Sandwich Bread

To those of you who have been wanting to know how to make the white sandwich bread that I showed a couple of days ago;  I have some good news and some bad news.  First the good news: you can make this in a bread machine (well, the dough part, at least).  Yay!  I love to make bread dough in my machine.  Just throw everything in and forget about it til the beeper rings two hours later.  (Then I put it in a pan and bake it in the regular oven.  It turns out much better that way.  Or I make rolls. Or braid it.  Whatever strikes my fancy.)

The bad news is that you need a pan like this:

It’s called a pullman pan or pain de mie pan. I got mine from King Arthur Flour ($35, but that’s about what 15 loaves of bread would cost, so it’s a good investment if you’ll actually make bread), but you can get one for a few dollars cheaper on Amazon (plus free super saver shipping! Also, the lid is sold separately, so don’t forget it!)

Here’s the recipe (this is the King Arthur recipe, but I tweaked it a little because I thought their version was a smidge bland). It calls for potato flour, which you can often find by the specialty flours in the baking aisle.  If not, just replace with regular flour. (This recipe doesn’t work in a regular bread pan, and a regular bread recipe is not right for this kind of pan.  Sorry!)

2/3 cup (5 3/8 ounces) milk
1 cup (8 ounces) water
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) butter
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup (1 1/8 ounces) nonfat dry milk
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) potato flour 
4 3/4 cups (20 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast (or rapid rise)

Bread Machine Method: Place all of the ingredients into the pan of your machine, program the machine for Manual or Dough, and press Start. When the cycle is finished, remove the dough and proceed as follows. 

Mixer Method: Combine the ingredients as above, using a flat beater paddle or beaters, then switch to the dough hook(s) and knead for 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket, cover the bowl or bucket, and allow the dough to rise till doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours. 

Manual Method: In a large bowl, combine the milk, water, butter, salt and sugar. Add the dried milk, flours and yeast, stirring till the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands, and knead it for 5 to 8 minutes, or until it’s smooth and supple. Because of the relatively high fat content of this dough, it’s a real pleasure to work with. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket, cover the bowl or bucket, and allow the dough to rise till puffy though not necessarily doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen. 

Lightly grease a 13 x 4-inch pain de mie pan. Transfer the risen dough to a lightly greased work surface, shape it into a 13-inch log, and fit it into the pan. Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise until it’s just below the lip of the pan at the highest point, 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the warmth of your kitchen (it may rise even more slowly in a cool kitchen; don’t worry, this long rise will give it great flavor). 

Remove the plastic, and carefully place the cover on the pan, let it rest an additional 10 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, carefully remove the lid, and return the bread to the oven to bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, or until it tests done; an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center will register 190°F. Remove the bread from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely. Yield: 1 loaf.

| Filed under Recipes

11 thoughts on “Sandwich Bread

  1. So does your bread that you bake actually look like the one in the photo, Jennie? Be honest. Or better yet, post a picture. Not that I'm planning to make my own. I'm just curious. Although if you have an amazing picture of bread you've done, I just might.

  2. Obviously, I'm a bit behind on reading your blog, as I discovered your picture from a recent post of this lovely bread. So did you use the King Arthur flour for yours or did you grind your own? Do I need to buy some of their flour that you're always touting or can I grind me own? That pan is cool.

  3. WOW! I've never seen a pan like this before. I love it! Thanks for sharing. My children would LOVE it if I made white bread 🙂

  4. Thank you Jennie! I make bread quite often and love white bread the best! I will put this to good use!

    Off to buy a pan at amazon!

  5. Am I the only one who could count on one hand the times I've made bread? It looks like a heck of a lot of work for one loaf of bread. (Unless of course you have a bread maker…) The pan is cool though…

  6. I really want to try this. Mostly because I want to see if Big Daddy likes it. I despise Granny Sicamore's (ever since I smelled it while morning sick with Daphne) and would love to replace it with something else. If he liked this bread and it actually worked for sandwiches, I'd be sold.

  7. Does this pan work for making a similar wheat bread that is like store bought sandwich bread? if so, can you share a recipe?

  8. Man, is that a lot of work for one lousy (or delicious) loaf of bread! But then, you are nothing if not a fanatically expert cook.

    Tell your friends that if they would like to know how to make EASY bread, to ask you for Grandma-Hildegard's no-kneed recipe which is delicious, and turns out right every time, especially with home ground wheat flour.

    (Grandma Hildegard is the Austrian mother of Lorie Hildegard, who is the mother of Jennie Hildegard, who is the mother of India Jane Hildegard. Each of them is the first-born girl in their generation of the family. Cool! Grandma Hildegard had 10 children, and cooked gigantic, nutritious meals on less than a shoestring and her husband's yearly-shot deer, bottled and spiced.)

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