Looking for Sandwich Bread *Not Sourdough*

Does anyone have a good go-to recipe for a daily sandwich bread? We eat a TON of bread and I would love to stop buying it, but the family is not a fan of sourdough! I used the search bar and, no surprise, sourdough seems to be a common theme. We don't have a bread maker, but I am not afraid to roll up my sleeves a little. I know there are recipes online but it is hard to tell which ones are actually good and which are just clickbait.

This is our go-to bread, and we never seem to get tired of it. It is very flavourful but not super-heavy. Makes great sandwiches when fresh, and great toast after that. This is a recipe she has adapted for our breadmaker, which makes one large loaf. It can easily be done by hand, and doubled if desired.  The vital wheat gluten helps it hold together instead of being crumbly, so it works well for sandwiches.

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Mrs. Alpenstock's Whole Wheat & Seed Loaf
(~~which makes her man very happy!~~)

1-1/3 cups water (room temp.)
1-1/2 TBSP. butter
1/8 - 1/4 cup molasses (optional)
1 tsp. salt
4 to 4-1/4 cups flour: 2c. white & 2c. whole wheat (for the whole wheat portion she often uses 1c. ww and 1c. 12-grain flour)
2 TBSP. poppy seeds (optional)
4 tsp. vital wheat gluten
1-1/2 TBSP. skim milk powder
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. instant yeast
1/4 c. pumpkin seeds (for breadmaker, put in at the "add" signal from the breadmaker; by hand, put in with other ingredients at the start)

If making by hand:

In a large bowl, mix the first four ingredients together.

Combine flour, poppy and pumpkin seeds, wheat gluten, milk powder, instant yeast and sugar together. Then slowly mix into the wet ingredients.

On a lightly floured surface, knead dough for 8-10 minutes (or until it reaches the texture of an earlobe --really!)

Place in an oiled bowl and let rise (covered) for 20-30 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

Shape into two loaves and put into oiled bread pans. Let rise until doubled in size.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-35 minutes, until crust is nicely browned. The crust should sound hollow when you knock on it.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the poly-dough recipe yet. Mix it, let it raise an hour or so, and you have some fantastic bread. The recipe is versatile. Just this evening, I made an apple-cinnamon loaf, and a braided garlic-rosemary loaf from the same batch.

--> Link to Poly-Dough recipe page here at Permies.

This is my tried recipe that I used at least two hundred times.

Instant yeast   4 tablespoons
Sugar   1 teaspoon
Water   1 liter
Salt   2 teaspoons
White flour   1 kg

You can use any white flour. I'm trying to use organic having only one ingredient - wheat flour. Cheap and questionable wheat flours will also work. You can also use half of wheat and half of rye flour. Rye flour will be heavier and bread will not rise as good. The same for whole wheat.

Warm the water to make it lukewarm. Mix in yeast and sugar. After 10-15 minutes (in room temperature) the leaven should be foaming. Mix in salt and flour and stir at least for 5 minutes. The dough will be sticky and difficult to mix, but it has to be uniform.
Prepare a baking dish. Grease all inner sides of it with some saturated fat. Lard or butter work the best.
Pour the dough and leave it to rise. It has to increase its volume 2 to 3 times.

If you have some modern oven with temperature control, preheat it to 500 F. Use the shelf 1/3 from the top. Put in the bread. After 15 minutes reduce the temperature to 400 F and bake for another 45 minutes.

If you have traditional oven (brick or cob). You have to figure out the baking schedule, but always start with high heat, to set the dough and then lower temperature should be used. Heating time, oven shape, dish shape, dish position - all of them matter A LOT in traditional baking.

Bread should stay in the baking dish till completely cold. Keeping it in hot baking dish is a continuation of the baking process.

I use a version of this: except I use 2 cups sprouted spelt flour and 1 cup artisan bread flour (gives it more proof).

He also has a video making it with a "Poor Man's Dutch Oven", just two loaf pans, one inverted and secured with clips. I use both methods to make 2 loaves at the same time, one in a normal Dutch oven and the other in the Poor Man's.

