The smell of bread baking, whether it’s coming from the bakery on the corner or from your oven, is one of the world’s most comforting (and mouth-watering) scents. And the taste of a thick slice of homemade bread, still warm from the oven and (just maybe) slathered with sweet butter, is as elemental and as good as it gets.

So it’s no surprise that when we asked our Recipe.com Facebook friends to share with us the dishes you’d most like recipes for, and would most like to perfect, bread recipes were at the top of the list. So here are a few of our favorite bread recipes, packed with advice on how to make bread that will make you the star of your own home bakery.

All this week we’ll be giving you recipes in response to your Facebook requests. (Join your fellow cooks on our Facebook page for daily recipe ideas and much more!)

CLASSIC BREADS

Split-Top Butter Loaf: Butter’s in the name, and butter is the game for this bread, which is brushed with butter as it bakes. Made with buttermilk and honey, this is a rich and satisfying yeast bread.

French Bread: A classic baguette is so French and so fabulous. It’s lovely served with soft cheese or toasted into crostini, sliced, and made into bruschetta (great appetizers, by the way). A traditional yeast bread, it only requires 8 to 10 minutes of kneading.  You’ll form the dough into a rectangle, roll it up, pinch the ends, and make diagonal cuts into the unbaked loaves. Simple, and this French Bread recipe gives you all the details.

Country-Style Semolina Loaves: This rustic bread is made with semolina flour, which is coarsely ground durum wheat. Its high-protein content makes for a textured bread perfect for sandwiches. Olive oil joins the mix in this dough, too. (For more on flour, see “Flour for Baking: Know Your Label Lingo”)

BREAD WITH A TWIST

Mom’s Bread: This mom makes fiber-rich whole-wheat loaves, adding bulgur, honey, and wheat cereal to the recipe. Your sandwiches will get hearty and healthy with this bread.

Olive, Oat, and Whole Wheat Bread: This hearty no-knead bread is fiber rich with steel-cut oats and oat bran, and is spiked with kalamata olives and toasted walnuts.

Whole-Wheat Challah: Making this beautiful braided bread (a Hanukkah classic, but welcome anytime of the year) is as simple as mixing, kneading, forming the dough into ropes, and intertwining them. The recipe gives you all the details.

Bread bakers: Whether you love Irish soda bread, Indian fry bread, ciabatta, or panini, we’ve got all kinds of Bread Recipes here!

Check out our first “You Asked For It” post: Cheesecake Recipes

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Cheesecake: You Asked For It!

Stuffed Baked Acorn Squash

Categories: Save Money, Save Time | Tags: Bread, Bread and Pastry, Whole Wheat Bread
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