Homemade Sandwich Bread in the Oven from Machine Dough

I have a bread machine and I love making homemade bread. Who doesn't? It's cheap, tastes delicious, is cheap, and you know exactly what is in it. The downside to bread machine bread is that it can only be the shape of the machine insert. Mine is slightly rectangle but the bread turns out very tall because of the rising. I finally decided I wanted to try out making the dough in the machine, then baking it in the oven.

The manual that came with my machine does not talk about this process at all, and the only "dough" recipe in it is for rolls. I have made them before and they are good, but I imagine that simple sandwich bread should taste a bit different. I did some searching on the internet for techniques of baking bread machine dough in the oven and saw that they were all generally the same. So I pieced a few things together and came out with a winner!

Sandwich Bread Dough:

1c warm water

1 1/2 tbs soft butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbs powdered milk

3 tbs sugar

3c flour (I used all purpose)

3/4 tsp fast-acting yeast

Place ingredients in bread machine in the order listed with yeast being last. Start machine on "dough" cycle (mine is 1 1/2hrs). When it is done, remove dough with floured hands and knead for a few minutes. Place in large greased loaf pan and cover. Place in warm spot to rise for 1hr. It should about double in size. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then gently remove from pan and cool completely before slicing/storing.

 

Mine turned out perfectly and tastes so good! I was able to get about 18 nice thin slices from mine and they held together very well. This is the perfect shape I was looking for!