Sandwich Style Whole Wheat Bread

(Kimberly Bloomfield sent me this email.  Thanks, Kim, for permission to put it on my blog.)




Hi Amy!

I saw on your blog that you are in search of some sandwich style whole wheat bread.  I'd love to bring one of my loaves over (I'm baking today) for you to try.  With all the work you do for our ward, it's shameful I haven't done it yet.  It's soft and perfect for sandwiches.  Not a hint of crumbles. I got the recipe from a friend who's a professional baker.  I'm going to send the recipe in this email, both with cup measurements and with weight measurements. 

 I purchased a kitchen scale a while ago when I started doing cakes for Sally and then I converted my bread recipe to weight measurements.  The difference has been night and day with consistency from batch to batch.  A pound and a half of flour is always a pound and a half of flour but you can't say the same for a cup of flour!  Plus, you just measure everything into the mixing bowl and don't get any measuring cups/spoons dirty.  I taught Jenny M. how to make it and she's had great luck.  Hopefully these directions will seem pretty straight forward - I love non-complicated recipes.  If you want, you can come over any time and see the process in action, just to get a feel for what stuff should look like.

Another note - I buy vital wheat gluten at amazon.com in their grocery section.  I get eight (small) boxes at a time and signed up for their auto-shipping option and saved 15% on top of their low prices.  It ends up being the best price on the internet.  And since the gluten doesn't really go bad, I don't worry about getting 8 boxes at once.  I bake so much bread with it that I generally go through a case every 3-4 months.

Another note - I prefer red wheat in this recipe.  I love white wheat for other baking things (cookies, pancakes, waffles, etc) but the red wheat seems to give me more consistent results and better flavor.  The white wheat is still great, it's just my back-up when I run out of ground red wheat and don't feel like getting everything out.

Another note - the amount of powdered milk I used is the amount that the package says will yield two cups of milk.  Check your label if you think yours is different.

Dan's Whole Wheat Bread (cup measurements)

5 cups whole wheat flour

1/3 cup Vital Wheat Gluten

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 1/2 T salt

2 T yeast (instant active)

2/3 cup powdered milk

2 cups slightly warm water

Dan's Whole Wheat Bread (weight measurements)

1 1/2 lbs whole wheat flour

60 g Vital Wheat Gluten

58 g brown sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine

25 g salt

22 g yeast (instant active)

46 g powdered milk

2 cups slightly warm water

Directions:

1)  Put all ingredients in your mixing bowl.  Mix until everything is just combined.  The dough will be shaggy and there will be pieces of butter that aren't fully mixed in.  This is okay.  They will knead together beautifully later.

2)  Cover the shaggy dough with saran wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes (this gives the wheat a chance to absorb the liquid so that when you start kneading, you can judge if it needs more liquid).

3)  After 30 minutes, knead for 12 minutes (I use a KitchenAid, Jenny uses a Bosch and it seems to be consistent between the two mixers).  The dough should be smooth and elastic.  If, after a minute or two of kneading, there is still flour left in the bottom of the bowl, add water a teaspoon or two at a time.  When I use the scale measurements I'm almost always exactly perfect with the moisture level.

4)  Form a ball with the dough, cover the bowl with saran wrap or damp towel and let rise for one hour or until just doubled in size.

5)  Punch dough down and divide into two equal pieces (when I use my scale, it's just over 700 g per loaf.)

6)  Shape into two loaves and place in bread pans.

7)  Let rise until double or tripled in size (takes between 1 and two hours depending on how warm your house is.  for me, in the summer, it's about an hour.  Winter, it's longer).

8)  Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is a beautiful deep golden brown.  I go closer to 30 minutes but have noticed different pans cook differently.

9)  Immediately turn out on to cooling racks to cool.

This slices and freezes beautifully.