Wonder Bread: Wherein I wake up in the middle of the night wondering if I was supposed to put sugar in the dough

"...what Wonder Bread, in its soul, really always wanted to be!"

I love a soft, creamy white sandwich bread to put honey on at breakfast. And I adore the smell of this bread (Beranbaum's basic white sandwich bread) when it first comes out of the oven.

The softness and fine crumb come from butter and dried milk in the dough. But my mother-in-law didn't have any dried milk, so I did all sorts of calculations to substitute skim in its place. First I calculated the volume of milk the called-for amount of dried milk would produce. Then I calculated the weight of that volume of milk. And finally, I subtracted that weight from the combined weights of the dried milk and the water to adjust the amount of water for the liquid in the milk. After I had done all this, I found that Beranbaum had done all that for me. I only needed to read the recipe all the way through. Oh well, it was good to confirm my calculations.

I also used King Arthur all-purpose flour instead of bread flour to contribute to a finer crumb. And King Arthur's bread flour would result in a loaf that would be too chewy for this bread.

The recipe made two loaves, which I baked in loaf pans on a stone. I rubbed the tops with butter upon removing them from the oven. Yum!

I made this in the late evening, too late to cut into that night. In the middle of the night, I woke up wondering if I was supposed to put sugar in the dough. Nope.




- Bob

Location:Troy, NY