Description
Don't let the name fool you; this isn't your standard, soulless, supermarket variety of white bread. This recipe will yield you 2 loaves of real white bread that works great for toast, sandwiches or stuffing. It's also a great base recipe to which you can add any number of flavors to take your bread to the next level.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Place milk and butter in a medium sized sauce pot and bring to a simmer. Allow to cool to 110°F/43°C.
- Combine flour and milk/butter mixture in a stand mixer and mix with dough hook attachment for 3 minutes on speed # 2.
- Allow to autolyse (rest in mixing bowl), for 15 minutes.
- Add yeast, sugar, salt and mix for another 3 minutes on speed # 2.
- Form dough into a ball, place in a bowl sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let bulk ferment in warm area for about 2 hours or until doubled in volume.
- After bulk fermentation, turn out dough on lightly floured work surface and degass by gently pressing down on the dough.
- Divide dough into two equal portions (a scale is the most accurate method) and form into loaf. (See notes section for forming technique).
- Place each loaf into a standard 9" bread pan preped with non-stick spray, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1-2 hours.
- Pre-heat oven to 375°F/190°C, (or 350°F/175°C if using a convection oven).
- Mix together egg yolks using a fork or a whisk and brush the top of the bread using a pastry brush.
- Score loaf lengthwise with a sharp knife or razor directly down the center and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the top of the bread is a dark golden brown and the internal temperature of the bread registers 195°F/90°C using a probe thermometer.
- Remove bread from pan and allow to cool on a wire rack at room temperature for at least one hour before slicing.
Notes
Forming Technique
To form dough into loafs, press divided dough into a rectangle that is 9" long and about 5" wide. Fold the bottom edge of the dough into the center of the rectangle and press down to create a crease. Repeat for the top edge. Take both new top and bottom edge and pinch together forming a seem running down the length of the loaf. Place formed loaf seem side down in bread pan and proof.
There are 6 Comments
forming and variation
This bread is fantastic and my kids are now craving the crust vice asking me to cut it off like they did with store bought bread. I'm a decent home cook but have not done much baking. I think I am doing the forming technique wrong. Sorry for such a basic question but by "top edge" and "top edge" do you mean with the dough lying 5" wide? Can you also briefly explain why the mild/butter needs to be simmered?
Finally, how can I add some variation? For example, cheddar bread etc for this recipe?
Thanks so much.
For forming the bread, watch
For forming the bread, watch this video on how I form the European Style Brown Bread. The forming technique in the video is exactly the same as the one you would use for this recipe.
The milk and butter are simmered together because that's how I've always done this recipe, but you can just as easily melt the butter in your microwave and add the milk cold. It really doesn't make that big of a difference.
For variations, simply add the cheese or other ingredients during the mixing process. Another great variation is to roll the dough (for one loaf) into a 5X10" square. Smear with a generous amount of room temperature butter, sprinkle with a good amount of ground cinnamon and sugar, roll up the dough and bake as usual. You will end up with a cinnamon and sugar swirl loaf that is great for breakfast and makes an amazing French toast. You can even add some raisins to the mix.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Thanks for the feed back and
Thanks for the feed back and the info on the variation. I always love hearing when people take a base recipe like this, switch it up and make it their own. Welcome to Stella Culinary. Hope to see you around the forums.
To make this a multigrain
To make this a multigrain loaf, I would replace 20% of the flour weight with multigrain flour. Anything more than 20% and the bread will become dense. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would start here and work your way up if you want to add more latter. So for this particular recipe you would use 190g multigrain flour and 760g All Purpose or Bread flour.
The milk is there mainly for it's flavor and fat content, which along with the butter, helps to shorten gluten strands, giving you a more tender texture that is usually associated with sandwich bread. I don't see why you couldn't swap the milk for another liquid, but you'll need to keep the butter if you want to achieve a proper texture.
If you're new to baking this style of bread, I would recommend making one batch without changing anything just so you can get a feel for the dough consistency during mixing, proofing, and after baking. Then when experimenting with swapping out ingredients, you'll have a better idea of how each ingredient is effecting the final product.
Let me know how it turns out, or if you have any more questions.
Jacob