Honey Wheat Sandwich Loaf

I have taken the final step in eliminating unhealthy processed chemicals from my family's diet.  We've always been very clean eaters, but one thing I have wanted to master for a long time was making bread. Bread is one of those things that is laden with chemical ingredients and HFCS, and organic bread can be expensive. I used to make bread all the time, but it was never very good.  My bread machine broke a few months before moving from Iowa to Washington and I had a baby, so I stopped making bread.  For Christmas, David got me a new bread machine and I bought a baking stone, so I felt it was FINALLY time to learn to properly make bread.  I now make all my bread from scratch and it is SOOOO delicious!  This honey wheat sandwich loaf is super soft and delicious.  It is REALLY important that you use bread flour for both the white and the wheat flours as it has a higher gluten content which makes the bread less dense.

Honey Wheat Sandwich Loaf

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups white bread flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 1 cup wheat bread flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
• 2 1/2 tsp. yeast

Place the ingredients in the bread machine in the exact order listed and set to the dough cycle.  Once the dough cycle has finished, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan with cooking spray or butter.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Do a little karate chop action to punch the dough out into a rectangle - about 8 inches by 10 inches.  Roll up the rectangle tightly and fold the ends over.  Pinch the seams tightly.  This is important because otherwise you will have a hole in your loaf.  Place into the loaf pan and cover with a towel, allow to rise until doubled in size about 30 minutes.  Once doubled in size, bake the loaf 30-35 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 190  to 210 degrees (I take the temperature with my digital meat thermometer).  

Until next time, happy and HEALTHY cooking!