Homemade Bread Recipe

My sister Kitty wanted the recipe for this sandwich bread I make. She says it looks light and fluffy but really it's a dense bread, not really heavy but dense which is good for sandwiches. The recipe came with the bread machine back in 99, man I need a new bread machine, mine really is falling apart but I just keep hoping it will keep kickin!

This makes a 2 pound loaf of bread

2 Tlbs Sugar or 2 Tlbs Honey instead
4 Cups Bread Flour
2 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Yeast
1 ½ Cups Milk
2 Tbls Butter

My bread machine is falling apart and you can't put liquid in first because the seals are all rotted away so it leaks. So, I put in the flour and then sugar/honey and salt. I make a hole and put the yeast in that and cover it back up with flour. I put the milk in a glass measuring cup and cut the butter (which I use real butter) into small chunks into the milk and put that into the microwave on very low just to warm the milk and melt the butter. Then I pour this over the flour mixture and set the machine on dough and let it run till it's done.

Then transfer the dough into the bread pan. The size of my bread pan is 13" x 4" x 4". So, maybe because it's a bigger space then the bread machine the bread doesn't turn out so heavy? Not sure.

A couple of folks have told me that Amazon has this pan for a lot less then King Arthur Flour does. Also the bread slicer I use is a West Bend Bread Slicing Guide. I got it at Wal*Mart years ago. I have no idea if they still sell it or not. It folds in half and I'll miss it when it dies. I'm on my second one now. I see they have them on ebay. Here's a picture I got off ebay of it.

The electric knife was a gift from my Mother In Law Christmas of 99. I cut myself pretty bad with a bread knife the first time I made bread and she felt bad and got me the knife. I'm still using the same one and I use it all the time. I'm surprised that it still works! It's great for cutting the bread, it doesn't "Squish" the bread and miss-shape it.