I’m so excited by this I can hardly contain myself!
My family likes white sandwich bread. You know – the stuff they say you should never eat because it has no nutritional value? It’s white, sweet, fluffy and never goes stale (highly suspicious, I must say). Maybe it’s made of marshmallows?
For a long time I’ve been striving to achieve this result with home-made bread. I’ve tried countless recipes, wildly different methods, breadmaker, KitchenAid, oven, bread improver – no luck. It always came out heavier than I wanted. Sandwich bread should be light as a pillow!
I had all but convinced myself that milk powder was the magic ingredient. Having Little D (with his Cow’s Milk Protein allergy) in the house meant that all those recipes were off limits. Lillian inspired me with her post the other day to give it another go in the breadmaker.
I didn’t like the look of her recipe specifically, but I found another random internet recipe that had good reviews and made some alterations (I really can’t help myself).
Here’s my version:
Dairy-free White Sandwich Bread (for the breadmaker)
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons dried yeast (I use Lowan brand in a canister)
4 tablespoons rice bran oil (or other vegetable oil)
440 grams bread flour (I use Kialla Organic Unbleached Plain Flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
First put the warm water into the bread machine with the sugar and yeast. Stir it around and leave it for 10 minutes to start frothing. Add the oil, flour, yeast and salt, then bake on a setting for a normal white loaf, approximately 700grams. I chose the setting for a light-coloured crust.
The dough was far sloppier than I’m used to. I wouldn’t actually like to be kneading it by hand because it would have been quite messy. Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong.
One tip I picked up from a book is that in order to get the best texture for a loaf of bread, you need to let it cool completely before slicing. This is really hard with home-made bread, but do try to control yourself – it’s worth it. Look at the texture of the loaf – it even sliced straight!
Now we can knock ourselves out with cheap carbs on demand. All without additives or preservatives.
500m2 in Sydney 
Congratulations!
I’m really liking milling some wheat and linseeds through mine, but then my kids sound a little older than yours. So far they say they like the taste of my bread over the bought stuff! (Makes me fairly proud, it does!)
I find replacing 1/8 to 1/6 of the flour with rolled oats or oatmeal contributes to a soft texture and even crumb that’s lovely for sandwiches or toast. Don’t go overboard though – oats have no gluten so you’ll compromise rising ability if you use too much.
That’s an interesting idea Tracey. Would make it slightly nutritious too 🙂
Yay – that looks great. I am very suspcious of bought bread – I just don’t understand how it stays soft for so long, it never used to, why now? I eat it though, but I do try and get most of my bread from the Italian bakery at the end of my road whose bread is delicious and reassuringly goes stale in a day or two at the most.
well done woman! way to go. i have managed to ween my family off the white bread, so i won’t be telling them about this. but it must feel good to have done it yourself and you KNOW what the ingredients are! woohoo!
YEAH!! Well done! Now just rinse and repeat!
Thanks everyone 🙂 Once I’m happy that it’s repeatable I’ll start experimenting with adding seeds etc. Frogdancer, I really like linseeds in my bread too.
We had lovely egg sandwiches for lunch today!
I have been using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s recipe for all bread for years now and it works a treat whether you use wholemeal or white, breadmaker or oven:
500g flour + 2tsp salt mixed in well
2tsp yeast
2tsp sugar
300ml hand hot water
Good slug of olive oil or a dollop of dairy free spread (I use Nuttlex in Australia, Pure in UK)(although it’s awesomely crusty with un-pc lard – which is always dairy free!!!)
Mix water, yeast, sugar in the bread pan and leave to stand for 5mins,
Tip in the flour over the yeast mix.
Pour in the olive oil (this sometimes goes in before the flour!)
Set the breadmaker going. Go and find something else to do for 3 hours 🙂
I use this for bread, buns and pizza. I also found by accident of measurement that using just 400g of flour makes excellent focaccia – rolled out with olives on top…mmmm!
Note1: when making the dough for oven baked bread – run the dough programme, knock back, put back in the machine, after an hour knock back again, shape and put in loaf tin/on tray. Leave in a large plastic bag (close open end with a clip or something) for half an hour or so while oven heats up to 220deg. Bake for 20 minutes….. cool and scoff!
For pizza, run the dough programme only, knock back, shape into round and stand for 5-10mins; roll out to desired thickness (or divvy up into smaller pieces then roll); top, cook, scoff.
Note2: I am dairy free too, and avoid Calcium Propionate like the plague… this cuts out 90% of the bread in the supermarket, so home made is the only made.
credit: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Family Cookbook
Thanks Emma. I might give your recipe a try too. I’ve found after making this recipe 3 times now that the loaf really doesn’t age well. It gets heavier in texture/density even the next morning if you bake it in the evening.