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The Everything Bread - a dough for all purpose by 6-7 cups bread flour (All-purpose will work, but bread flour results in a better texture post-bake) Start with 3 cups of flour, and the salt, sugar, yeast, and powdered milk in the bowl of a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment combine the dry ingredients for 30 seconds. Add in the egg and hot water and continue mixing. The batter will be very loose but after it is mixed for three or four minutes it should be pretty smooth with most of the lumps worked out. Switch to the dough hook now and start adding in the remaining flour 1/3 or 1/2 cup at a time. You may not use all the flour, but the resulting dough should come together into a ball. The sides of the bowl will be basically clean, but when you touch the dough it feels quite sticky.
Remove the dough from the bowl, spray the inside of the bowl with oil and return the dough to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a lid and place in a warm spot to proof - I like to heat the oven to 100 degrees, turn it off, and use the warm oven as a proofing drawer. The dough will double in size in 30-45 minutes.
Now is the fun part! This is a flexible, multi-purpose dough. In fact, this one dough works for nearly every bread recipe I want to make. It’s good for sandwich loaves; with some substitutions I'll describe later it can be different flavors of bread; it accepts mix-ins like fruit or nuts or even chocolate chips; it makes the most wonderful flat breads, and it’s even a pretty good pizza dough. The loaves freeze well, so if you won’t be able to eat it all before it goes stale just wrap them in some foil, place the wrapped loaf into a freezer zip-top bag and enjoy later. It’s amazing! Each third of the dough is enough for a 7.75 x 3.75 x 2.5 bread loaf pan, which for our family is the perfect-sized loaf. Proof the loaves in a well-greased pan for 45 minutes while your oven preheats to 375 degrees. Bake for 30-35 minutes, when the top gets golden brown and crusty, it’s done. If you prefer whole wheat sandwich bread, replace one cup of the flour at the start with whole wheat and follow the rest of the recipe, you may end up using less overall flour because the whole wheat will hold more of the water versus the white bread flour. You can also roll out a third of the dough into a 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick rectangle. Sprinkle your favorite dried fruit, nuts, or chocolate chips over the dough rectangle, make sure to cover the dough from edge to edge. Tightly roll up the dough along the long edge, so the resulting roll fits into the loaf pan. Proof in the oiled pan for 45 minutes and bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes. Both filled and plain loaves bake and proof for the same amount of time, so they can be made together!
Each third of the loaf will also divide into 4 medium sized flat breads! Roll each quarter of the dough into balls, like you’re making buns (which this dough also does well, proof 45 minutes, bake 25-30 minutes at 375F.) Preheat a griddle or large saute pan over medium high heat. Roll each ball out into ovals about 1/3 inch thick. Griddle each flatbread for 2 minutes a side, flipping once. Cool on a wire rack. They’re great just as they are, hot off the griddle or baste them with butter and garlic, or roll them up with your favorite sandwich fillings!
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