White Sandwich Bread

You have no idea how much sandwich bread my kids consume in a week! I should take on some stock, that's how much. I thought that I could start making my own bread and save some money. I'm thinking the amount of work there is, the $1.29 loaf suits us just fine. But here is my bread making adventure anyway!

If you don't have a Classic Batter bowl from The Pampered Chef you should! It's awesome!

White Sandwich Bread:

4 Cups flour
1 1/2 cups barely warm water
1 1/2 tsp active dry east
1 teaspoon salt

Put flour in your mixers bowl. Pour in the water. Sprinkle yeast over the water and let it sit for 10 minutes. Mix the ingredients, add the salt, and mix some more.
Knead by hand or food processor...
Knead with a stand mixer (which is what I did) Fit the dough hook on mixer. Mix for 2 min. to moisten the flour. Cover with a moist towel or plastic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes. Knead the dough on med speed for about 7 minutes or until dough is smooth. Dough should slap against sides of bowl.

Fermentation:
Cover the dough with plastic wrap or moist towel. Leave the dough for about 2 hours at warm room temperature for the fastest rise, or first for 30 minutes at room temp then overnight in the fridge for the slowest.

Shaping: punch down the dough and shape it into a loaf.

Proofing: Cover with oiled plastic and let rise in a warm place for 1 to 3 hours, until doubled in volume.

Baking: Preheat oven to 425. Place sheet pan on the floor of the oven or on the bottom rack and pour in enough hot water to come about 1/3 inch up the side of the sheet pan. Slide loaf onto an oven rack over the pan of water immediately spray the oven walls with water; wait for 30 seconds, then spray again. Try not to open the oven all the way, you don't want to let the heat out.
Bake to an internal temp of 205. Let the bread cool on a cake rack.

My bread days are not over, I may try a different recipe and see if it's faster.

Recipe: Baking by James Peterson