I haven’t made bread in a while. No particular reason why, it just hasn’t happened. While I was waiting for the revival of my sour dough starter, I figured I would make a couple quick loaves of just plain squishy white sandwich bread. This is my son’s favorite. He loves to eat slices plain. He says they don’t need anything on them, they are that good.
I used a recipe I found on Pinterest a while ago from www.melskitchencafe.com. I know it says ”Easy Homemade French Bread” but I found it actually makes a great sandwich loaf bread. The recipe is for two french loaves so I just make two sandwich-shaped loaves instead.
The ingredients and the process
The ingredients are common bread recipe ingredients. Water, sugar, yeast, oil, salt and flour. I find that I use 5 1/2 cups of flour and that is enough to make a nice pillowy soft dough. The Ankarsrum mixer does a great job of mixing everything together for me and it’s so easy to add the flour while the mixing is happening.
Related: Why Choose an Ankarsrum Mixer over a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer
As I’ve mentioned before, when using the Ankarsrum, you start with your wet ingredients. So for this recipe, I added the water and sugar and turned the mixer on for a few seconds to help dissolve the sugar. I then turned the mixer off and sprinkled the yeast on top. I left it alone for 5 minutes to proof the yeast. Once the yeast had bubbled up, I turned the mixer on and added the last wet ingredient, oil.
Since the Ankarsrum has a wide-open top, it is so easy to add the dry ingredients. I will add half the flour required and let it mix a little, then add the salt, followed by the last of the flour. You can see the scraper arm on the left of the mixer does a great job moving the ingredients back into the middle to be mixed.
Once I’m happy that the flour is fully worked in and no dry spots remain, I set the timer function to 8 minutes and let the Ankarsrum do all the work.
The photo on the left shows how the dough is starting to pull away from the sides and after 8 minutes, you can see the dough is formed into a ball. The Ankarsrum does that!
You can leave the dough in the bowl of the Ankarsrum mixer, but I like to use my pretty Mason Cash bowls. I add a little bit of oil to the bowl and coat the dough ball. I don’t remember where I found my bowl covers, but they remind me of plastic shower caps. If I remember, I’ll update the post to say were I purchased them.
After 1 hour of proofing in a moderately warm location, the dough has doubled in size.
I lightly oil my work surface and divide the dough into two pieces. I have two different-sized loaf tins only because I didn’t think to buy two of the fancy restaurant supply tins. I should really get a second one so the loaves are the same size but for now, these work. I think they are close enough in size that it doesn’t make a difference during baking.
Flatten the dough to be about as wide as your tin then roll the dough from the short side as tightly as you can. I pinch the bottom seam and fold the ends under just so it’s a tighter log. I’m not sure why, but I remember reading that once before so I’ve just always done it.
Into one of these plastic proofing bags and back to the warm location for the second rise. It takes about an hour to double in size.
After an hour of proofing, they were ready for the oven! Since it’s sandwich bread, I don’t mark the tops with anything. They bake just as they are.
And then it happened
7 minutes into baking, the power went out. We had a storm roll through the area. Trees were down everywhere including right in front of my house. I kept the loaves in the oven with the door closed and hoped that the power would come back on, even if just long enough to finish cooking my bread. I knew it was wishful thinking, but I really really really wanted the power to come back on.
After 2 hours of waiting, I figured my bread was done for and basically just forgot about it in the oven.
18 hours later
Yes, that’s right. 18 hours later the power came back on. I pulled my loaves of bread out of the oven expecting to see a mess. I was anticipating loaves that were slightly brown on top but deflated with gooey middles. I expected to have to start all over.
Boy was I surprised!
White Sandwich Bread Loaves
They cooked. They actually cooked. The oven kept the temperature high enough and long enough to actually finish cooking the bread! I wish I hadn’t left them in the oven for 18 hours since the bottoms were a bit ”damp” from sweating in the pans. Normally, 10 minutes after they have finished baking, I take the loaves out of the pans and cool them on a wire rack. That keeps the bottoms from getting damp. But since I didn’t think these had actually cooked, I just left them in the tins.
You’ll notice the very bottom is slightly “fat” that is because the bread stayed in the tins when they were hot.
But other than the bottoms, these loaves were just like my usual bread just a bit lighter in color. They were tasty with a nice soft texture. The way white sandwich bread should be. This recipe also makes wonderful toast and….french toast! (I’ll add that recipe next. Keep an eye out for it).
If you are looking for a quick, easy, tasty white sandwich bread recipe, I highly recommend this one from melskitchencafe.com. It’s my goto every time.
Your turn. Let me know if you have ever had the power turn off while trying to bake something. What sandwich bread recipe do you use? If you happen to make this recipe, I would love if you would share your results with me over on Instagram @heidiswhatsburning.
Are you interested in sourdough bread? This is how I make Sourdough Bread every time.
