Add 2 cups of the flour, dry milk, sugar, butter, yeast, and salt to the body of a stand mixer. With the hook attachment, mix it around just to combine for a few turns.
Add the water and mix to combine.
On slow speed, begin to add the flour a little at a time until you come to 5 cups of flour. Place the mixer on medium-high speed, the dough should clean the sides of the bowl after a couple of minutes. If it doesn’t, add a little flour at a time until it does, up to ½ cup more flour.
Continue to mix/knead the dough on medium-high speed for 10 minutes. The dough will be smooth and elastic. Spray the dough with a little cooking spray and roll it around in the bowl, so it is lightly coated. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place in your house for about 1 hour.
Take off the plastic wrap and punch the dough down in the bowl to release the air bubbles.
Lightly flour a clean work surface. Knead the dough a few times by hand to get any additional air bubbles out, about 1 minute.
Spray 2 9x5-inch loaf pans with cooking spray.
Divide the dough into two even pieces.
With your hands, roll them out into a log.
Place each log into a prepared baking pan.
No need to cover the dough again. Let them rise until doubled in size, about 30-45 minutes.
While they are doing the second rise, preheat the oven to 400°F.
Once doubled, make a slit down the center of the bread if desired. Place the loaves into the oven and immediately lower the temperature of the oven to 350°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown.
If desired, immediately brush the bread with the optional melted butter. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes.
Take out of the pans and cool on a wire rack completely.
Notes
You can use bread flour for this recipe, swap it out 1:1 with the all-purpose.
Make sure that when you are mixing the sides of your bowl is clean, this is essential.
Make sure you are using active dry yeast. It should say it right on the packet. One packet has exactly 2 1/4 teaspoons which is what we need for this recipe.
You will want your water to be between 110-115 degrees F.
This bread can be frozen, see above on how to do that.