeri Pronto Digital Multi-function Kitchen and Food Scale - https://amzn.to/3TJ72eL
Escali Primo Digital Food Scale Multi-Functional Kitchen Scale - https://amzn.to/3THoa4j
My Weigh KD-8000 Digital Food Scale - https://amzn.to/3Trwynv
2 Pack Classroom Timers for Teachers Kids Large Magnetic Digital Timer Blue Pink - https://amzn.to/3vjGEP6
KitchenAid® 7 Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer - https://amzn.to/4albfui
Here are some links to other articles.
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