Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf - regular yeast
Now, before finding TFL I thought I knew a lot about bread baking, not so when you consider artisan style breads and sourdough starter. I am a food storage fanatic, have 4 children and haven't bought bread for probably5-6 years. Other than the occasional loaf during tax season (I am a cpa). So, this is the recipe that I use. I buy my white wheat from Montana Milling (high protien content) and grind it in my ultramill wheat grinder. Now, I am sure you could just buy wheat flour at the store, provided it has a good high protien content. Even though I feel I buy the best white wheat out there, I still add VWG.
Here is my recipe. This was before I knew about weighing my ingredients.
2 cups warm water (110-120deg)
2 T sugar
1 T active dry yeast
dissolve together,
then add
1 T salt, dissolve.
Then add 3 1/2 cups wheat flour and
1/2 cup gluten,
mix all together (I use my kitchen aid for this), let rise for 45 minutes
Then mix together (I use a 2 cup pyrex)
2/3 cup warm water,
1/2 cup brown sugar,
3-4 T safflower oil (you can use other types of oil, but this has a nutty taste that i like).
Take oil mixture and add to the yeast/flour mixture, slowly in the kitchen aid (it has a tendency to slosh out if you do it fast),
then mix in 1 egg.
Add 3 1/2 cups of wheat flour, let knead in KitchenAid until a nice dough ball forms. Let rise 45 minutes.
Punch down and divide into 3 loaves, put in greased loaf pans (I use stoneware pans from PampChef) and let rise for 90 minutes or so. Bake for 27 minutes at 350 degrees.
It is a perfect sandwich loaf. Even for peanut butter.
I am trying to adapt this recipe to my starter, haven't been entirely successful yet, as I need to propagate my starter to whole wheat, whereas I currently have a rye and a white starter going.
Comments
Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I tried it today and it was awesome! I just wanted to let you know, as we had discussed this recipe on another thread and I told you I'd let you know once I had tried it. I must admit I was reluctant to "add" things to the bread. I wanted my regular whole wheat loaf to be more about the method bringing about the great flavor rather than additions like vital wheat gluten and sugar. Well, after 4 other whole wheat sandwich loaf recipes (that I tried this past week) creating dry and crumbly sandwiches, I am convinced that vwg and "additions" like egg, sugar, etc are necessary- at least for my family's sandwiches!
My family raved about the bread! I will definitely be making this again. Tomorrow we'll put it to the test with PB & J's :-) I'm sure it'll hold up great.
Have you ever tried honey instead of the brown sugar? Just wondering if you've tried it and gotten the same result...
Also, love your icon picture- beautiful- a scene very close to my heart :-)
Thanks again!
I am so glad that you had success with my recipe. Not knowing a ton of other people that make bread to the extent that I do, I haven't had anyone try it before. My kids think it is perfect and get a little perturbed when I try to mess around and change it for one reason or another. One thing I have tried is the honey, but it has resulted in a crumbly texture. I don't know why, and maybe there is something that can fix that, but I don't know what it is.
Thanks for the compliment on the picture, yes I love it too. I have 4 kids, my two youngest are adopted black children. My youngest is in the picture with me, the birth mom let me be in the delivery room and see her come out of her tummy. They are so special to me, just as my biological children are just in a little different way. I have wanted to adopt black children since I was a child and even had a black baby dolls to go with my other dolls. Really a dream come true.
Hi Utahcpalady!
Since you gave me this recipe I have tried it many times and am still very happy with it. I've been recommending it to everyone!
I just noticed your comment above that you have been working on trying to convert this recipe to using your sourdough starter....
So funny, because I want to use my starter for everything rather than commercial yeast (many reasons). Anyway, I tried this yesterday (I used half my starter and 1/2 the amount of yeast and proofed a bit longer)- It came out okay, but not like the original.
I wondered what you have tried, and if you had come up with anything as yet. I too have a rye starter and keep a 50% hydration white sourdough starter.
Let me know if you have found anything that works!
So, last week I did convert this to sourdough and used 230 g of 100% hydration starter then just reduced the flour and water in the recipe to accommodate it. I retarded the dough over night and shaped, rose and baked it the next day. It turned out slightly sour, but the reviews from my kids were that they preferred it not sour. This bread has been a staple for over 10 years, and it is like having grandma mess with a timeless cookie recipe type of thing, I guess. So, I will just continue to make it with regular yeast, all my children let out happy sighs while eating it.
Over the past few years I have also swapped out part of the wheat for rye, red wheat (I always use hard white wheat) and some 7 grain mix. They turn out lovely. Please check out my latest blog post as I have finally perfected this recipe and removed a lot of the work from it. It turns out consistently fantastic.
Try out the final, perfected recipe and let me know what you think!
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/44055/wheat-sandwich-bread-everyday-my-5-kids-love-it