Do you ever notice it takes a looooooong time for your store bought bread to get moldy? Store them in the fridge for more than a month and you still don’t see any mold. But why? Store bought sandwich bread contains at least 10 ingredients. They are full of ingredients that are not food, like azodicarbonamide (the same chemical in yoga mats and shoe rubber), other chemical dough conditioners, added sugars, artificial flavorings or coloring and GMOs.
Flour can be treated with many approved chemicals before it ends up on store shelves – including chemical bleach! Industrial processing destroys nutrients, such as Vitamin E and fiber. To make plain sandwich bread, you only need 4 ingredients – flour, yeast, water and salt – though I have added a little butter and coconut sugar in this recipe.
Notice that this sandwich bread is not white because I have used coconut sugar. If you prefer to have white bread, feel free to switch to organic cane sugar which has a much lighter color.
3 tablespoons (42g) unsalted butter (melted, for brushing)
Directions
In the bowl of a mixer, dissolve the yeast in 180g of the warm water, and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the remaining 630g water, sugar, salt, room temperature butter, and half of the flour. Stir to combine.
Using a dough hook and mix on low speed. Gradually add the remaining flour until the dough forms a ball and not sticky (you may not need to use all of the flour), about 7 to 10 minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and turn it over so it is completely coated. Cover with tea towel and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Turn the dough out onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently press it all over to remove air pockets in the dough. Divide the dough in two. Gently pat one of the dough into a 9×12-inch rectangle. Roll up the rectangle, starting on the short end, into a very tight cylinder. Pinch to seal the seams and the ends, tuck the ends of the roll until the bread, and place into greased 9-inch loaf pans. Do the same for the second dough. Cover the loaves loosely and and allow them to rise until doubled in size for about 30 to 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Brush the loaves with some of the melted butter. Bake the loaves for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating halfway through, until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and immediately brush with more of the melted butter. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans and cool completely before slicing.
Recipe Note
This recipe yields 2 loaves. If it is too much you can half of the ingredients. The bread can keep in room temperature up to 3-4 days depending on storage condition. You can also store it in a freezer for up to a month.
Leave a comment