Easy and healthy and absolutely delicious breads.

I also bought a bamboo bread slicing guide that works great.

1 2/3 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or light olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
4 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons instant potato flakes
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon gluten
2 teaspoons salt
21/2 teaspoons SAF yeast or 1 tablespoon bread machine
yeast

100% recommend getting a breadmaker if this is something you want to build into your routine, rather than just do occasionally. My MIL has one, and when we descend en-mass it runs every day. It takes her about 5 minutes to weigh out the ingredients and set it running.

Oh, wow! All of these have so much variety, I am so excited to get to try these out and see which ones the guys like best. I thought it would all be just slight ingredient variations, but these are really different bread types!

Michael Cox wrote:100% recommend getting a breadmaker if this is something you want to build into your routine, rather than just do occasionally. My MIL has one, and when we descend en-mass it runs every day. It takes her about 5 minutes to weigh out the ingredients and set it running.

I think a mixing machine is great.  Short of buying a bread maker they're a decent investment.

We actually just bought a breadmaker two days ago. Made our first loaf with it and it was lovely.

I spent £15 second hand from facebook market place. There were dozens on there for low prices.

I haven't tried it yet, but I understand that you can use them as a dough mixer. Just take the dough ball out at the right stage and bake it in the oven as normal.

Michael Cox wrote:We actually just bought a breadmaker two days ago. Made our first loaf with it and it was lovely.

I spent £15 second hand from facebook market place. There were dozens on there for low prices.

I haven't tried it yet, but I understand that you can use them as a dough mixer. Just take the dough ball out at the right stage and bake it in the oven as normal.

Nice tip Michael.

I'll check out facebook marketplace.

Late to the party, but I can recommend our go-to recipe "pain de mie" by Jeffrey Hamelman.
Funnily enough I can only find German versions (with metric indications of course) when I search. If you can't find an english version you can give this a try:
https://www.ploetzblog.de/rezepte/pain-de-mie/id=625ec0f6194ceb174cdd154a
(the measures are very crooked because the baker is an engineer and does not believe in "rounding numbers").
Editing to add: My recipe does have nice numbers but it looks like the original source is not online any longer.
I make a double batch of (the single recipe) 200 g bread flour, 140 g whole wheat flour, 220 g water, 40 g cream and butter each, 10 g sugar, 6 g salt, 9 g fresh yeast.

I have been making it for years and I always bake two loaves at a time because I was tired of buying bread wrapped in plastic once a week.
(And I wouldn't be me if I didn't sneak in a bit of sourdough!)

Nice to be able to control the quality of the bread ingredients.  Make sure
and freeze all your types of flour.  Vacuum packing works well for larger
quantities going into the freezer.  

I make all our bread for the family of 4 with no bread maker or mixer. I dont measure anything.

A large pile of White flour, 2 handfuls of white sugar, a palm puddle of salt, something over a cup of oil, 2 eggs, half a cupful of yeast, enough water to make a moist dough.

I mix for 5 min by hand, let rise until bowl is overflowing and then knead for 5 min. At this point I weigh our 25oz portions for a normal loaf pan. I normally make enough for 4 or 5 loafs at a time, also making bread sticks with the extra.

Kyle Hayward wrote:I use a version of this:

except I use 2 cups sprouted spelt flour and 1 cup artisan bread flour (gives it more proof).

He also has a video making it with a "Poor Man's Dutch Oven", just two loaf pans, one inverted and secured with clips. I use both methods to make 2 loaves at the same time, one in a normal Dutch oven and the other in the Poor Man's.

Easy and healthy and absolutely delicious breads.

I also bought a bamboo bread slicing guide that works great.

Can also highly recommend anything from Artisan Steve's YouTube Channel and website: [https://nokneadbreadcentral.com/technique-etc/].  I regularly make the rye bread, and Mediterranean olive, and a version of the Cinnamon with dried berries instead of raisins.  His recipes work like a charm every time.

We too got the bamboo slicing guide though find it only works well for us for the loaves shaped breads.