A couple years before beginning my sourdough journey, I had begun making my own freshly milled whole wheat sandwich bread. It was life giving to the guts of everyone who consumed it. There are plenty of resources you can search for that will explain the benefits of freshly milled vs. processed flours. Basically what it comes down to is when flour is processed a lot of the vitamins and fiber are stripped out of the final product. So something that traditionally was actually really good for you has now turned into the fat storing enemy. Does todays processed flour still serve a great purpose? Sure! It yields the most light and airy breads, pastries, and desserts when compared to traditional flour. But nutritionally? There is almost zero positive things for modern processed flours.
So with all of this in mind and my newly acquired love for making all things sour dough, I knew I had to find a recipe that would join the two to provide the ultimate nutritionally rich sandwich bread. I did find one recipe on the Internet, but in my own true fashion, I tweaked it a bit. So without further ado and before I loose you to my “Ted Talk” about freshly milled grains, here is the recipe.
Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- 4 cups freshly milled whole wheat flour can use store bought whole wheat flour
- 1 cup AP flour this is optional but helps with the texture
- 56 g olive oil
- 8 g salt
- 113 g active sourdough starter
- 390-450 g room temp water
- 21 g honey
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients except the water and flour to a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Add only 390g of water to the mixer.
- Adding one cup at a time, add 4 cups of the whole wheat flour to the mixer making sure to allow the flour to mix in before adding more. If the dough is in the form of a ball or pulling away from the sides, add more water in small amounts at a time. You are looking for a consistency close to thick pancake batter.
- Knead your dough for about 5-10 minutes. The dough should stick to the dough hook.
- Scrape the dough mixture into an oiled bowl with a silicone spatula and cover over night or for 12 hours in a warm place.
- Pour the dough onto a clean, AP flour dusted work surface. Sprinkle a small amount of AP flour onto the dough and lightly knead the dough into itself with a bench scraper just until the surface isn't sticky, sprinkling with more flour as needed.
- Press out the dough with your hands into a rectangle about 12" by 9" in size and then fold both short ends of the rectangle into itself (in thirds) to form a log shape. Carefully place dough onto a parchment lined (or oiled) bread pan. If your log shape is longer than your pan, you can fold the ends of the dough under itself towards the middle to create a nice clean shaped loaf.
- Allow the dough to rise for another 1-4 hours in a warm place until it has doubled in size or is just starting to come up out of the pan.
- Preheat oven to 375 then bake the bread for 40-45 minutes or just until the top has browned.