Homemade Sandwich Bread

And the purpose, we're locking it in. This is my simply sandwich bread, and today I'm going to show you why this recipe works. We're going to start by proofing the yeast. And for this, you'll need some warm water, a little bit of warm milk, and I like to use whole milk or 2% milk. You can use skim milk or a non-dairy milk. And I like the balance of mostly water for structure, and then a little bit of milk, which will keep the bread soft. And then we'll do a little bit of sugar, and that's going to feed the yeast, and of course, our yeast. And I'm using instant yeast here. You can use instant or active dry. And this is a packet of yeast, 2 1⁄4 teaspoons. And let's whisk all of this together. We've got four ingredients here to start us off. And this step is called proofing the yeast. And we're basically just proving that the yeast is alive and active, and will help your dough rise when we get to that step. Because you don't want to find out later that your yeast may have been inactive or it expired without you knowing, and then your dough won't rise. So we might as well just do it right in the beginning of the recipe. And I take the time to do this step no matter which type of yeast I'm using. If I'm using active dry or instant yeast, I'll still take the few minutes to do this. So we're just going to wait about five to 10 minutes, and the surface of this mixture will be foamy and frothy, and that's how we know that the yeast is ready to go. Here's what it looks like right now. Not much happening, but we'll start to notice a foamy surface in just a few minutes. And if you don't see a foamy, frothy surface on top and nothing's happening, your yeast may be dead or expired. It's best to start over with a new packet of yeast. If you're measuring by weight, one packet of yeast, two and a quarter teaspoons is about seven grams. One of my top tips for yeast beginners is to have an instant read thermometer on hand. This will kind of take some guesswork out of the process. I took the temperature of the water and the milk that I used. You want them no hotter than 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit or anywhere in between that range. That's going to ensure that we don't kill the yeast. Too hot of a liquid is going to kill the yeast right in the beginning. And the thermometer is also helpful for determining the doneness of the bread in the oven. Once the center of the bread reads about 195 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, you know your bread is done. I always appreciate tools that kind of take the guesswork out of things, especially when I'm taking the time to make something as special as homemade bread. Perfect, that looks great. Okay, next we're going to add some butter. I cut this butter into pieces. It's four tablespoons. And this is going to give the bread just a little bit of buttery flavor and keep it a little soft, just like the milk would. And then salt for flavor, obviously. And then we've got some flour. And I'm going to start with one cup, about 130 grams of bread flour. You can use bread flour or you can use all-purpose flour in this recipe. I'm going to use my dough hook to start to bring those ingredients together. So seven ingredients, that's all you need to make this bread. We're going to add more flour. This is just a little bit to get it starting to mix. Mix this for about 30 seconds. Then I'm going to scrape down the sides of the bowl here and we'll add the same amount of flour. We're sort of adding the flour in separate additions to slowly bring these ingredients together. I'm going to add the same amount here. Perfect. And mix this just until that butter is breaking down and the ingredients are a little more combined and then we can add the rest of the flour. For this dough, you can use all-purpose flour or bread flour. I like using bread flour when I make this because it adds just a chewier texture and it makes for a really wonderful sandwich. All right, I'm going to stop and scrape down the sides so that flour can get stuck around the bowl. If you don't have a stand mixer, I recommend making this dough by hand rather than trying to use a handheld mixer. This dough can be very sticky and it's just going to keep getting caught in the beaters of your hand mixer. So stand mixer if you have it, the dough hook attachment. If you don't have a stand mixer, mix it together by hand in a big bowl with a wooden spoon or a spatula. Takes a little bit of extra arm muscle. That's good so far. Okay, and now I'm going to add the rest of the flour here. It's a little bit more than what we were using before. One tip when you're making homemade bread, think of the flour as more like a guideline and a starting point. Nine times out of 10, your dough might need a little more flour, such as if it's a humid day outside, if it's hot, maybe the brand of flour, maybe accidentally under-measuring flour or some other variation in the ingredients. I find that I usually need a little more flour and that's completely fine and normal. Again, think of it as more of a starting point. You'll know you'll need a little more flour if the dough isn't forming a sort of a mass around the dough hook and if it keeps sticking to the sides, you'll need a little more flour. So I'm going to let this mix for a little bit and we'll see if we need a little more. On the other hand, if your dough is really dry and firm and sort of falling apart, you might need a little more moisture. And if that's the case, I recommend adding about a teaspoon of warm water and that will help bring the ingredients together. And so always have a good eye on your dough during this step. We'll let this mix for a couple minutes. I know that homemade bread can be really intimidating, but once you understand the whys of each ingredient and the whys of these certain steps, hopefully that will take any fear out of it for you. And especially if you have a few handy tools like the thermometer or you know exactly which flour to use for best results, I find that really helps kind of boost confidence. And once you make it for the first time, you'll see and you'll understand that it's really not that tricky. You just need seven ingredients, little bit of time. Most of the work is hands-off as the dough rises anyway. And this is a good dough that you can make ahead when we do the first rise. You can have it rise overnight in the refrigerator if you want to break it up between two days. I probably make this recipe the most out of all of the recipes I've ever published. All of them. My family loves it. My kids love it. I love it. It's simple. It's great for sandwiches, grilled cheese, French toast. It's just such a versatile bread. And everyone loves it. The flavor is fantastic. All right, that looks good. That mixed very well. And it did actually form