Our go to sandwich bread! It’s super easy to make and a real crowd favorite. You might want to double our recipe and make two loaves, because they don’t last long, at least not in our household.
INGREDIENTS
BY WEIGHT
500 Grams Flour (AP or Bread)
320 Grams Water at around 110°F
32 Grams Honey (Or Sugar)
30 Grams Oil (Any will do)
10 Grams Salt
6 Grams Active Dry Yeast
BY VOLUME
4 Cups Flour (AP or Bread)
1 1/4 Cups Water at around 110°F
2 Tbsp Honey (Or Sugar)
2 Tbsp Oil (Any will do)
1/2 Tbsp Grams Salt
2 Tsp Active Dry Yeast
PROCESS
Bloom Yeast
- Combine Water, Honey, and Yeast and let bloom for 5 min.
Mix / Knead
- After 5 min, combine the bloomed yeast, water, and honey in a large mixing bowl with flour and salt.
- Mix by hand or with a spatula until everything is incorporated.
- Add oil to the dough and mix until incorporated.
- Dump the dough out onto a non-floured work surface (if you need to flour your surface, don’t sweat it) and knead the dough for 5-10 min. It will get really sticky, but with enough kneading, it will turn smooth and become less sticky. Pro tip: If you are about 10 min in and it’s still a hot sticky mess, form it into a ball and let it sit for a minute or two. This should help the surface of the dough dry a little and let the yeast work in your favor a bit. Try kneading again and it should come together nicely.
1-1.5 Hour Rest
- Cover with a towel, plastic wrap, or a big bowl and let rest at room temp for 1 hour. Check to see if the dough has at least doubled in size. It should be puffy. If it isn’t quite puffy enough, let it go another 15 minutes. Check and repeat as often as needed. However, it shouldn’t take longer than 1.5 hours unless your house is quite cold.
Punch/Shape/Proof
- Once your dough is ready, knock down all of the air inside and dump out onto a lightly floured surface.
- Flatten out your dough into a rectangle and shape by starting an envelope fold and finishing with rolling into a loaf.
- Place in a lightly greased bread tin, cover, and proof for 1-1.5 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 400°F about 45 minutes into your proof.
Bake / Cool
- Your dough is done when it is poking up above your bread tin, depending on the size of your tin, 8.5″ vs 9″, it should be 1 to 2″ above the top of your pan. It will also be quite puffy at this stage.
- Place your pan in the center of your oven and let bake for 15 min at 400°F.
- Remove after 15 min and generously oil the top of your bread.
- Reduce oven heat to 350°F and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- Remove and oil the top of your bread one more time (optional for an extra soft top) and let rest for at least an hour, our until mostly cool.
