Use these 3 ingredients for SOFT whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread

usually when people talk about whole wheat sandwich bread they usually add a little bit of white flour to make it soft and fluffy this 100 whole wheat sandwich bread doesn't have any white flour in it whatsoever it's made from sourdough instead of commercial yeast and i use three special ingredients to get a soft and delicious texture that i know you're going to love let me show you how to make it to start off this recipe the night before you want to make bread stir together 25 grams of sourdough starter with 50 grams of water and add in 50 grams of whole wheat flour this feeding will leave you with 100 grams of starter for your recipe and about 25 grams of leftover starter stir everything together so there aren't really any dry bits of flour remaining then tamp down the starter so that there isn't anything on the sides and mark the top of the starter with the rubber band so you can see how much it grows overnight after about eight hours it should basically double in size so let your starter sit out overnight on the counter at room temperature and by the morning it should look something like this doubled maybe even tripled in size depending on the activity level of your starter a lot of people use the float test to test if a starter is ready to use all you really have to know is if your starter rises your bread will rise so this one's ready to use there are three ingredients in this recipe that are going to make this whole wheat bread a lot softer the first one of those is buttermilk buttermilk is going to add a silkiness and a smoothness to the dough as well as a slight tang just like with buttermilk pancakes if you can't find fermented buttermilk where you live just use regular whole milk and you'll get a close result without the tang honey will obviously add a little bit of sweetness to the dough but it will also retain moisture sugar retains moisture in the dough so that'll help the bread stay softer for longer the last enrichment i'm using is butter butter will keep the dough softer for longer as well maintaining a little extra moisture in the dough over time a standard bread with flour water salt and sourdough starter will be great but these three ingredients will take the sandwich bread to the next level making for an extra soft sourdough sandwich bread when your starter is ready to use go ahead and pour in 175 grams of water to a mixing bowl then add 175 grams of buttermilk i'm using equal parts buttermilk and water in this recipe so the buttermilk isn't too overpowering next up is the honey just add 20 grams of honey to the wet ingredients again this will not only add a little bit of sweet flavor but it'll add softness to the dough then add 10 grams of salt salt is essential for bread and then add 100 grams of your active whole wheat sourdough starter if you didn't make a separate whole wheat starter for this recipe you can use a white starter if you want the bread will turn out fine it just won't technically be 100 whole wheat it'll have a little bit of white flour in there as well stir together those ingredients to combine i just like to mix up the starter until it's incorporated with the liquid and then add 450 grams of your whole wheat flour oops i added too much i was living dangerously not pre-measuring my ingredients once everything's in the bowl go ahead and stir it together just so it forms a nice cohesive mass some would call this a shaggy dough when it all comes together looking like this now is the time when i like to add the butter once the dough has come together but it's not needed yet go ahead and add 57 grams of softened butter in clumps to the dough like this that's half of a us stick and yes i chose 57 grams because it is exactly half of a us stick and it's easy just mix together with a spoon so the butter incorporates into the dough a little bit and then tip out your dough onto the counter and you're ready to knead you could definitely need this in a stand mixer for about six to eight minutes on medium speed but i chose to knead by hand today because it's not that hard and sometimes i do enjoy the process of hand kneading you're just gonna need this on your counter for about eight to ten minutes be sure to not add any flour to the counter you don't need any extra flour soaking into this dough just keep kneading and eventually that dough is gonna pick up all the excess bits of flour on the counter you can even use a bench scraper like this if you want to clean up the counter from time to time this dough is very manageable and with just about 10 minutes of kneading you're going to get a dough that looks something like this at the 10 minute mark your dough should be relatively smooth just kind of pull it into a tight ball of dough like this with your hands then cover it up and let it rest for 10 minutes on the counter we're gonna check for the gluten development in just a second ten minutes later the gluten in the dough will have relaxed a little bit and we can give the dough a proper window pane test to check how well the gluten is developed just stretch out the edge of the dough with your hands like this you're basically trying to stretch the dough thin enough so that you can see through it before it starts to rip see there the dough tore a little bit but because you can see my fingers through the membrane of the dough before the dough starts to tear that means the window pane test is passed and we can start bulk fermentation roll up the dough into a ball again like this then i like to move my dough to a clean glass bowl for bulk fermentation or the first rise that way i can see how much the dough is growing inside of the glass bowl without having to open it i'm going to grease the sides of this bowl with some butter since i had that butter left over i'm going to use that instead of the oil that i normally use because it just seemed fitting once your bowl is well lubricated go ahead and transfer your dough in with the smooth side up and i'm just going to press down on this dough to make it flat that way i can clearly see how much it's growing as it rises over time cover up the dough with the lid and as this dough is rising you're not quite looking for it to double in size but you're looking for it to grow to about maybe 1.75 times its original size so almost doubled in size but not quite there when my dough rises to this point i'll know it's ready to shape i'm moving my dough to a warm spot in my house the best spot i can find is my microwave i boiled a cup of water so now it's nice and steamy in there and i'm just gonna shut this dough in with that cup of boiling water i'm gonna let it ferment for about four to six hours until it's grown to the proper size and just to be sure i marked the top of the dough with a marker just to be sure how far