Homemade White Sandwich Bread

I have tweaked this recipe around from multiple different recipes and this variation is my favorite, by far! Just ask anyone. They'll tell you my bread recipe rocks your socks off.

Marlana's White Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

• 2 envelopes yeast (or 4 1/2 tsp if you use the jar)
• 2 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 6-7 cups all purpose flour

Directions

• Sprinkle yeast over warm water
• Add honey, butter, and salt; whisk until yeast is dissolved. Let stand until foamy (5-10 min)

Yeast and ingredients mixed.

Foamy appearance.

• Add 3 cups flour, mix until incorporated and mostly smooth (with spatula or on low speed with mixer)
  
• Add 3 more cups of flour, mix until incorporated
• **Make sure your dough stays slightly sticky, but not so sticky it keep sticking to your fingers
• Lightly flour your surface to knead. Again, you want just enough flour on the dough and your surface to make sure it doesn’t stick to your hands. If it still feels too sticky, slowly add in the remaining cup of flour (just a little at a time).
  
• Begin kneading until smooth and elastic.
• Kneading 101, if you need help kneading: begin at the outer edge of the dough, and fold it over closest to you, and then push away from you. Quarter turn and repeat. Knead dough about 6-8 minutes. Your dough is kneaded enough when you push your finger 1/4 inch in and it rises back up.
  Push away from you with bothpalms of your hand (I have one here because I was taking the photo!)
• Fold in to your body. Quarter turn and repeat.
• Spray your bowl with Pam or lightly grease with butter. Place kneaded dough ball into bowl, and let rise until doubled in size. It helps to put in a warm place and cover with a hand towel.
  In light greased bowl.At least doubled in size. You know your dough has risen enough when you push your finger in and the imprint stays.
• After bread has risen, punch it down, take out of bowl and knead out a couple more times.
• If using 2 pans ( 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 ), divide dough in half now, and grease pans (use Pam or Pam w/ flour)
• Press or roll out dough roughly to a square or rectangle, and roll up (like a jelly roll)
  If you need to, bring in reinforcements.
  Rolled out, rectangular, apx the size of the pan.
  Begin rolling up dough.
  Rolled dough.
• To help reduce the “seams” at the bottom, pinch them together. Pull each side of the bread from top to bottom (pinch sides and the bottom) to make the “heel” of each side of the bread.
  Seams pinched together.
  Heel created.
• Let rise in the pan until doubled in size.
  Rising this much left me a nice high loaf… lots of bread! You’ll see at the end of this post. If you’d like your bread smaller, don’t let it rise as much.
• Put in oven heated to 400 degrees for 20-30 min. The bread is done when you (use oven mitts!) flip your bread out of the pan, tap on the bottom with the heavy end of a butter knife, and it makes a hallow tapping sound.
• Let cool on wire rack. (One more tip, it is best to use a serrated bread knife to cut your loaf.)
  

ENJOY!

FOR THE PRINTABLE VERSION OF THIS RECIPE, CLICK HERE!

Want a video to go with this post? Or are the photos enough? If you’d like a video for any of the steps (such as kneading, or how to tell if your dough has risen enough, etc), please let me know and I’ll make a video to add!