OK, I call this whole wheat bread, but it isn’t made with all whole wheat flour. I tried that, and the bread was fine, but just a little too hearty (and healthy) for my taste. However, I did provide the recipe at the bottom of this post for those of you who are purists. But be advised, the 100% whole wheat bread is not for the faint of heart. But it will certainly help you towards your whole wheat badge from the local chapter of the “Indigenous Granola Eaters of America” food club. So there’s always that to consider! But back to this recipe.
First thing I need to admit is that I gave up looking for whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread recipes on the internet. Just plain couldn’t find any recipes that matched what I was looking for. So, being the stubborn pig-headed baker that I am, I winged it based on the 100% whole wheat recipe you find below. And believe me, any resemblance in the recipe for this bread you find below, to what I had originally written out, is mere coincidence. Nothing I assumed would happen, did. Every failure I thought I had created, wasn’t. The final product, that I had prepared myself to throw in the garbage, didn’t get tossed. The bread was actually really good.
The crumb was perfect for sandwiches. The crust was crunchy and would stand up to being stuffed into a sandwich bag. And toasted, then slathered with peanut butter and jam – well just plain yummy. Enough whole wheat and sourdough flavor to bring happiness in every bite. And although the dough required an overnight rise, the required steps to be performed the next day were very easy to accomplish. So all in all – I’m very pleased and will be making this bread for years to come.
If nothing else, this pandemic has forced me to bake bread on a full time basis. And I am truly looking forward to building our daily bread for as long as I can scoop flour out of a container and turn my KitchenAid mixer on go.
So to all my fellow bread bakers, I suggest you make this simple bread for your family. And as always – peace, love, and happy thoughts coming your way from Chez Carr.
1 c. sourdough starter discard, room temperature
1 c. slightly warm water
2 T. honey
2 tsp. molasses
2 T. unsalted butter, room temperature (in other words, very soft)
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 c. whole wheat flour
2-2½ c. unbleached all-purpose flour
Mix room temperature sourdough starter discard, water, honey, molasses, butter, and salt together in the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the whole wheat flour and mix with your dough hook. Add enough of the all-purpose flour until the dough doesn’t stick to the side of mixer bowl but much of it remain stuck to the bottom of the mixing bowl. The dough should be a little tacky, but not sticky. (You won’t be able to roll this dough into a ball like you would with most bread doughs. It will not keep a shape. It’s a very soft dough.) Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough sit for 12-18 hours.
Punch down the dough, then scoop it into a lightly greased 9×5-inch loaf pan. Pat the dough into the corners of the pan and as flat as possible. Cover with plastic wrap that has been lightly greased. Allow to rise for about 1 hour. About 30 minutes before you are ready to bake the bread, pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
Bake for about 40 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. Remove from the oven and carefully turn out onto a rack to cool completely before slicing.
Note: There is a lot of information about sourdough starters on line these days. Great information, but some of it paints a sourdough starter as just a little too precious for me to handle. I’m of the KISS principle. (Keep It Simple Sister) Especially since I only use my starter 2 or 3 times a week. I consider a sourdough starter as simply an ingredient, not an honored guest in my home. Yes it must be fed regularly because it contains living fungus – Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (At least my starter does, because I used active dry yeast to start my starter.) But feeding it twice daily as some references would suggest? Not this kid. Plus I insist that I be able to use my sourdough starter any old time I want, regardless of whether it has been recently “fed” or has happily been residing in my refrigerator as discard for the last 7 days! So most of my recipes are based on a very liquidy starter that has come straight from the fridge. In this recipe however, please let the un-fed starter (discard) come to room temperature before adding additional ingredients.
Because there is so much I don’t know about sourdough starters, I have adopted the following simple rules as the guideline for my own recipes:
When a recipe calls for fed sourdough starter, it means flour and water have been added to my existing sourdough starter within the last 12-18 hours and the starter has been left to sit at room temperature overnight.
A recipe that calls for sourdough discard means the sourdough starter has been languishing in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours after being fed and has gotten quite liquidy. It looks weak and dormant, with maybe a bit of liquid floating on top.
If my recipes don’t specify FED or DISCARD, it just means that you will need to adjust the amount of flour you use proportional to how thick or thin your starter is to begin with. Always start with smaller amounts of flour than listed and add flour as needed.
SOURDOUGH WHOLE WHEAT SANDWICH BREAD (no added yeast) – from the holycowvegan.net site
1 c. sourdough starter discard
1 c. slightly warm water
2 tsp. molasses
2½-3 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
vegetable oil
Place the sourdough starter discard in the bowl of your stand mixer, along with the water, molasses, and 1 cup of the whole wheat flour. Mix well, cover, and let stand overnight.
The next morning, add the salt, vinegar, and 1 cup of flour. Using your dough hook, mix in enough additional flour to produce a dough that feels sticky, but doesn’t really stick to the sides of the bowl. Continue kneading for about 5 more minutes. You want a supple, smooth ball of dough that’s not too firm.
Pour a little of the vegetable oil into the bowl. Using your hands, roll the dough into a ball that is lightly coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for two hours or until doubled.
Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan. When the dough is ready, punch it down, shape, and place it in the prepared pan. (To shape the dough, tuck about a third of the dough under from the right, then tuck another third under from the left, and then tuck in both ends. Then gently pat/finesse the dough into the corners. The dough is basically flat at this point.)
Cover the dough loosely with a light weight tea towel and let rise for two hours. About 30 minutes before you are ready to bake the bread, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.
Remove from oven and carefully turn out onto a rack to cool completely before slicing.