Whole Wheat Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
Pleasantly nutty and sweetened with natural honey, this whole wheat discard bread is far more flavorful than your average grocery store loaf.
In the past, I’ve been extremely underwhelmed by my grocery store options when it came to whole wheat bread. Either they are more like dyed white bread or if they are any good, they cost slightly too much. That’s why, since I got into making my own bread, I made it a mission to try to make some nutritious and delicious whole wheat bread. I took my recipe for my discard sandwich bread and tweaked it a bit to make this gorgeous loaf. I included whole wheat flour and flaked bran to give the loaf a splendid nutty flavor. I also sweetened the loaf using my favorite local honey to compliment and bring out all of the wholesome whole wheat flavors. Together all these elements make a very scrumptious loaf that you would want to incorporate in your baking repertoire.
Whole Wheat
*Makes 1 loaf
¾ warm whole milk
1 ¼ tsp active dry yeast
½ cup sourdough discard
⅛ vegetable oil
½ tsp fine sea salt
½ TBSP honey
¼ tsp baking soda
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup wheat bran flakes
¼ cup bread flour, more for kneading
Mix together milk, sugar, discard and yeast until completely homogenous. Add the vegetable oil and mix.
Add whole wheat flour, bran flakes, salt and baking soda. Mix and add in ¼ cup of bread flour.
Dump the contents of the bowl on to a lightly floured countertop. Knead the dough by hand for 10-15 minutes, adding additional bread flour as you work the dough. You will need to add additional flour until the dough is no longer sticky but it will be still slightly tacky. You want to take care not to add too much flour into this particular dough, it tends to get dry rather easily.
Fully kneaded whole wheat dough
Can easily be formed into a ball but it’s not quite smooth.
You will knead the dough until it is semi smooth and slightly tacky to the touch. This bread dough will not be as elastic as the standard discard bread, there is not a lot of gluten in this bread to be able to develop an elastic gluten structure. Also it will not be very smooth in appearance as well due to the inclusion of the bran. You can tell if you kneaded it enough when the texture of the dough changes and it can be easily formed into a ball. Here’s a picture for reference.
Shape the dough into a ball, cover and let it proof for 90 minutes in a greased bowl. The dough will be doubled in size.
Towards the end of the proofing time, prepare a standard bread pan by greasing with cooking spray.
Punch down the dough and shape into a log shape, place the dough in the prepared bread pan. Cover and proof your loaf for another 90 minutes, the dough should be level with the rim of the loaf pan when completely proofed. Proofing will vary depending on the temperature and weather. During the winter months it could be slightly longer than 90 minutes and in the summer you might only need 60 minutes to completely proof the loaf.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Brush the top with milk and sprinkle a little extra bran flakes on it. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is a nice dark golden brown.
Once baked, cool in the pan for 10 min before releasing the loaves to cool completely on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!
*Notes: Now I’ve already discussed the proper method of kneading this specific dough but I didn’t talk about something even more important, the flour. Yes, the type of whole wheat flour does matter in the overall flavor of this loaf. I have tried various types of whole wheat flours and the one that gave me the best whole wheat flavor was King Arthur. Their flour gave me the absolute best results and the very important nutty taste that I associate with a whole wheat bread.