For the last Two years, my husband has taken a sandwich to work every. single. day.
Well, sometimes he gets a wild hair and decides he wants wraps for a week, but those are pretty much sandwiches, right?
At first, we were buying ninety-eight-cent wheat bread from the store, but we eventually decided we wanted to ‘better’ our bread choices. We’ve bought the expensive seed breads (which I quite enjoy, actually), but the price point is just not justifiable for us. So we’ve settled somewhere in the middle. We don’t get all the texture and flavor of the seed bread, but we also don’t have any of the nasty preservatives either!
When I first started making bread, I started with a quick and easy artisan loaf, and had lots of fun with it. When my husband wanted me to try my hand at sandwich bread, I first just tried that same recipe in a loaf pan. And it worked, but it just didn’t have that soft texture or buttery flavor that pairs so well with homemade mayo, meat and cheese. So through lots of research, and many loaves of bread, I have perfected my own recipe, and make sandwich bread on a pretty-much-weekly basis.
While I make most everything else with sourdough, this is one recipe that uses active dry yeast, and that’s fine with us.
How to Make Sandwich Bread
This loaf is extremely easy to make! I use my stand mixer, and I never touch it again until it’s time to shape and bake. This recipe can be split into six basic steps.
Start by blooming the yeast. Add the yeast, warm water, warm milk, and sugar into the mixing bowl and wait 10 minutes for it to foam. Next, add the remaining ingredients. This includes the melted butter, flour, and salt. Now it’s time to turn on your mixer! Fitted with the dough hook, turn your mixer on a low speed and let it knead the dough for about 5 minutes. The dough should be a little loose, but strong enough to hold onto the hook. If it’s too loose, add a bit more flour. Here is where we let it rise. Cover you dough with plastic wrap, a bowl cover, or a damp tea towel, and allow it to rise in a warm area for about an hour, until it doubles in size.
After the rise, it’s time for shaping. Dump your dough onto a floured surface, stretch and fold the corners to make a ball, then shape it into a small loaf. Place it into your loaf pan and allow it to rise until just past the top while your oven preheats. And finally, it’s time to bake! Place your loaf pan in the center rack of your oven and bake for 25-35 minutes.
And that’s it! Remove your bread from the oven and allow it to cool before slicing. I prefer to slice my loaf, put it into a gallon zip bag, and place it in the freezer. If you have made other breads before, you know that they can spoil within a few days on the counter. Freezing this loaf is great for the two of us, but a larger family may be able to go through is faster, so it can absolutely be left at room temperature for 2-3 days.
Quick Sandwich Loaf
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Dough Hook
- Plastic Wrap or Tea Towel
- Loaf Pan Can be standard or extra long
Ingredients
- 2 tsp Active Dry Yeast
- 1 cup Warm Filtered Water (100-115℉)
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 2 tsp Sugar can also use brown sugar or honey
- 1/4 cup Butter, Melted if you use salted, omit the added salt
- 3 3/4 cup Unbleached All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp Sea Salt
Instructions
- Warm your milk on the stove or in the microwave in 30 second increments. Warm the milk to 100-120℉.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the active yeast, sugar, warm water, and warm milk. Give it a small stir, and allow the yeast to bloom about 10 minutes, or until foamy.
- While the yeast is blooming, melt the butter on the stove or in the microwave and allow to cool to 100-120℉. Add the butter to the bloomed yeast mixture.
- Add 2 cups of flour and the salt to your mixer fixed with the dough hook. With the mixer on a medium-slow speed, mix until combined, about 2 minutes.
- Add the remaining 1 3/4 cups of flour and mix on medium speed until the dough is smooth and no longer sticks to the sides, about 5 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the hook, leaving it in the bowl, and cover the dough with plastic wrap, a tea towel, or a bowl cover. Allow the dough to rise about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- When your dough has doubled, Preheat your oven to 350℉. Flour a working surface, and dump your dough onto it. Stretch and shape your dough into a loaf, and add it to your loaf pan. Allow the dough to rise about 30 more minutes, or until it has reached the top of the loaf pan. You can place the dough near the oven to help the rise along.
- When the loaf has risen, bake it for 30 minutes. When it has finished baking, immediately remove it from the pan and allow it to cool completely before slicing.
Notes
If you tried this recipe, please leave a review!
If you have any questions or if you’ve made this recipe, leave a comment on this post or send me a message. I’d love to see how your own turned out! Once you’ve tried this, I guarantee, you’ll want to make more bread. Check out my staple sourdough recipe here, and start making bread for everyone you know!
