Tom’s Sandwich Bread
Like a lot of folks who use a sourdough starter, I’m always looking for ways to use “discard” . . . what’s left over when you “feed” your starter. My starter is not always “ripe” or “fed” and ready to use. Sometimes, it’s what’s left after the starter has reached its peak. Sometimes, it’s what I’d discard before refreshing the starter after storing it in the refrigerator for a spell. There are lots of recipes out there that use sourdough discard and one of the simplest ways to use it is to substitute it for the flour and water in another recipe.
In this case, I decided to substitute one cup (227 grams) of starter for half a cup of water and half a cup of flour in the recipe for Walter Sands’ Basic White Bread. Once I’d made that decision, I decided to take it step further and use a combination of bread flour and “type 80” or what some call “artisan bread flour” or similar names for the all purpose flour called for in the recipe. Then, since I’d already headed in the whole grains direction by adding some rye based sourdough starter, I decided to throw in some of King Arthur’s Super Ten Blend of whole grains for added texture and flavor. Finally, I adjusted the water a little so that I used just a little less flour in the kneading process. Trial and error landed me at 340 grams of water — enough to handle the bread flour and whole grains, not so much as to require more than 20 to 30 grams of flour when I turned the dough out to knead.
So far, folks seem to like the result and so I decided to share the recipe here.
Ingredients
227 grams (1 cup) sourdough starter (fed or unfed)
360 grams (3 cups) bread flour
120 grams (1 cup) type 80 flour
120 grams (1.25 cups) King Arthur Super 10 Blend
340 grams (a little less than a cup and a half) warm water (95 to 105 degree fahrenheit)
12.5 grams (four teaspoons) instant yeast
42 grams (one tablespoon) honey
56 grams (one half cup) Baker’s Special Dry Milk
28 grams (two tablespoons) softened butter
12 grams (two teaspoons) salt
60 grams (half cup) for kneading, dusting, etc.
Directions
First, weigh your flours. What I do is make up two bowls of flour. One bowl has 360 grams of flour made up of 240 grams bread flour, 60 grams of type 80 flour and 60 grams of the Super Ten Blend. The other bowl has 240 grams of flour made up of 120 grams of bread flour, 60 grams of type 80 flour and 60 grams of Super Ten Blend. You can use measuring cups, but weighing your ingredients is more accurate and therefore yields more consistent results.
A note here about the ratio of bread flour to type 80 flour. I don’t adhere to a strict ratio, but tend to use more bread flour and type 80. Basically, I usually have more bread flour on hand than type 80 or artisan bread flour. If I happened to have more type 80 on hand I’d have no problem reversing the amounts. There’d be a slight difference in texture, but that would be okay. For that matter, if I didn’t have enough bread flour or type 80 I’d substitute all purpose flour and maybe adjust the amount of water a tad.
Next, go ahead and use some small prep bowls to measure out your other ingredients (except the honey): yeast, salt, softened butter, and the Baker’s Special Dry Milk. If you don’t have Baker’s Special Dry Milk, I’ve had good results substituting other dry milks, including Saco Buttermilk Powder available at Kroger.
Now add 227 grams of sourdough starter (fed or discard) to a large mixing bowl and then add the warm water and using your hand dissolve the starter in the water then add the yeast and dissolve it. Next, with the bowl still on the scale add the 42 grams of honey to the water/sourdough/yeast mixture. I find that it’s easier to add ingredients like honey this way than trying to use spoons, etc. Once the honey is mixed into the yeast/sourdough add the butter and, using your hand, incorporate all into a relatively smooth mix. Don’t spend more than a minute or so on this.
Next, add the Baker’s Special Dry Milk and incorporate it and then add the 360 grams of flours and mix by hand until you have a smooth batter like dough at which point you add the salt and mix it in. Next, add the 240 grams of flours. Here, I use the addition of this dry flour to first sort of “clean” my hand by rubbing the flour in my fingers before using a dough scraper and my hand to mix all the ingredients into the beginning of a dough that can be turned out and kneaded. This usually takes three or four minutes.
When you’ve scraped all the flour off the sides of the bowl and everything is coming together, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough using a gentle touch for about ten minutes. Add additional flour to the work surface (not the dough itself) as necessary until the dough becomes silky and smooth. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover and let it rise for an hour or two. Depending on the strength of my starter, it usually only takes an hour to double in bulk and be ready for shaping.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently deflate the dough and then divide it in two (I weigh the dough to get roughly two 660 gram pieces, but you can just estimate this). Shape the dough into loaves and place in lightly buttered 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pans, cover and let rise until the loaves are crowned about 1.5 inches above the edge of the pans.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Again, depending on the how “ripe” my sourdough culture is, this usually only takes 30 to 40 minutes (here’s a good guide for determining when your loaves are “proofed”). Then I might dust the loaves with a little all purpose flour or rice flour and score the loaves down the middle. Scoring the loaves helps release the steam that gathers under the crust, which can produce wrinkles as the baked loaves cool.
Bake the loaves until they reach an internal temperature of 200 degrees fahrenheit. I use a convection oven and so I start baking at 350 degrees, but then reduce the temperature to 325 degrees after the first ten minutes and the loaves are generally done after baking for a total of 30 minutes. I let the loaves sit in the pans on a cooling rack for four or five minutes before removing and placing them on the wire rack to cool. Let the loaves cool completely before trying to slice them or you risk them having a sort of “gummy” texture.
Store the loaves loosely wrapped or in a bread box for up to three or four days or freeze them for longer.
I like to slice the loaves, spread a bit of butter on the slices, add just a touch of coarse salt to each slice and then toast in a 325 degree oven for about ten-fifteen minutes.