Graham's Brown Bread
With the new office job, I find myself making more pan breads, perfect for a sandwich to take to the office. I have tried many a recipe, ended up building from my Vienna Bread recipe's formula, replacing ingredients, and tweaking percentages around. I finally landed on this bread, exactly what I wanted in a brown bread. This bread makes for great sandwich bread, toasted and dipped in runny eggs in the morning, made into toast points for spreads, and with cheeses for mid-day snack on the weekends. The use of a yeast instead of sourdough, along with all of the whole grains in the preferment helps a clean wheat flavor come though as the major flavor in the bread
Graham's Brown Bread:
Preferment (~12 hours):
- 100g Water
- 100g Graham Flour
- 20g Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour
- Pinch of Instant Dry Yeast
Final Dough:
- All of the Preferment
- 130g Water (Warm)
- 40g Egg (Save the rest for egg wash)
- 20g Lard (If you're scared of lard, use shortening)
- 5g Mollasas (Blackstrap, if a ligher grade is used, add a little more)
- 15g Golden Syrup (Honey will do)
- 250g Strong Flour (I use Central Milling Type 70)
- 15g Potato Flour
- 6g Salt
Method:
- Mix Preferment about 12 hours before final dough.
- Stir in Water, Egg and Sugars together until homogenous
- Mix in Flour, Fat, and Salt until shaggy dough is formed
- Rest for 20 mins, kneed until gluten is well developed
- Bulk ferment for 2 hours, folding ever half hour.
- Shape, place in greased tin (scaled for 4x8)
- Proof until 3-4 inches above sides of tin, apply egg wash as needed to keep top from drying
- Bake in pre-heated 400F oven for about 20-25 mins, or until top reaches a dark chestnut color
- Remove from tin as soon as possible, cool on rack completely before slicing.
Hope you enjoy this bread as much as I do!