Another attempt for making sandwich bread

Thank you for all your nice comments about my attempt to make sandwich bread the other day. Your nice words encouraged and motivated me to try baking another one :-) So here it is. My another attempt on making sandwich bread.

This time, I tried not to knead too much because I heard it is not good for the dough to knead too much. And it happens sometimes when you use stand mixer for kneading.

This is how it looked after I kneaded with stand mixer. It still looks not smooth. I am not sure what to do to make it smoother.

After the second rise, I roll the dough out and put it in the pan. It looks much smoother here.

After baking for 30mins.

It looks better than last time, doesn't it?

It tasted really good. This time I reduced the amount of sugar. My husband liked having freshly baked bread with apricot preserve.

Over all, I am pretty happy with what came out. It is not perfect but It is definitely better than the last attempt. I still think that the dough is too hard and not smooth. It is does not rise too much when I bake.

I reduced the time of kneading this time but I started to think that maybe it is better to knead it with hand (even though it is a lot more work..) because I made bread last summer (Click here for that post)  and I knead it with my hand that time and the dough was smoother and softer. Well, I guess it also depends on weather and temperature and all these environmental issues which I have to take into account also.

I also used bread flour but maybe I will use regular flour next time.

Also, some people told me about Cool rise bread which you rise the dough in your fridge over night or so. I think this is great because you can make the dough, put it in the fridge and bake it in the morning.
Another method I learned is that you can also rise the dough in microwave. This method is super fast and easy. I should definitely try those two methods also.

I still have a lot to learn about bread making and I am willing to try many times until I perfect it :-)

Thank you for all your nice words! My attempt for becoming a better baker will continue....

I also want to make pita bread because I borrowed Middle eastern cook book so it will be great if I can learn how to make pita bread and eat it with falafel or hummus. (Those are also my husband favorite :-)