WHY BAKING A SOURDOUGH SANDWICH BREAD
We have some different opinions about bread in my family,
especially when it comes to sourdough bread. I love a very crunchy crust with lots of colors. If some small part is black, I don’t mind.
My daughter agrees with me.
But the rest of the family members are not so impressed.
Can’t you bake a bread that’s not so damn hard to chew?
I have got that question many times, and I know what they want.
They want bread with a soft crust and a tight but not dense crumb.
They want a sandwich bread that tastes like sourdough bread.
I already have two other recipes for sandwich bread in my repertoire.
There is one with sesame oil and cheese, and one with wheat and a hint of rye flour.
But the first one is a hybrid bread. For a hybrid bread, you use both a sourdough starter and commercial yeast. Nothing wrong with that. This is still my favorite sandwich bread.
But it’s not a 100% sourdough bread.
The second one is more of an experimental bread.
I tried to bake a loaf of sourdough bread as quickly as possible. It was an interesting experiment, but not optimal if you want a tasty bread.
So perhaps the second half of my family was right. Perhaps it was about time to bake a decent sourdough sandwich bread.
SOURDOUGH SANDWICH BREAD WITH WHOLE WHEAT
But sandwich bread made entirely with white flour is so boring, so I decided to bake a sourdough sandwich bread with whole wheat and some spelt flour.
A sandwich bread shall have a quite tight and soft, but at the same time, airy crumb. It shall under no circumstances be dense. But there should be no big holes in it if you ask me.
Adding fat will help you to get that tight crumb. I prefer to use butter, but if you prefer to use oil instead, feel free to do so.
ABOUT INGREDIENTS IN THIS RECIPE
When mixing the levain, I used my wheat starter with 100% hydration.
The hydration of the final dough is 74%.
There is quite a lot of levain in this recipe, and there is a reason for that. This dough is enriched, and enriched doughs tend to ferment slower.
Therefore I want to speed up the fermenting process by adding some extra levain.
MIXING THE LEVAIN
I mixed the levain late in the evening before I went to bed. I used a ratio of 1:2:2, which means 1 part sourdough starter, 2 parts flour, and 2 parts water. My kitchen is quite cold during wintertime, so it’s not a problem to let it ferment overnight. I also used very cold water to slow down the fermentation process a bit.
MIXING THE DOUGH
Adding butter to a dough by hand is always a pain. Even if it’s not that much as in this recipe. Using a dough mixer makes it a lot easier.
However, not everybody has a dough mixer, so I’m always trying to mix the dough by hand. And the reason is I want to check that it can be done with a reasonable amount of effort.
It was not that hard with this dough. I mean, 20 grams is not that much.
Use a cheese slicer to cut thin slices of butter. They will soften in no time.
Most of the time, I let the dough autolyse, but not this time. Remember what I said about slower fermentation with enriched dough?
I wanted to start the fermentation process a quickly as possible.
I mixed all the ingredients except the butter. The main thing was to get all the flour hydrated.
After one hour rest, I started to mix in the butter. I added a small amount of butter to the dough and performed stretch and folds until it was totally incorporated. Then I added some more butter and repeated the process until all butter was mixed into the dough.
There are two benefits to this approach.
- The one hour rest makes the somewhat sticky dough easier to handle when mixing in the butter.
- You add strength to the dough with all that stretching and folding.
The dough strength is not crucial in this recipe as the final proofing will occur in a bread pan. But I always prefer a dough that tends to rise upwards than floating out to the sides.
BULK FERMENTATION
As I had already added strength to the dough, I did not perform many stretches and folds during bulk fermentation. I could feel that the dough started to make resistance, so I only performed one set.
The total time for bulk fermentation was about 5 hours, at a temperature of 81ºF/27ºC.
You can see in the picture below that the dough has created gas bubbles, and it has a slightly domed surface.
That’s a good sign.
PRESHAPE BENCH REST AND FINAL SHAPE
I almost always preshape the dough. When I dump out the dough on the working surface after bulk fermentation, it has a quite hopeless shape.
This dough was no exception, so I preshaped it quickly and let it rest for 20 minutes.
When the dough had relaxed, I flipped it upside down and stretched it into a rectangular shape. I folded the upper side of the rectangle to the middle and repeated it with the lower side.
Then I switched the dough 90º and rolled it into a tube.
At this point, you can roll the upper part of the dough into a preferred topping. I used sesame seeds.
I have made a video showing the shaping process.
FINAL RISE
The pan I used for the final rise has the measures 9″x3″x2,7″ / 23x8x7 cm. I greased it inside before I placed the dough in it. Then I wrapped it in a plastic bag and let it proof for 2 hours at room temperature, about 72ºF/22ºC.
UPDATE 2020-02-06
After baking this bread several times, I have come to the conclusion that it benefits from a longer proofing time. Instead of 1,5 – 2 hours I think 2-3 hours give the dough enough time to proof properly.
