Best Homemade White Bread

This is a heritage homemade white bread recipe built for an old-fashioned all-day bake. Five pounds of flour, a quart of milk, a stick of butter, five eggs, and a quarter pound of yeast turn out five or six tender, deeply golden loaves with a fine crumb and the kind of soft sandwich crust your grandmother probably remembered.

What makes this loaf different from a basic lean bread is the enrichment: scalded milk, melted butter, and beaten eggs all soften the gluten and produce that pillowy texture you can press a thumb into. The teaspoons of vanilla extract are a quiet trick, they don’t make the bread taste of vanilla, but they round out the dairy and yeast notes into something warm and comforting.

Scalding the milk matters. Milk has whey proteins that weaken gluten if left raw, so heating it just below a boil and then cooling deactivates them. Skip that step and your loaves come out denser.

Pro Tips

• Cool the scalded milk to lukewarm before mixing. Hot milk will kill the yeast on contact.
• Let the dough rise three times: bulk, after punching down, and again in the pans. Each rise develops flavor and texture.
• Knead until the dough peels cleanly off your hands. Underkneaded enriched dough produces dense bread.
• Tap the bottom of a baked loaf. A hollow sound means it’s done; a dull thud means it needs a few more minutes.

Variations

• Brush the tops with melted butter the moment they come out of the oven for a soft, glossy crust.
• Substitute half the white flour with whole wheat for a heartier sandwich loaf.
• Shape one or two of the loaves into rolls or knots before the final proof for dinner-size portions.