How to Make Super Soft Whole Wheat Bread for Sandwiches

Alright guys, what are you doing? It's game time! Don't do that Zach. Hi Bold Bakers! Have you ever made a whole wheat bread and it ends up really heavy, it doesn't rise properly and it's kind of dense and doughy? Well this is quite common so don't feel like you're alone. Now there's a really simple way of how you can solve this and I'm going to share that with you today in this video and by the end of it you will have a soft, fluffy whole wheat bread. As always we have Zach behind the camera and we have Kevin and baby George in the corner. Alright Georgie and I are here to help out however we can. As always all of my recipes can be found on my website. Ok we're going to start out in a nice big bowl. Into this we are going to add in some all purpose flour, white flour, plain flour, whatever you have. You don't need bread flour for this recipe. So now for the whole wheat flour. This is what I do and I recommend you do it too. Keep your whole wheat flour in the fridge or in the freezer. This keeps it fresh for much longer because you know we don't use this as often as we use white flour. And what can happen is it can go rancid because it has fats in it. So keep it in the fridge, keep it in the freezer and it will last so much longer. Gemma, how long do you think it would last? Oh months. I gave it for like 6 months in my fridge. So whole wheat flour is great to bake with. It is high in fiber and it contains the whole grain of wheat. The bran and the germ. But white flour however has all that removed so it's nice to work with a little bit of white flour and a little bit of brown flour. So now here's the thing, you always want to mix white flour and whole wheat flour. You never use 100% whole wheat flour and this is how you end up with stodgy, heavy breads. You want to mix it, cut it with a little bit of white. So roughly 2 to 1. In here I've got 2 cups of white and 3 quarters of a cup of brown and that's the perfect amount. So now into this we're going to add in some lovely little add-ins that are really great for you. We're going to add in some rolled oats which are high in antioxidants, we're going to add in some flaxseed which is really high in omega 3 fatty acids and it's really good for you. You can also use bran. We're going to add in some pumpkin seeds which are also high in antioxidants and we're going to add in sunflower seeds which are rich in vitamins and minerals. And then I also love to add in some poppy seeds and some sesame seeds. Gemma, are all of these seeds required? No, all the seeds aren't required and that's a good question. You can add in as much or as little as you want, it's really not going to change up the recipe and also use what you have in your cupboard. It's totally fine. Ok and lastly our dry ingredients, we're going to add in a little bit of salt and a little bit of instant dried yeast. And then mix all these ingredients together. So you probably noticed the whole wheat flour that I used was quite fine. If yours is a little bit coarser that's totally fine, you just might need a little bit more or a little bit less liquid and we'll get to that. And now, actually speaking of liquid, we're going to mix our liquids together in a separate jug. So into this I'm going to add in some milk, honey, and some butter. And then you just want to pop this into the microwave, let the butter melt and let it get kind of like room temperature, blood temperature, and then we can add it to the rest of our ingredients. So just slightly warmed and the butter melted, add it into your dry ingredients. And then with a wooden spoon just mix it all together until it forms a dough. Now hold a little bit back, you don't want to add it all in just in case you don't need all your liquid. I always say this is about bread making, but everybody's flour is different, so you might need a little bit less liquid, you might need a little bit more liquid, that's totally fine. And I can see that I do need the rest of my liquid so I'm going to add that in there. Perfect. Gemma, is there a dairy free option? There is a dairy free option, that's a really good question. You can use vegan butter, dairy free butter, and then you can also use dairy free, any kind of a dairy free milk, be it nut, soy, whatever you like. Whatever's your preference. So just mix it until your dough comes together, it is a bit of a sticky ball, that's totally fine. We're going to get a little bit of flour, put it on our work surface, and then just turn your dough out. And then on the countertop just start kneading your dough. So just knead it like you would a regular dough. The beauty of this bread is that it can all be done by hand so it just makes it so much easier. So now a few weeks ago I did a white sandwich bread and that was a huge big hit, you guys went nuts for it. So this is why I'm doing a whole wheat version because it was very much requested. And it's great for making sandwiches and for toast. Toast and a cup of tea, one of my favorite things in the world, and Irish butter. So just on your counter, knead it for around 8 minutes or so, until it gets nice and firm. So there you go, my dough is lovely and smooth, so here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take the bowl that we mixed it in, I'm going to add into that a drop of olive oil, you don't need that much. Take your dough, like so, and just swirl it around in the olive oil in the bowl. The reason why we like to grease our bowls when we put dough in is because dough is a living thing, and you don't want it to have to struggle as it's rising, you want to help it out and make it easy. So we grease it and it glides up the sides of the bowl. And then we're gonna cover it, I like to use a shower cap because they are reusable and they're airtight so they work really really well. You can use cling wrap if you wish. We are going to set this aside, it does take quite a long time to proof, 90 minutes, because of the whole wheat flour I give it extra time. So you're talking roughly 90 minutes, so we'll come back to it then. Ok so it's been 90 minutes, let's have a little peeky peek. Come here to me Zach, do you see this? Look how nice that is. All lovely and bubbly, this is a beautiful dough. So all you want to do is just take it out of your bowl. As you can see this is a big loaf of bread. I'm gonna shape it into a log, if you want we can pinch these seams here. And then I have a 9x5 loaf pan here, it's a little bit greased, and we're gonna add in our loaf into there. Somebody asked me why do I grease nonstick pans, and I do it for extra insurance because I would be broken hearted if after all of this at the very end I went to turn out my bread and it got stuck in the pan. So I just do it just in case. There we go, our loaf is in the pan, ready to go. Now what we're gonna do is proof it again, we're gonna proof it again for another 90 minutes. It does take some time but believe me the bread at the end is well worth it. So we're gonna come back to it when it's nice, it's risen, it's all puffy and then it'll be ready to go into the oven. So it's been almost 90 minutes and check out this loaf of bread. It's well risen, it's nice and puffy. It has proofed perfectly, it's probably doubled in size I would say. So now what we're going to do is just a very last thing before we pop it into the oven is that we're going to glaze the top with a little bit of egg wash. Go carefully now with your brush because it is quite delicate, you don't want to burst any of those air bubbles that we built over the last few hours. And then sprinkle over some oats, some poppy seeds, and some sesame seeds. This looks gorgeous now it's ready to go into a nice hot oven. I think this bread turned out amazing and as you can see it's lovely golden brown on top, it's firm, it's beautiful. So what I'm gonna do carefully is just turn it out of the tin onto a rack. Now a lot of you know my rule about bread coming out of the oven, you want to let it cool down for at least an hour, but I'm just gonna slice into this one straight away because I want you to see how soft and gorgeous it is. So I'm just going for it. Look at that, beautiful, really soft, great for sandwiches, great for toast, and it also freezes really well. I'm gonna butter a little bit and I know someone who's going to love it. I love the smell of hot bread. You know you've got great timing Kevin. And I love the taste. It is so soft. It's soft, it's a little bit sweet, it has all of the seeds and everything in there. Oh it's absolutely delicious. What do you think Georgie? Good going Gem. Thumbs up. I think so. Recipe is on the website. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you again really soon. Thanks guys. Delicious. Yeah it is delicious.