This White Sandwich Bread is the closest to store-bought that I have found yet. But believe me - it is better-than-store-bought!
I had bought an ordinary loaf of white bread and had it sitting on the counter. I normally freeze bread as soon as I get it home because it takes a long time to go through a whole loaf at our house. I saw it a couple of days later and thought perhaps it was getting stale. It was just as soft as the day I bought it, which surprised me because I am so used to homemade or artisanal breads. That made me look at the label. It had almost 30 ingredients!!!
I couldn't believe my eyes. After the flour, water, and yeast came things like Sodium stearoyl lactylate, Calcium carbonate, Ammonium chloride, Azodicarbonamide and on and on. You get the picture.
So... this 7-ingredient recipe ( all of which you will recognize!) is starting to look really good!
Note that it is the milk in the recipe that contributes to the soft crumb texture of the bread. That is what makes the texture approximate store-bought bread so don't skip the milk!
I never use my bread machine to bake off my bread. Who thought a canister of bread was a good shape for slicing and eating??? So I use the dough cycle and then I shape and bake the loaf separately.
This is not a large quantity recipe so use a smaller loaf pan to get the most height from your loaf. My pan was 8 X 4 ½ ".
You could use your Basic Bread cycle to bake through to the end if you like.
You can see from the photo it has a nice airy soft texture. Because there are not 23 preservative-type ingredients you will want to use it within a day or 2 or slice and freeze it on or after the first day.
Ingredients
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup plus 2 Tbsps water
- 2 tsps butter melted
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon sugar
- 2 cups all purpose flour See Notes. You may need an additional ½ cup of flour.
- 1 teaspoon yeast
Instructions
- Combine milk, water and butter.
- Combine flour, salt and sugar in separate bowl.
- Add ingredients to your bread machine in order your manufacturer suggests. Mine is wet, flour mixture, then yeast.
- If you are going to use the bread machine to take your loaf through the baking cycle set your machine to a Basic bread cycle. See the Note below.
- If you want to shape and bake it yourself set your machine to the dough cycle.
- Note: For either basic bread or dough cycle - check after 10 minutes to see if the dough is the right consistency. If the dough looks wet and sticky and sticks to your finger it's too wet and needs more flour. Add flour 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough becomes a smooth ball. If the dough looks shaggy and rough it is too dry and needs more water. Add water 1 tablespoon of water at a time until it becomes a smooth ball. (Based on a reader's comment she had to add up to a half cup of flour to get the right consistency. Remember flour amounts in a measure cup can vary widely depending on how packed or fluffy the flour is coming out of the container.)Make your adjustments to the dough bit by bit because there is no going back!
- Remove the dough after the 2nd knead. Set a timer so you know when to interrupt the cycle. (mine is after 30 minutes). Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. Remove the dough. It will be very sticky so use a bit of flour on your hands and work surface so you can shape into a loaf in the pan.
- Cover with a clean towel and allow dough to rise in the loaf pan for 60 minutes.
- Heat oven to 375 degrees and bake about 30 minutes. The loaf should sound a bit hollow when you tap it on the top. If you have an instant read thermometer check for internal temperature of 190° F.
- Allow bread to cool completely before slicing. Use or freeze within a day or two.
Heather
This is a great sandwich bread. I was having issues with wet/dry. After about 6 tries I realized that if I just add 1/2 cup more flour I got the required consistency. Now it's perfect every time.
Carolyn Hetke
Thanks for the feedback and for sticking with it! Maybe the issue is that the amount of flour can vary so much depending on how packed or fluffed it is. I guess if I listed the flour by weight it would solve it for people using kitchen scales. I will try to figure out how to tell people to check for the right wet vs dry look.
Your comment will help though! Thank you!