The perfect bread machine white bread {and how to keep it fresh}

I’ve gotta brag for a moment: I haven’t bought bread in over 5 months. If you know me, you know that I’m simply not a baker. I can cook, but baking is just too technical for someone like me that has problems following directions. So, the fact that I’m baking all of our bread is a really big accomplishment. And, the fact that the kids like it is a small miracle. My intro to baking started as a quest to find a decent sandwich bread that I could make in the bread machine, and I just wasn’t finding anything awesome and the kids were very disappointed with the results. I wanted our weekly loaf to be soft enough that it would make a good sandwich loaf, but also dense enough so that it didn’t just fall apart when you spread peanut butter on it or sliced it thin.

So, using the handwritten notes of my grandmother scribbled in the margins of the bread machine cookbook she gave me, I decided to modify the recipe we liked the best using a little trial and error and a lot of help from grandma. Thanks, grandma!Admittedly, there was quite a bit of error, but it was actually kind of fun trying out different ingredients and measurements. While doing this process I was really glad I was using the bread maker, as it took me out as a variable and made it easy to pinpoint ingredient and measurement changes because the process was so uniform.

When we finally hit on the perfect recipe, we were high-fiving in the kitchen as we enjoyed our now-famous loaf fresh out of the bread machine. The kids have now memorized the recipe and can basically do every step of the process, they just wait for me to plug it in and set it on the correct bread setting and loaf size.

So now instead of having to run to the store last minute or deal with throwing away tons of bread we never ended up eating, the kids just make bread as we need it. It’s cheaper than buying, it’s so much better tasting, and it’s something that I can do with them that helps get them involved in household chores.

After making this recipe for months, we’ve now started modifying it now and again, exchanging honey for white sugar, mixing in wheat flour {using 1/3 wheat and 2/3 white flour}, and we’re going to venture into the world of milling our own flour in the very near future. Wish us luck!

Here is our recipe that you can modify and tailor to your family’s needs:
Note: the image size is 5×7 so you can click on it and save it to your computer and then print it out to tape it to your bread maker. You’re welcome 🙂

How to store your perfect bread loaf

After baking so much over the past few months, I’ve tried quite a few methods for storing the bread to keep it fresh. The easiest route is to wrap the still-warm bread in a tea towel and then put that in a plastic bag. This will keep the loaf moist and sealed so it will stay fresh for days. But, if you’re like me and hate the idea of throwing away a whole bunch of plastic baggies, you should definitely buy this amazing Progressive bread box for homemade bread on Amazon. I absolutely love this bread box. So much so that I own two of them and have bought others as gifts for friends that I know bake their own bread, muffins, cookies, and cakes. It’s expandable, it has a super handy mini cutting board inside, and it has adjustable venting so you can twist the dials to vent moisture for certain items or keep it inside for others. It’s seriously the best. There is also the pro version of the Progressive bread box for homemade bread, which looks like it works almost identical but the front flips open and you can use that as a cutting board. I’m going to leave you with a picture of a sandwich made with this bread, just because.