Pepperidge Farm White Bread

This is my adaptation of Pepperidge Farm White Bread Copycat from 1950. There are a few ingredient substitutions, and my recipe makes one 1½ pound loaf in a 9-inch Pullman pan with lid.

Ingredients

  • 183g (¾ cup) whole milk divided
  • 7g (2¼ teaspoon) active dry yeast
  • 6g (1 teaspoon) table salt
  • 28g (2 tablespoons) butter
  • 13g (1 tablespoon) oil light olive oil works well
  • 90g (⅜ cup) warm water
  • 32g (2 tablespoons) honey
  • 10g (1 tablespoon) granulated white sugar
  • 205g (1½ cups) all-purpose flour
  • 205g (1½ cups) bread flour

Instructions

  1. Heat 60g (¼ cup) milk until lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in milk. Let stand 10 minutes.
  2. Scald remaining milk; pour over salt, butter, and oil in large mixing bowl.
  3. Add warm water and allow mixture to cool to lukewarm.
  4. Add honey, sugar, and dissolved yeast.
  5. Add flour, beating vigorously with wooden spoon, until dough forms a ball. (Or knead in stand mixer for 6-8 minutes.)
  6. Turn out on a well-floured board. Knead vigorously until dough is elastic. (I kneaded about 30 times even after kneading in the stand mixer, just to bring the dough together and get a sense of its elasticity.) Place dough in a lightly greased bowl (I placed the dough back into the bowl of the stand mixer).
  7. Cover, and set in a warm place until doubled in bulk. This took about 1 hour for me, in the oven with the light on.
  8. Place dough on floured board. Shape loaf by degassing the dough and patting it into a rectangle just a bit shorter than the width of the Pullman pan. Then roll quite tightly, and pinch seam to close.
  9. Place in greased Pullman pan, seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap (not with the Pullman pan lid); let loaf rise in pan until near the top. This took about 20-30 minutes for me.
  10. Bake on rack 2 in preheated 375°F oven for 30 minutes with the lid on. Remove lid and bake for about 5 more minutes.
  11. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. Rest 5 minutes in pan, then turn out the loaf onto the cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Notes

5 May 2022: First attempt came out great! I made substitutions to the original recipe, such as using light olive oil instead of shortening, and using granulated white sugar instead of the cane sugar syrup the original recipe called for. I also used a 50/50 mix of all-purpose and bread flour rather than all bread flour, as the King Arthur flour I use is quite high in protein already.

24 March 2023: I made this today with a few modifications. I used salted butter, and reduced the salt to 4g. Next time I will reduce the salt further or eliminate it entirely. I used 12g sugar and 42g honey to make it slightly sweeter. The first rise took 1 hour, and the second rise (after shaping) took 32 minutes. Baked 29 minutes with the lid on, and then 4 minutes with the lid off. Next time, we will try using one egg in place of some or all of the water.

18 February 2024: Made as in the instructions above. Second rise took 40 minutes. Did 29 minute bake with lid, removed lid and rotated pan, 4 minute bake without lid. Removed from pan immediately.

2 March 2024: Same as above, with a 35-minute second rise. Removed from pan immediately.

15 June 2024: First rise, 1 hour in the oven; turned the light on for only the last 20 minutes because it was a warm day. Second rise took 40 minutes. Did 29 minute bake with lid, removed lid and rotated pan, 4½ minute bake without lid. Removed from pan immediately.

13 October 2024: Second rise took 36 minutes; baked 29 minutes lid, removed lid and rotated pan, baked 4 minutes without lid. Removed from pan immediately.

5 November 2024: Second rise took 34 minutes; all else as above.

16 November 2024: This time, I finally tried adding an egg in with the water (the egg was about 53g, so I added 37g of water to total 90g, as specified). I also put the salt, butter, oil, honey, and sugar in the mixing bowl at once, so I could have it all ready while proofing the yeast and scalding the milk. This worked out just fine. The first rise took about 1 hour in the oven with the light on, as usual, and the second rise took 34 minutes (it nearly reached the lid, so I could have shortened this rise by a minute or two). Also, after immediately removing the loaf from the pan after baking, I immediately spread salted butter over the top. This was also very tasty and helped to soften the crust.