a mass around the dough hook. So I don't need to add any more flour at this time. If it was sticking to the sides of the bowl, then I would add a little more flour. I'm going to knead the dough now and you can keep it in the mixer to knead and just have it keep mixing. But I'm going to knead it by hand just so I can show you and you get a little more comfortable with that step. While I'm kneading it, I'll have to add a little more flour anyway, just to keep it from sticking to the surface. A couple of things out of the way. Got a little extra flour here. So the dough looks a little rough. It's not perfectly smooth. It's a little textured and that's fine. That's normal. It's going to smooth out as we knead it. Lightly flour my work surface here. I'm going to flour my hands and we're going to start to knead. And basically what I'm doing is I am just sort of pushing the dough forward a little bit in a rocking motion. This is probably one of the most important steps in the recipe. What we're doing here is we're stretching out the dough to help develop the gluten. It's going to just add some structure. It's also going to keep the dough just easier to work with when it comes to shaping. And this step takes about five to eight minutes. You'll want to knead it for five to eight minutes. Again, by hand, or you can do it using your stand mixer. But kneading dough is a common step in many bread recipes. So this is just hopefully a good visual for you if you're a beginner baker. It's nothing scary. We're just sort of working out the dough, smoothing it out. It's building strength and structure, which is just going to make the bread taste even better. With a dough like this, if you skipped the kneading part, you'll end up with bread that's flatter and stiffer and not quite as like lofty and soft. This bread has a really nice rise because we're taking the time to knead the dough. There's a big difference between kneaded bread and bread that's not kneaded. All the difference kneading will make. It's just such a big difference. This dough definitely needs to be kneaded. So I can already feel that this dough is getting softer and stretchier as I work it. That's exactly what we're looking for. Now let's check to see if this dough has been kneaded long enough. I am going to poke it with my finger. And if it slowly bounces back without sticking, I know that it's been kneaded long enough. That one didn't really stick. I'll also show you something called the windowpane test. I just cut a little piece off of the dough and I'm going to slowly stretch out this piece of dough. And if I can see light shining through it without the piece of dough tearing, then I know it's been kneaded long enough. And I can see light through it and it's not tearing. So this dough is ready to go. It's ready to rise. Now let me just put that piece of dough back in. Okay, that was great. Okay, now we're going to let it do something called bulk fermentation. And that's just when the dough rises as a whole in a bowl. As a whole in a bowl. I did not mean for that to rhyme. Okay, all right, let's grease our bowl here just to prevent any dough from sticking to it. And you can use oil or butter or nonstick spray. I'm going to grab some nonstick spray here. Place the dough inside. I'm turning the dough just to coat all sides of it. Make sure it doesn't stick. And then going to cover it. And this dough we're waiting for to double in size. And that's going to take about two hours. So we can just set it aside to do that. For a tiny reduction in rise time, use your oven. Set your oven to its lowest temperature. I'm using 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Stick your heatproof bowl inside. Okay, turn the oven off. Let it hang out there for about 30 minutes with the door open. Then you can close the oven door. And this is just going to kind of speed up the yeast activity and give you a rise in a quicker amount of time. All right, this dough is ready to go. It's doubled in size. Looks great. Going to punch it down. That releases the air. Still really fluffy. It looks perfect. And we're going to roll it out. The shaping for this sandwich bread is very simple. Lightly flour my work surface and the top of the dough. Use a rolling pin for this. And we are going to roll it out to an eight by 15 inch rectangle. And that's going to fit wonderfully inside our nine inch loaf pan. I love that this recipe, it just makes one loaf, nice and simple. That's better. I'm doing a lot. I have a few different loaves going. That's much better. Oh, that's perfect. Okay, so now I'm just going to roll this up and place it in our greased loaf pan. And I like shaping it this way because it just creates some height and helps us get a nice tall loaf. And sometimes you can see like swirls inside the bread after it's baked. Looks great. So don't overthink this one. I just rolled it up here. And rolling it this way kind of creates a little more height. It helps it rise a little taller instead of spreading out. So I like to roll it up just like that. All right. And I placed it inside of my greased loaf pan. This is a nine by five inch loaf pan. And then we're going to cover it. I like to loosely cover this one and we're going to wait for this to rise until it's about one inch above the rim of the loaf pan. And that takes about an hour. So we'll just set this aside just like we did when we did the bulk fermentation. The dough rose perfectly one inch above the pan and now we can bake it. This bread bakes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 32 to 36 minutes. About halfway through baking, let's tent the loaf because it rises really high and we don't want the top to over brown before the center can cook through. So literally just tenting it with foil. All right. Let's see if this is done. That looks perfect. Grab the thermometer again. And we're going to stick it in to the center of the loaf. And we want it to read between 195 and 200. That's how you know the bread is completely done. And we've reached it. All right, let's let this cool for just a few minutes in the pan before slicing. If you've ever had dry, flimsy or flavorless bread, this recipe will make you forget all about that. It's not just a canvas for your toppings and your sandwich fixings. It's the star itself. And it's the perfect stepping stone to getting started with bread baking. So good. So much fresher than store-bought. It's light, it's fluffy, it's soft, but it still has enough structure to make a delicious sandwich. It's incredible. Highly recommend. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you feel inspired to try a new baking recipe today. Head over to my website for the full written recipe and all of my success tips. You can also ask a question right there on the recipe page and my team and I will be happy to answer.