Sandwhich Bread

I have been looking forward to making my first real loaf of bread for the blog and the time has finally come. Last week, I hurriedly packed my bags as I was about to head down to New Mexico for a week and a half of work. Looking over my “wish list” for the blog, I wondered what baking project might fit into my travels and time in Los Alamos. I eventually decided that I would attempt a loaf of sandwich bread, practical for my lunches in the field and relatively simple ingredients to pack up and bring with me. Luckily, my company has a few corporate apartments here in town, so I am fortunate to have a kitchen at my disposal during my time here.



I had every intention of baking a hearty whole wheat loaf for my first solo bread attempt. However, another drastic difference in flour amounts recommended by the JOC resulted in a nice loaf of white bread. Most whole wheat bread recipes call for equal amounts of whole wheat and white flour. The JOC recipe says to use 5-6 total cups of flour, 3 white and 2-3 whole wheat for this particular bread. I ended up only using a total of 3 cups of flour combined with all of the other ingredients. Since I added the white flour first, it ended up being the only flour used and the recipe then only yielded one single loaf as well.

Despite all of that, my one loaf of white sandwhich bread came out really well. It has been very tasty for lunch the last few days.



Here is my revised version of the recipe.

Pre-heat the oven to 450⁰F

Combine in a saucepan and heat until melted and warm (105 - 115⁰F):
1 cup of milk (you can use also water)
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of shortening or lard
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of salt

In a separate bowl, combine and let stand until the yeast dissolves:
¼ cup of warm water (105-115⁰F)
1 package (2 ¼ teaspoons) of active dry yeast

Once the yeast has dissolved, combine with the mixture above.

Have 3-4 cups of flour ready (you can use all white or a half white/half wheat mixture)

Add about half of the flour to the liquid mixture and stir for a good while. Gradually keep adding flour until the dough is not longer too sticky and you can take it out of the bowl to knead.



Knead the dough on a solid, flat surface while continuing to add enough flour so that the dough is smooth, elastic, and doesn’t stick to your fingers. Once you are finished kneading, your dough should easily form into a smooth ball.



Place the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover, and let rise for an hour. After an hour, punch the dough down and knead again to remove air bubbles. You may need to add a little more flour at this point as well.



Once you have kneaded out all of the bubbles, form the dough into an oblong loaf and place into a lightly oiled 5”x9” loaf pan and let rise for another 45-60 minutes.

Once the dough has risen a second time, lightly oil the top of the dough and place in a pre-heated oven at 450⁰F for 10 minutes.



After the 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350⁰F and bake for an additional 30 minutes until the loaf is golden brown.



Remove the loaf immediately from the pan and let cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy!