Tastes Like Vintage: White Bread 1

Tweed lunch box by Tparty

When you’re preparing for a day of treasure hunting, it’s always good to bring along a packet of sandwiches. Let’s face it, picking and thrifting is hungry work. If your stomach is a mite peckish, it can distract you just enough that you miss a fabulous speckle glaze mid century lamp hiding in a corner. Who has the energy to look in every nook and cranny when you have lunch on the brain?

The best sandwich I ever ate was consumed while sitting at the counter of a Woolworth’s on a day out with my grandmother. We’d ridden the bus down to the shopping plaza, an event in and of itself because she knew everyone on the bus and their stories. She always made me a special dress for each of my birthdays, but today we were going to the fabric store and I was going to get to pick the fabric myself. I picked two, a peach with white swiss dots and a white with red swiss dots. Both had tiny embroidered flowers. Then we went to the Woolworth’s next door, visited the tiny turtles in their cake pan-sized pools with plastic palm trees, and sat at the counter. She ordered for both of us, egg salad with lettuce and tomato on white bread. In the forty years since, I’ve eaten a lot of sandwiches from places fancy and places where you put a napkin on the table just to be safe. No sandwich has ever come close to tasting as good.

Syracuse china Woolworth’s bread plate by TheBeetlesKnees

I still have the dresses. And although I am considered a whole wheat fanatic by certain children who know me as Mom, I still believe there is a place for a nice slice of white bread. For me, that place is on the outside of an egg salad sandwich. For you it may be somewhere else. But it has to be a nice slice of white bread. Luckily, instant yeast makes it possible to make that right at home. None of that proofing nonsense, mix it all together, let it rise and you got bread.  If you’re like me, you don’t even knead, you let the dough hook on the mixer do the job for you. But you do need a reliable recipe. Where else would one turn but The King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook (1992). If you’re interested in baking bread but would like a nice step-by-step primer, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Note: Although the directions call for proofing the yeast, it’s perfectly fine to substitute the instant.

Walter Sands’ Basic White Bread

Vintage Kaiser bread pan by TrellisVintage

2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons sugar or honey
1 tablespoon or packet active dry yeast
1/2 cup dry milk (optional)
2 tablespoons of botter, softened, or vegetable oil (or a combination)
6 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon salt (or less if desired)

Making the dough: Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl. Add and let dissolve the sugar or honey and yeast. When the yeast is bubbling, add the dry milk, softened butter, 5 1/2 cups of flour and the salt. With a large spoon, stir the mixture until it begins to hold together. Pour the remaining 1/2 cup of flour on the surface you intend to use for kneading.

Kneading: Turn the dough out onto the floured board and knead until it begins to feel as if it belongs together, about 3 to 4 minutes, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking to the board or you. Let it rest while you clean and grease your bowl. Continue kneading the relaxed dough until it feels smooth and springy, another 3 to 4 minutes.

Rising: Form the dough into a nice ball, place it in the greased bowl, turning it so the top is lightly greased also. Cover it an put it where it will be warm and cozy (no drafts). Let this rise until it has doubled (when you can poke your finger in it and the dough doesn’t spring back at you).

Shaping: Punch or knock the dough down, turn it out onto your floured board and knead out any stray bubbles. Cut it in half, form two loaves and place them in two lightly greased bread pans.

Baking: With either of the following options, the longer baking time produces a crustier bread with a slightly drier interior.

• Full rise: let the loaves rise until they are doubled (about an hour). About 15 minutes before you want to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the loaves in the preheated oven and bake 35 to 40 minutes. This method makes the lightest loaves.
• Partial rise: Let the loaves rise for only 30 to 40 minutes. Place them in a cold oven, set the temperature to 400 degrees F for 15 minutes and lower it to 350 degrees for a further 20 to 25 minutes. This second method takes a little less time from beginning to end and avoids the possibility of the bread dough rising too far and then collapsing. The bread won’t be quite as light, but it will still be very good.