This is my favorite family bread recipe. It makes the sourdough lovers happy, and the white bread lovers happy. It is healthy and absolutely delicious!
Please read watch the video or read the recipe thoroughly (including the notes) before making. This recipe is not hard or complicated, but it does involve some extra steps you may not take with the other sandwich bread you make.
The overnight autolyse period is essential. You could swing it with a 3 hour rest period, but if you’re baking same day it would have you up pretty late. I truly believe 8 hour autolyse does wonders to this bread!
I use a Pullman 2 pound loaf pan for this recipe. I absolutely love this pan as it gives me a very uniform loaf that looks like picture perfect sandwich bread.
Sourdough Sandwich Bread with Freshly Milled Flour
Perfect sourdough with freshly milled flour! Soft, pliable, and so yummy!
Ingredients
- 4 cups of hard wheat grain (this will make about 6 cups of bread flour; use hard white or hard red)
- 2 cups of filtered water
- 1 tsp of salt, divided
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/2 cup of oil (I use olive oil)
- 1 cup of fed sourdough starter
Instructions
- The night before you want to bake your loaf, mill your grain. Remove roughly a cup of the flour and put it in the freezer to use tomorrow.
- Add your 2 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the remaining flour. Mix until there is no dry flour remaining. Cover and let sit on your counter until the morning. Be sure to feed your sourdough starter as well so it is ready to use tomorrow. Feed 1:1:1 ratio.
- In the morning, put your rested dough in your stand mixer. Add the remaining ingredients (don’t forget the 1/2 teaspoon of salt) to your mixer, as well as the reserved flour in the freezer.
- Put your dough hook attachment on and let it knead 10 minutes. It will see dry at first and then very wet. Once your 10 minutes is up, put it in a mixing bowl to start your fermentation. Cover it and set in a warm place or proofing box. See video to see what I use for a cheap proofing box. Set timer for 1 hour.
- After 1 hour, WET the area you will work your dough. Do not add flour. Wet your hands as well. Place your dough on the surface and stretch it out until you can’t anymore without it ripping. Fold it up like a blanket. Place back into your mixing bowl and cover. Set the timer for 1 hour and repeat once more.**
- after the second hour it is time to do your third fold. Pick the dough up on either side and lift into the air until it detaches from the bowl. Set it back in the bowl. Turn your bowl and do the same with the remaining sides you haven’t down. Cover and let rest again. Set your timer for one hour and repeat once more.
- At this point, your dough has been fermenting 4 hours. Place it into a greased or parchment lined 2 pound Pullman loaf pan or divide in half to fill 2 one pound loaf pans (8x4 inch-NOT 9X5).
- Let it rise in your pan in a warm place about 1.5 hours. For a quicker ferment, see note below ***.
- Bake at 400 degrees F for 40 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 190-200 degrees.
Notes
**this step involves lamination folds. If you do not want to do them, just fold your dough in some manner that will pull the dough apart and then bring it back together.
*** sometimes I do not have an hour and a half to let this rise again in my bread pan. If that is the case, I let it rest at least thirty minutes. Then I put it in a cold oven and set the temperature to 400 degrees. I let it cook 40 minutes. Remove, cover the top and put it back in for another 10 minutes.