Soft White/Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread

I’m so excited about this bread! It is adapted from alexandracooks.com sourdough sandwich bread. Her white bread sandwich loaf is perfectly soft for sandwiches and toast so if you want a white sourdough sandwich bread, you should check hers out! This recipe is basically the same one, except I adjusted the water content and used half whole wheat (it can be sprouted or not) flour and half bread flour and I also added some honey. It is still soft and has that delicious sourdough taste, but with some added wheat to add some nutrition to the bread. My kids love it as toast or as a grilled cheese and will even eat a sandwich on it. A true sandwich bread loaf is something I have failed at so many times, but this one is perfect! I plan on trying to make buns with it soon too. I hope you enjoy!

Soft White/Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

• 100 grams active sourdough starter
• 10 grams Celtic sea salt or Redmonds Real Salt
• 400 grams non-chlorinated water
• 50-60 grams honey
• 250 grams organic, unbleached, unbromated bread flour
• 265 grams organic, sprouted whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting and shaping
• **alternatively, use 515 grams breadtopia organic select bread flour in place of the 250 grams white and 265 grams wheat flours listed above. This is a high protein content (14%) bolted, bread flour that is milled to keep some of the wheat germ intact. It bakes like a white flour, but still has some nutrition content of a wheat flour. Breadtopia.com is my favorite flour supplier. It’s expensive, but the quality is worth it.
• a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter, for greasing loaf pan

Directions

Add active starter and room tempurature water (do not use hot water) to a straight sided vessel or a large clear glass bowl. Mix well.

Add bread flour and sprouted whole wheat flour (or Breadtopia’s organic select bread flour), salt and honey to the bowl or vessel and mix well with a spatula. You may need to use your hands to complete the mixing process. This will be a very wet dough.

Let dough sit, covered for one hour.

After one hour, perform 4 stretch and folds every 15-30 minutes.

To perform a stretch and fold. dust the dough if necessary (I typically only need to dust the dough on the 1st and 2nd stretch and fold) and dust your hands with flour. Pull one edge of the dough out and lay on top of the dough, work around to the next side and pull out dough and place on top of the ball of dough. Continue with each side, doing this about 4-6 times. You will be forming a rough ball. Once you perform the 1st stretch and fold, let the dough sit for 15-30 minutes and then perform stretch and folds again until you have done this 3-4 times.

After final stretch and fold, let dough sit on a room temperate counter for 8-12 hours or until dough has doubled in size. This will vary based on the temperature of your kitchen.

After dough has doubled in size, butter your loaf pan (10X5 loaf pans works best).

Drizzle dough with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and dust a wooden cutting/bread board or flat surface with flour. Work the dough out of the bowl and onto the bread board. Shape into a rectangle by very gently pulling each side and working it into a loaf.

Place the dough in the loaf pan, seam side down. Let sit, covered and at room temperature, for about 4 hours or until the dough reaches the edge of the pan.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches about 106 degrees.

Remove bread from oven and let cool. I leave mine in the loaf pan for awhile and then transfer it to a wooden board to slice. The longer you let this sit (about 6 hours is a good amount of time), the easier it is to slice it thin for sandwiches. It is delicious warm out of the oven too if you just can’t wait!

This can be eaten right away or kept on the counter for a few days. If freezing the bread, pre-slice and place parchment between the slices and then store in a ziplock bag. This way, you can grab slices as needed. It tastes best to toast it after it’s been frozen.

Enjoy!