Recipe(tried): Making Good Homemade Bread - Don your question is all too common...

Making good bread need not be a science, but a little education, in the past the food and drug administration here is America has declared the " vital wheat gluten" is an allergen to some people, so now as of many years this EXTREMELY important ingredient is missing most of commercial flours, this is one of the original ingredients in flour that give bread " that stretchy pull and chewy texture from good bread, and doesn't leave bread hard as a hockey puck coming out of the oven, second do not use bread flour labeled as baking, some of this flour has been combined with BARLEY FLOUR another ingredient to compensate for the loss of vital wheat gluten, it makes bread taste somewhat bitter and it contains tannins another ingredients that ruins the taste of good bread. So to sum it up all I ask is to try my recipe. You have nothing to loose except to try.

GOOD HOMEMADE BREAD

1 1/2 cups water (110 degrees F)
2 tbsp yeast (dry fast acting)
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 cups of white flour (organic) no barley malt!
3 tbsp 'VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN' (basically 1 tbsp to one cup flour)
2 tbsp shortening (helps with the taste and texture)

Mix water, yeast, and brown sugar and wait 5 minutes.

Add to flour, shortening, and VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN. Knead well, I prefer a mixer (Kitchen Aid) for this, but knead well until the dough is mixing clean from bowl.

Let dough rise twice, second rising gives the flavor to bread (important).

Then pop into oven for only twenty minutes at 400 degrees F. IF RECIPE TELLS YOU TO BAKE FOR MORE THAN 30 MINUTES THEN YOU WILL HAVE A HOCKEY PUCK LOAF.

These are some secrets that you famous bakery down the street doesn't want you to know..........good luck