White Sandwich Bread

I know, I know you can buy bread for 50p from the supermarket… but what if I told you this is even cheaper & 100% tastier. Would you try it?

One of the things I enjoy making is bread. I owned a bread maker about 10 years ago but it wasn’t great and the bread never really had any lift and it all tasted a bit flavourless and the texture was dense. I have to admit, it really put me off making bread for a while as it just didn’t taste great. Breadmakers have moved on tremendously since then. I did buy another and its perfect for filling up at night, setting the timer and fresh bread is ready in the morning but i still don’t think it comes out as well as when it is baked in the oven. I am not sure if its because there isn’t a second rise or if there is and its just not long enough.

Over lockdown I have joined a lot of baking and cooking groups on Facebook for inspiration and ideas. A couple of weeks ago I followed a thread about pullman loaf tins. I had never heard of one before so did a bit of investigating. They are basically loaf tins with a lid so you can either make sandwich bread or a more traditional loaf. I did a bit more research and low and behold one was on next day delivery.

Now here is a little fail I will share with you. This morning all excited i opened the tin, greased it, baked it and let it cool as per the instructions that came with the tin. The listing stated it was a 450g loaf tin, stupidly even after reading some of the reviews I presumed it would only need half of the ingredients from a standard 900g loaf (the reviews even said it required around 450g of flour)… what came out of the oven was a bit of an epic fail… although delicious it was tiny… very tiny. My actual sole purpose of making this loaf was that our dinner this evening is going to be fish, chips and peas and what is better than a scrummy fresh piece of bread with butter to make a chip butty. I think its safe to say that would not be happening with this loaf!

So I tried again… I doubled the ingredients back to a standard 900g loaf and away i went. Well… what came out can only be described as perfection. OK not perfection that is probably a step too far but I was amazed. My bread actually came out looking like a shop bought loaf. Something that has never happened before.

Now bread making can be time consuming if you don’t have a breadmaker but its not impossible to do, you can always prove in the refrigerator over night so that you can remove and bake in the morning.

Recipe – 14 Slices – Cost Per Loaf £0.39 – Cost Per Slice £0.03

300ml Warm Water
15g Butter – £0.09
500g Strong White Bread Flour – £0.20
1 Tsp Sugar – £0.01
1 Tsp Salt – £0.01
7g Instant Yeast – £0.08

Breadmaker / Oven

1) Add ingredients as above order into breadmaker pan. Remeber to keep the yeast separate from the sugar and salt in a small indent on top of the flour. Switch to dough setting and begin cycle.

2) Once the machine has finished the cycle, remove the dough from the pan and put into pre greased loaf tin. Punch down and leave to rise for a further 45 minutes.

3) Place loaf tin in 180 celcius preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove from tin and leave to cool on wire rack.

By Hand / Mixer / Oven

1) Add the flour and butter into a large bowl. Rub butter into flour until the butter has been mixed into the flour and resembles crumbs.

2) Add the sugar, salt and yeast, water and mix. Remember to keep the yeast separate from the salt and sugar in a small indent on top of the flour.

3) Once the dough has started to form, turn onto a lightly floured surface and begin the kneading process.

4) Knead for 10 minutes. Alternatively if you have a stand mixer or hand mixer with a dough attachment, knead for 5.

5) Grease a mixing bowl with some olive oil and place the dough mixture in the bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave it to rise until it has doubled in size.

6) Punch the dough down. Remove and place into a pre greased loaf tin. Cover again and leave for 45 minutes until the loaf has risen again.

7) Place loaf tin in 180 celcius preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove from tin and leave to cool on wire rack.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog. If so please give me a like on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and don’t forget to sign up on our contact us page for updates to the blog.

• Instagram Link
• Facebook Link
• Twitter Link
• WordPress Link