BAKING
Those who follow my blog know what I’m going to say now.
Preheat the oven to 480ºF/250ºC.
Does he never use any other temperature? Yes, I do, but not very often.
It was not possible to use my dutch oven for this bread for obvious reasons, so I had to add steam.
I have a stainless steel tray filled with metal crap for that purpose. I preheat it together with the oven. When it’s time to bake, I pour a lot of water over it. It’s not perfect, but it does the job.
The baking time for this bread was 40 minutes. I lowered the temperature to 430ºF/220ºC for the last 20 minutes.
I always try to get the bread out of the pan as quickly as possible to prevent it from being soggy at the bottom. But handling a pan directly from the oven is not that easy, so you can let the bread cool in the pan if you prefer that. If you think it’s too much moisture in the bottom, you can always return it back into the oven at low temperature, about 210ºF/100ºC for a couple of minutes.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The first thing you will notice is the amount of taste there is in this bread compared to a sandwich bread bought in the supermarket.
Both whole wheat and spelt are flavorful flour varieties, and together with the sesame seeds, they create an interesting combination of tastes. In the background, you may notice a faint sourness.
Cut it in slices, toast them, and eat them with some butter.
It’s a treat.
Sourdough sandwich bread with whole wheat and spelt
Ingredients
- 300 gram Wheat flour 12,5% protein content
- 50 gram whole wheat flour 8,5% protein content
- 50 gram Spelt flour 10% protein content
- 20 gram butter
- 120 gram levain or active sourdough starter 100% hydration
- 280 gram water
- 8 gram salt If unsalted butter, take 9 gram
- 2 tablespoon sesame seed or other preferred topping
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients except butter. Make sure all flour is hydrated. Let the dough rest for an hour.
- Slice the butter with a cheese cutter and let it soften.
- Mix the butter into the dough with repeated stretch and folds, or any other preferred method.
- Let the dough ferment until it has increased 50% in volume. The desired dough temperature is 81ºF/27ºC. Perform one or two stretches and fold sessions at the beginning of the bulk fermentation if needed.
- Dump out the dough on a lightly floured working surface. Pre-shape the dough and let it rest for 15 minutes.
- Shape the dough into a tubular shape. There is a link to a video showing the method in the recipe notes.
- Roll the dough in your preferred topping. In this recipe, it's sesame seeds. Place the dough into a greased bread pan.
- Cover the dough and let it proof for 1.5 to 2 hours. at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 480ºF/250ºC. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Lower the heat if necessary.
- Remove the bread from the pan when it's finished. Let it cool on wire racks. Alternatively, you can let it cool in the pan. This will result in a softer bottom and sides of the bread.
8 Comments
I really appreciate all the details you put into your message. Especially the part about shaping the loaf. As a new baker of sourdough bread, I am always looking for little details that will improve my technique. Appreciations from the Great Pacific Northwest Washington State USA.
PS sorry about our president, hope he hasn’t insulted your country lately. Hopefully it will be out of office soon.
Many thanks, Bruce. It always makes me happy to read comments like yours. You know that you have created some value and it’s a good feeling.
Thomas:
I always fascinated about Bread Making….I have read countless blog. By far your’s blog are the most details ! Keep up!
Have you try 50/50 Whole Wheat/Ap Flour or 50/50 Bread flour? I am tempting to cultivate my culture again (which i failed for countless time).
Simon
Hi Simon,
I have tried, but I haven’t been able to get a consistent result yet. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it comes out a bit too dense. It is a challenge to bake with whole wheat.
I’m glad you like Sourdough&olives by the way. Of course, you should restart your sourdough starter again. Baking is pure pleasure.
I don’t recognize the term’levain’. Explanation please.
I’ve been making sourdough bread for a year and have really enjoyed rye bread.
Thanks, Elaine
Hi Elaine.
It’s a French word for pre-ferment, that has been accepted in most sourdough communities. Perhaps Leaven is more familiar?
Anyhow, you take a small part of your sourdough starter and refresh it with flour and water and let it ferment for a while before mixing it into the final dough.
I’m going to try this one. Starting my levain (biga – poolish) 🙂 tonight. I’ve used a lot of your recipes and thank you for them and the details. I think I’ll try to add mixed seeds to this because it looks like it would be an excellent seeded bread for sandwiches.
By the way, your grissini are a HUGE hit with my extended family. Mine don’t look as pretty as yours but they vanish in a flash.
I use pretty high protein flour and live in the high mountain desert of New Mexico so your comment (in some recipe that I don’t remember) about Americans adding extra water has saved many loaves.
Thanks!
Bill
Hi Bill,
Great to hear about the Grissini. It’s the same in my family. They hardly get a chance to cool before they disappear. Good luck with the sandwich bread. Please let us know about your result.