Dinner on the Porch: Homemade Light Wheat Sandwich Bread

This bread was not supposed to be the next recipe I shared but it sort of happened out of necessity. When I stopped for groceries on my way home from work on Wednesday, the new fancy smanshy Whole Foods that is 2.7 miles from my house, did not have the wheat bread I normally buy for Bobby. They had about 10 different varieties of the brand but somehow not the one that I buy. And he doesn’t like a lot of “stuff” in/on his bread like oats, seeds, too many grains, so that pretty much eliminates 95 percent of the breads sold by Whole Foods. Just some simple wheat bread (or light wheat in the case of this homemade bread) and he’s good.

So, I decided that I’d make some homemade sandwich bread – a recipe I’ve already made several times and it is very simple and very good. One of the coolest things about this recipe is there are only 8 ingredients and that’s counting the water AND I can pronounce everyone of them. This is also another great use for a Kitchenaid stand mixer (I should be getting some sort of kick-back from them with as often as I mention that mixer). The dough comes together remarkably simply – most of the time for this recipe is just waiting for it to rise. So if you have 20 minutes this weekend, you can make this bread.

I've included quite a few pictures because I want to show all the steps and what the dough should look like. It's not difficult at all and goes very quickly - except for the waiting for the dough to proof part... but you can be doing other things so this is a great recipe for the multi-tasker, which I of course know nothing about...

*I weigh the ingredients when making bread recipes. I have a Taylor digital scale I think I bought at Tarjay that I use all of the time - so it's well worth having a scale for baking. I've put the weights in parentheses. *

Light Wheat Sandwich Bread

from The Bread Baker's Apprentice

2 ½ cups (11.25 oz.) bread flour

1 ½ cups (6.75 oz.) whole-wheat flour

1 ½ tablespoons (.75 oz.) granulated sugar or honey (I used sugar this time)

1 ½ teaspoons (.38 oz.) salt

3 tablespoons (1 oz.) powdered milk (I actually used goat milk powder because it’s what I had on hand)

1 ½ teaspoons (.17 oz.) instant yeast

2 tablespoons (1 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 ¼ cups (10 oz.) water, at room temperature

1. Weigh and/or measure all dry ingredients and place in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until ingredients are well combined. Add the butter, water and honey (if you are using instead of sugar) and mix on low until the ingredients form a rough ball and all the bits of flour have come together. If needed, add a few dribbles of additional water to make sure all of the flour has come up off the bottom of the bowl.

2. Switch out the paddle attachment for the dough hook and mix/knead on medium for 6 minutes. The dough should become firm, supple and smooth – slightly tacky but not sticky. Add more flour, a little at time, if needed. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow the bread to rise at room temperature for 1 ½ to 2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.

3. Remove the dough from the bowl and press it by hand into a rectangle 3/4 inch thick, 6 inches wide, and 8 to 10 inches long. Roll it into a loaf by working from the short side of the dough, rolling up the length of the dough one section at a time, pinching the inside crease with each rotation. Pinch the final seam closed and place the loaf, seam side down, in a lightly oiled 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch bread pan. The ends of the loaf should touch the end of the pan to ensure an even rise. Mist the top with spray oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap.

4. Proof (let rise) at room temperature for approximately 60 to 90 minutes or until the dough crests above the lip of the pan. Mine proofed in 60 minutes...

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack in the middle shelf.

6. Place the bread pan on a sheet pan and bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue baking for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on your oven. The finished loaf should register 190 degrees in the center, be golden brown on the top and sides, and sound hollow when thumped on the top.

7. When the bread is finished baking, remove it immediately from the loaf pan and cool it on a rack for at least 1 hour, preferably 2 hours (that's actually funny - you'll never make it to 2 hours), before slicing and serving.