Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I was thumbing through my most recent King Arthur mail catalog last night when I saw this recipe Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. Instead of starting the 99 million other things I have to do today, I procrastinated by whipping up a loaf. It's very easy if you have a Kitchen Aid or other stand mixer. I've only tasted the heel (I love the heel!), but it seems like pretty nice, soft, basic sandwich bread to me. Would make a good PBJ, I think.

KAF has a similar recipe online.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
13 oz. lukewarm water
2 T. butter
1.5 tsp. salt
2 T. sugar
2.5 oz. nonfat dry milk
10.5 oz. white whole wheat flour
4.5 oz. traditional whole wheat flour
2 tsp. instant yeast

Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer and mix until you've made a smooth, fairly stiff, but not dry, dough**. Place it in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl and allow it to rise for 60-90 minutes. It won't have doubled in size, but should feel puffy when you squeeze it.

Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan. Gently shape the dough into a smooth log. There's no need to punch it down, just stretch and round it to fit the pan. Place it in the pan, smooth side up, cover the pan, and allow the loaf to rise for about 30-45 minutes, till it crowns over the rim of the pan by an inch or so. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until center registers 190 degrees. Remove from pan and cool on a rack.

**After kneading forever, I finally added more flour to get it to clear the sides of the KitchenAid. But the instructions do say to "reduce the water by 2 tablespoons if you're baking this bread in the summer, when there's more humidity in the air" so maybe that's what I should have done. Who knows, maybe February in Texas is like July in Vermont.