Two Loaf Traditional Sandwich Bread

Because Deen's original recipe called for six tablespoons of butter and a cup and a half of whole milk, I knew this was going to be a dietary "H" bomb for those of us who want to eat healthy without packing on a lot of extra calories. Also, her recipe calls for two egg yolks and an egg white; I know from experience you don't need eggs in bread dough to get a good loaf.

So I took the original recipe, made my own modifications, and succeeded in cutting those two delicious, but offending, ingredients in half.

There's some good news here too. This takes a total of three hours including two, one hour rising stages, to make this bread. Also, with my modifications, the fat content is way down and it is still a very sweet (for plain bread) and savory bread.

So you know there are two people and a dog in this household. That first standard sized loaf lasted slightly more than an hour.

I have an armed guard on the second loaf, but since I am that guard I don't trust him to keep his mitts off of it.

Yes, it is that good.

For this recipe to work well you'll need a stand mixer with a four and a half or five quart bowl, a dough hook, two medium sized mixing bowls, two bread pans, and a baking sheet.

As home made yeast breads go, the amount of time spent on this one is relatively low. Two of the three hours are rise times with the other hour devoted to mixing and baking.

The amount of honey and sugar are the same, but I'm using a third less salt than the original. Also, I'm using 1 cup of whole wheat; just enough to add some much needed protein and flavor. I am also using half the butter, which is very important to the flavor and half the egg.

With the whole wheat, butter, honey, and sugar this bread is both sweet and mildly savory. It is also better nutritionally and still has that pleasing home-baked freshness.

If I don't mind saying so, I think this is better than Deen's original recipe and that was pretty good to begin with. If you don't believe me, ask my brother and my dog. That first loaf was gone in less than two hours.

The following notes will help you cook a delightful white bread as well as explain why some of the steps are taken:

• Flour should always be sifted after weighing or after measuring
• You should always wash your hands before any step involving touching the flour or dough
• You can exceed the salt and sugar quantities, but I do not recommend it
• Covering the dough with a towel prevents airborne yeast from "infecting" the dough
• I do not recommend using bleached flour at all with this recipe
• Allowing the loaves to cool will give the bread time to firm up in the center
• Bread made with no preservatives WILL spoil; keep unconsumed bread in the fridge
• For longer term storage you can freeze bread; it will keep this way for months

Please do not use bleached four with this recipe. Higher heat is required for bleached flour and this bread will not cook properly at those higher temperatures.

By cutting the butter and egg quantities in half I've greatly reduced the "bad" calories. I've left some of the butter and all of the sugars in the mix because both of these add greatly to the mild sweetness of the bread. The sugars also kick-start the yeast. The addition of "whole wheat" flour and olive or grape-seed* oil also adds some much needed nuttiness to the flavor profile as well.

By using olive or grape-seed oil to "grease" the pans you get a nice light crispy crunch in the crust all the way around. As you can see from the pictures, this is a nice looking bread too.

The flavor and aroma are amazing if I do say myself.

* I strongly recommend grape-seed over olive oil because the former has little flavor while adding the much needed oil to the mix.