it's growing four and a half hours later my dough finally reached the height that i wanted to be at and so now it's ready to shape at this point your dough should also feel light to the touch puffy and full of air i've made this recipe specifically to be shaped for a loaf pan like this so an oval shape but first i'm going to pre-shape the dough into a ball that's going to give it some extra structure and if you're doubling this recipe the pre-shape step will be extra helpful you can just divide the dough into two equal parts and shape each one into a ball that's going to make them look more uniform later when you shape them into an oval so for right now just cup and pull the dough with your hands like this forming it into a tight ball of dough if there are any big puffy bubbles in the dough you can slap them and get rid of those bubbles the big bubbles will become too big and unmanageable later so once you've got your ball of dough just sprinkle the top with a little bit of that whole wheat flour you're using for this recipe cover it up and let it rest for about 20 to 30 minutes on the counter at room temperature 30 minutes later my dough is perfectly round and relaxed so i'm gonna shape this into an oval perfect for my loaf pan if you don't feel sticky on top now is a good time to add more flour on top of the dough but mine feels pretty good like it won't stick to the counter so just flip it over so now the sticky side is facing up and the smooth drier side is on the bottom flatten the dough with your fingertips and pull it into a square shape like this then you're going to take one third of the dough and fold it over the middle third pressing it down a little bit to close the seam then take the other third and fold it over the middle third as well then you're going to tuck and roll the dough a bunch of times into itself rolling it into a cylinder or a tube shape like this and you can kind of tap in the sides to make it look a little bit prettier and then transfer the dough seam side down smooth side up into your loaf pan and you don't have to do this but i'm pressing down the sides with my bench scraper just so the dough fits nicely into the loaf pan notice that i shaped the loaf a little bit short it doesn't quite fill the edges of the pan but as the dough rises it will fill the rest of the pan don't worry about that if you've got the same thing going on now just cover up the dough and let it rest at room temperature and proof for two to four hours or until roughly doubled in size later about a half hour before your bread is ready to bake preheat your oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit and put a metal pan on the bottom rack of the oven you're going to use that for a steam tray later so after two hours of proofing this is what my dough looked like you can see it filled out the pan where there were those gaps in the pan before now it's completely filled the pan a good way to know if your bread is ready to bake is with the poke test just poke your bread with your finger a little bit the indent from your finger should fill in slowly and still leave a little bit of mark in the dough that's how you know your dough still has a little bit of room left to grow and it's the perfect time to bake i actually probably should have left my dough to proof a little bit longer maybe a half hour or an hour longer i'll show you why i think that in just a little bit when i bake this bread something happens that shows me it had a little bit of room left to grow i should have pushed it a little bit more when your dough is ready to bake open up the oven and pour in a kettle or a pot of boiling water into that steam tray you're definitely going to want to use a metal pan instead of a glass one i made that mistake a couple years ago i'll never make the mistake again the glass will shatter everywhere so use a metal pan for your steam tray fill the tray with boiling water that's going to fill your oven with steam creating the perfect environment to give your bread a bakery quality crust pop your bread into the middle rack of the oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 450 degrees fahrenheit 20 minutes later check on your bread pull the steam tray out because we don't need the steam anymore then turn your bread around so that it bakes evenly on each side and as i do you can see the reason why i think i should have proofed my bread a little bit longer you see how it busted open here on the sides that means it had quite a bit more room to grow and since i didn't score the sandwich bread which i almost never do it busted open along that side of the pan if i would have let it proof a little bit longer i could avoided that ripping in the oven lesson learned for next time now bake your bread for another 20 minutes but lower the temperature to 400 degrees fahrenheit 20 minutes later your bread should look something like this pop it out of your pan onto a wire rack to cool i'm always talking about this pan i feel like a broken record but get one of these non-stick pans i will include a link in the description the bread pops out every time i don't have to grease it with anything let your bread cool for an hour before you slice into it or else you'll have a steamy mess on your hands so let it cool for an hour once it's cool go ahead and slice into your bread and enjoy a slice of your hard work i'm going to cut into the middle of this loaf and show you just how soft it is on the inside even though this bread has a closed crumb like most enriched sandwich loaves do this bread is anything but dense my knife cuts straight through it it's soft and airy on the inside when i pull it apart here you can see just how tender it is it's super soft and easy to pull apart it bounces back when you give it a few squeezes like this not dense at all and even though it's tender it's still a little bit flexible maybe it's not bendable like a frankenloaf from the supermarket but that's not what we're looking for anyway with a nice slather of butter on top this whole grain sourdough bread was the perfect mix of wholesome and indulgent which reminds me when this came out of the oven it smelled so nutty and delicious that my wife thought i was baking cookies she might have been a little disappointed but i wasn't cause i knew that meant this bread was gonna taste amazing if you like to make sourdough bread but don't like the overly complicated process involved with many recipes check out the other recipes on my channel i know you really like them and let me know in the comments what you think of this soft whole grain sourdough sandwich bread

Channel: Grant Bakes

Views: 31,015

Keywords: sourdough sandwich bread, souirdough bread, whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread, whole wheat bread

Id: 6b3t6GVr2gk

Length: 11min 5sec (665 seconds)

Published: Tue May 24 2022