Perfect White Sandwich Bread Machine Bread

I would consider my husband to be one of the worlds most avid bread eaters. Between his toast at breakfast, sandwich at lunch, bread as a side at dinner and late night garlic toast addiction I've seen him consume a full loaf in a day! ONE DAY! How on earth he stays so thin is beyond me! Seriously everytime I see health blogs about bread making you fat I want to submit a picture of my husband with the caption "lawyered!" 

I like to switch it up with various types of breads like wheat, pesto, sundried tomato, cheese, pumpernickel, etc. and he loves everyone of them but everytime I ask him what kind he wants he answers with a resounding, "white bread!!" 

White bread. While in the past I've found it mildly offensive to hear people yell "white bread" at me (oh dear sweet ghetto high school of mine) I now find hearing "white bread" drums up my ego. 

I know what you're thinking. White bread is bland simple and plain, but oh my you are wrong. Joe is picky about his white bread! It has to be a certain size, density-uniform medium sized pockets on the inside (not super bubbly and not super dense), soft crust, not too salty, not to sweet, etc etc etc. 

So after almost a year of making bread both by hand and by bread machine I have finally created the most perfect bread recipe. I promise, look no further than this post, you have arrived at the bread machine recipe to beat ALL bread recipes ever... Even handmade because, really, who under the age of 80 has time for that?!

So what makes this recipe so perfect you ask?! Non-fat milk. Yes skim milk. I know, I know, half of you are disgusted and the other half are thinking, "yay low fat." There is a reason for this beyond nutrition. Moisture and texture. I tried several recipes that simply called for milk. When I used whole milk the bread was heavy. Even with extra yeast and salt it would LOOK perfect and taste great but the "walls" of the little inner bubbles were just too chewy. Then if I didn't keep it in the fridge it would smell sour within a day. I tried low fat milk and the flavor was still there minus the quick spoil but still too chewy. Lastly, I tried non-fat. It was perfect. 

In regards to salt, I use kosher salt. In my opinion It makes most every food taste better because the granules are large enough that they don't break down too easily... Seriously try it in cookies! Mmmmm salty-sweet! 

White Sandwich Bread for bread machines

Ingredients:

1 1/8 Cup warm NON-FAT Milk. Only non-fat. Read above if you don't believe me. 

2 1/2 TBSP Unsalted Butter

1 TBSP Kosher Salt, disolved into the milk

2 TBSP Sugar

3 Cups Bread Flour

1 1/2 tsp Bread Machine Yeast

Mix according to your machines directions. My cuisinart calls for wet ingredients first, next dry ingredients and last of all the yeast. The only exception to any machines directions is that you must dissolve the salt into the non-fat milk for this recipe! Otherwise you risk a random salt chunk in your bread. 

Enjoy.