Best Sandwich Bread At Home

It's a well known fact. Homemade bread mostly is bad. It's crubly, dry, and is missing the great texture we all love from store bought bread.

Well if you are like me and don't like most homemade bread, this recipe is for you. This healthy (yes, it really is) bread has the light fluffy texture of store bought bread with all the freshness you love of homemade bread. Once you try it you will never buy bread again for sandwich.

Ingredients

3 cups warm water
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast or 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast
1/3 cup honey
5 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon salt
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast, and 1/3 cup honey.
2. Add 5 cups white bread flour, and stir to combine.
3. Let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly. Be careful though, this can bubble over your bowl.
4. Mix in 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1/3 cup honey, and salt.
5. Stir in 2-3 cups whole wheat flour.
6. Flour a flat surface and knead with whole wheat flour until not real sticky - just pulling away from the counter, but still sticky to touch. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the surface of the dough. Cover with a dishtowel.
7. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about an hour.
8. Punch down, and divide into 2-3 loaves.
9. Place in greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans, and allow to rise until dough has topped the pans by one inch. If you want taller bread, just do two loaves, if you're ok with bread that isn't as tall as store bought bread go with 3 loaves. Make sure when you divide it up you don't stretch it out longer than your pan. You want the dough to rise to the size of the pan, if it's already longer or wider you'll get un-pretty bread, it'll still taste good though.
10. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 25 minutes; do not overbake.
11. Lightly brush the tops of loaves with 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine when done to prevent crust from getting hard. Cool completely.

Now if you are craving something sweeter follow the steps above except after it has risen roll it out. Again, make sure you don't make it longer than the width of your pan, but roll it out long. Then brush the dough with about 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Then make a simple cinnamon mixture of about 1 tablespoon white sugar, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Just make it taste good to you. Sprinkle that over the dough covered with butter. Roll up the dough and place in the pan to finish rising. A great treat!



I should also say that you can freeze this bread. Since homemade bread will only stay fresh for about 5 days it's a good idea to freeze your extra loafs. Simply pull it out of the freezer and let it thaw overnight to eat the next day.