Let them eat......well, bread!

It's a soup kinda day here in Utah and what goes best with homemade soup?? Homemade bread!!
I used to bake bread every week back in my "housewife" days.....sometimes I miss those days. The OCD house cleaning, I do NOT miss (glad that chick is gone) but I do miss the routine of making bread.....starting early in the day and baking 6 or 8 loaves. Then we were poor married teenagers but today I bake for the love of it. The smell of bread is just heavenly, don't you think? It makes a rainy day so much more enjoyable.....and a thick slice of homemade bread slathered with melty butter is pretty much my idea of awesome!
This recipe is practically idiot proof (as evidenced by the fact that I mastered it while I was a teenage bride)!

Best Bread
3/4 cup warm water
2 Tbsp dry active yeast
Pour warm water over yeast in the bowl of your KitchenAid mixer....you don't HAVE a KitchenAid?? Oh, you poor poor soul. You should ask Santa to bring you one! If you don't have a KitchenAid just pour it into the biggest mixing bowl you have and cry about your lack of non appliance status over your hot bread later! Let this sit and bloom.
Combine in a small saucepan: 
2 cups whole milk (milk with less fat makes vastly incompetent bread)!
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp Kosher salt
3 Tbsp solid shortening
Heat until sugar and salt are dissolved and shortening is melted
Add to yeast mixture along with 4 cups of flour. Beat until very smooth and satiny. Continue beating adding flour 1 cup at a time until dough begins to pull from sides. If you are mixing this by hand, this is the point where you abandon the mixing spoon and dig in with your hands!! FUN STUFF!
Switch to your dough hook and continue adding flour in small amounts (you'll use about 7 1/2 to 8 cups total) until dough is tacky but not sticky. Continue the kneading process about 5 minutes with machine or until your arms fall off manually. :)
If you have a Tupperware "Thatsa Bowl" now is the time to use it! Spray that sucker good with non stick spray and plop in your beautiful dough. Lightly spray the dough and the lid and put the lid on! Let dough rise until nearly triple.
This makes 2 loaves of bread. Form them into loaves and place them in greased loaf pans, cover and place in a warm draft free place. Let rise until dough is about 1 inch above the top of the pan.  Bake in a preheated 425 oven about 25 minutes or until deeply golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped lightly. Remove from pan immediately and brush tops/sides and ends with butter. Let cool 1/2 hour before trying to slice or it's like trying to slice glue!
If you want to freeze your bounty let the loaves cool completely then wrap them in heavy foil and put into a gallon size freezer bag. Thaw before slicing if you didn't slice it before!

This easily converts to whole wheat just substitute honey for the sugar and use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose!