White Sandwich Bread

I love making home made bread for our sandwiches! For years I thought about trying to make bread but assumed it involved a ton of work and I didn't have time for that. I was pleased to find out that I was wrong and its super simple!!! Just a few ingredients, some mixing and lots of letting the dough rise and you have fresh baked bread for your family and a delicious smelling home. This recipe takes me about two and a half hours to make BUT don't get discouraged! Two of those hours is letting the dough rise while you do other stuff around the house. Got to love multitasking!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Teaspoon- Dry active yeast

6 Tablespoons- Warm water

2 Tablespoons- Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoon- Salt

1 1/2 Tablespoons- Unsalted butter, room temp.

1 1/3 Cups- Additional warm water

5 Cups- Flour

2 Tablespoons- Butter, melted

Directions:

- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine yeast and 6 tablespoons of warm water, let sit for 5 minutes. 

- Add the sugar, salt, butter, and additional warm water. Mix to combine.

- Slowly add 5 cups of flour, mixing on low speed until smooth. You might need more flour.

- At this point switch to your dough hook attachment and kneed for 10 minutes adding more flour as needed. I prefer to kneed by hand.

- Once your dough is done, form dough into a ball and put it back into the now greased mixing bowl. - Cover with a dish towel and let rise for 1 hour.

- Once the dough has doubled in size punch it down with one punch of your fist right in the center. 

- On a floured surface roll dough into a 12x12 inch square.

- Starting from one edge of the rolled out dough roll the dough towards the opposite edge. Like a pinwheel cookie or cinnamon rolls.

- Once the dough is tightly rolled up pinch the seam that was created tightly closed.

- Tuck/ fold both ends of the roll over, creating a loaf that is the same length as your loaf pan.

- Grease your pan and place the dough inside tucking the folded ends under the loaf. Cover with a dish towel and let rest for 1 hour.

- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

- Bake bread for 15 minutes, then cover with foil and bake for an additional 15minutes.

- Remove loaf from the oven to a cooling rack and brush with melted butter.

Let cool and ENJOY!