First let me clarify that when I say this sourdough sandwich bread is yeast-free, I mean it’s free of any added yeast. There is yeast in this loaf, but it’s the wild kind, seduced from the air around your kitchen by the flour and the water and by the potent chemistry they create together.
This is the most perfect sandwich bread I’ve ever baked, and yes, it’s mostly white flour, but I don’t feel like the devil about it. Research shows that the healthiness of white sourdough bread far exceeds that of wholegrain and multigrain breads. That’s because sourdough has a powerful effect on blood sugar: when left to work its fermenting magic, it breaks down the starches in the foods it’s added to, making them easier to digest. Sourdough is also probiotic, which means it is packed with healthy gut bacteria, so you can feel truly holier-than-thou when you smear this bread with some peanut butter or use it to cradle a delicious vegan burger.
Many sourdough breads need to be started a day before, but this one can easily be made in about eight hours from start to finish, including three rise times. So if you start your bread late in the morning, you can easily have some in time for dinner.
I understand that most of you probably aren’t sourdough nuts and don’t have a jar of bubbly starter sitting on your kitchen table or in the refrigerator, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try to convert you. Making sourdough starter is one of the easiest things you can do– all you need to do is stir flour and water with a spoon. Nature takes care of the rest. I used a recipe from the King Arthur Flour website to make my starter and it’s excellent. I did change the hydration — the ratio of water to flour — of the starter. The King Arthur recipe has 50 percent hydration, which means it has 1/2 cup of water for each 1 cup of flour used to make and feed the sourdough. My sourdough has 75 percent hydration, meaning I add 3/4 cup of water for each cup of flour when I feed my sourdough. I find the 50 percent hydration starter just a tad too firm for my baking.
I am in love with my starter. I’ve been using it almost every weekend to make my whole-wheat sourdough waffles and they are such a hit that Jay and Desi demand them every week. This bread is our new favorite way to use it. All I need now is to name my starter– I read somewhere that sourdough aficionados do that, and my friend Margo told me the other day that her mother, who kept hers alive for more than 30 years, called him “Herman.”
Any suggestions?
The Best Sourdough Sandwich Bread, yeast-free
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
- 2 cups lukewarm water
- 1 cup wholewheat flour
- 4-5 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Place the sourdough starter in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add to it the wholewheat flour, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and water. Mix well and set it aside, covered, in a warm place for four hours.
- Add 2 cups of all-purpose flour, olive oil and salt and mix. Add more flour as you knead until the dough becomes quite firm but still feels a little sticky to your fingers.
- Turn out the dough on the kitchen platform or any flat surface and knead by hand for 4-5 minutes or until the dough feels smooth and springy to your fingers and it barely sticks to the platform.
- Shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning the ball of dough around once to coat the top with oil.
- Cover tightly and place in a warm spot (like an oven with the light turned on) for at least two hours or until the dough has doubled.
- Punch down the dough and divide into two. Prep two standard loaf pans by spraying lightly with oil and then sprinkling on some cornmeal or semolina.
- Shape each portion of the dough into an oval. The dough should be very pliable and should shape easily.
- Place each loaf into the prepared loaf pans. Cover with a kitchen towel and let them stand in a warm place for at least two more hours or until the dough rises above the top of the loaf pans.
- About half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Place the loaves in the oven and bake 40 minutes.
- Remove the loaves from the oven, turn them out on a rack, and let them cool thoroughly before slicing.
**
Make more with sourdough:
Whole Wheat Sourdough Ciabatta
All Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
Sivaay 🙂
?? ?
Si from Desi, Va from your name and ay from Jay 🙂 name for you new starter
Haha, that’s a good one. 🙂 Love it!
George…as in “I want to hug him and squeeze him and call him George” The classic line from Bugs Bunny’s take on “Of Mice and Men”. Makes me giggle every time.
How does one “feed” their starter and “keep it alive”? I LOVE sourdough bread, but whole grain versions are hard to find. I’d love to make some, but my disability makes that only possible on occasions. So, given that, I’m not sure if I’m a good candidate for creating, feeding and loving my very own George.
Yeah George gets my vote too. It’s such a good name for a sourdough starter <3
Plus naming your starter is such a cute concept, love it!! The bread looks lovely btw, I don't bake anything more complicated than cookies so I won't probably be making this, but I will ask my friend to bake some 🙂
Thanks, this post makes me so happy, especially the naming part !!
Hope your friend bakes it for you, Namrata. 🙂
Love George! He is seriously in the running. Channon, I have a few whole wheat sourdough breads on the blog but I am in the process of developing an all whole wheat recipe with sourdough only.
Superb!!!!
?
Sounds amazing! Any idea if I could use gf flours? Any specific ones?
Thanks so much for sharing your awesome recipes!!
Niki, that’s an interesting question. You can make a glutenfree sourdough and there is a recipe on the King Arthur blog but it uses a special starter. I also have seen versions with kefir which of course would not be vegan. If you’re looking for a glutenfree sandwich bread, although not a sourdough one, you might want to try this: https://holycowvegan.net/2013/04/gluten-free-sandwich-bread.html
How about Bianca? Since it’s white and all?! 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion, Vidya. Definitely in the running. ?
Your bread sounds wonderful
and about to try baking it now,
thank you for making it possible.
Awesome, hope you like it!
Sam 🙂 Sammy boy 🙂
I love that name because it was also the name of my first dog. I’ve already picked the name though– George. 🙂 Thanks, Anusha.
I made this today and it turned fantastic. Tkls.
Thanks for letting me know, Joe! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi,
I baked this today and the crust didn’t turn brown at all like in your pictures. What kind of oven do you use? Thanks 🙂
Also, what size loaf pan did you use?
Thanks again 🙂
Hey Shalini, I use 8-inch by 4-inch loaf pans.The color of the crust depends on the pan you’re using. A darker pan gives you a darker crust.
The top of my bread was pale, it looked uncooked even though it actually was well-cooked.. I don’t understand the relation of the color of the pan to the color of the crust, do you mean the part that’s covered by the pan, like the lower part of the bread?
I have another question.. lol. Sorry, I’m a newbie at baking. Well, in a recipe like yours that states 1 1/2 cups of sourdough starter, what happens if the hydration levels of my starter is different from yours? Thanks again haha 🙂
Hey there, that’s the reason I state that you use sourdough with the same hydration as mine: 1 cup flour to 3/4 cup water. Otherwise you will have to increase/decrease the amount of flour and water in your recipe, which could change the bread significantly.
Ohh.. okay. I’ll follow your measurements for the starter next time 🙂 thanks
Will try this recipe! I only ever make sourdough boules so I’m excited to try a sandwich loaf.
I did want to mention that the King Arthur Flour starter recipe is 100% hydration. 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of flour are volume measurements and they have different densities but when flour is measured correctly (using the”fluff and sprinkle” method rather than scooping) they are roughly the same weight (about 4oz) and mass. A lot of bread bakers weigh or mass everything because it’s more accurate and it’s easier than using cup measures. If yours is perfect with more water, I would guess you are scooping your flour and therefore actually getting more flour than they intended, which is why adding water brought it back to the hydration it should be. There’s a video from King Arthur Flour about the difference in amount of flour here: https://youtu.be/GUSovVHpqsU.
Hope that’s interesting and/or helpful! If that’s obvious, just ignore me. Chemist wife syndrome. 😊
-Joanna