This old family recipe for whole wheat sandwich bread comes from my mum’s friend Ed. This nutritious healthy bread is made with honey, molasses, and just a hint of orange to add balance to the hearty whole wheat flavours. Make your own sandwich bread at home with this easy bread recipe. It packs some protein too! Perfect for sandwiches, breakfast toast, toasties, and avocado toast. Including a bonus recipe for homemade croutons to use up leftover bread!

This bread recipe comes from my mum’s Dutch friend Ed, and it’s really good bread! If you need a simple sandwich bread that you can make at home, this is the one. This recipe is delicious, healthy and easy to make – what more could you ask for in a bread, really.

Ed’s bread contains quite a bit of protein and fibre from both the whole wheat and bread flours – plus extra protein from the vital wheat gluten. Vital wheat gluten (also known simply as wheat gluten) also helps make the bread more elastic.

Once the bread is baked, the vital wheat gluten in this bread gives it a nice chewiness and a good crumb (all those porous holes on the inside of a slice of bread).

Ed’s Original Bread Recipe

One last thing – just use orange juice, not zest or pulp. I tried either/or and both, and the consensus was to just use the juice and no pulp or zest. It gave the bread too much orange flavour that it bordered on not being usable for more savoury sandwich settings.

Also if you don’t like molasses, swap it for honey or maple syrup – or just omit it entirely. Molasses is often added to whole wheat breads to counter the slight bitterness often attributed to the whole grains.

Why not use only whole wheat? Why the wheat gluten and bread flour?

Just to show that everybody messes up their recipes now and again, below is a photo of an early test I did of Ed’s bread recipe. I used 100% whole wheat flour for the recipe (no bread flour and no vital wheat gluten).

The bread still tasted great, but it was very dense! In general, I don’t recommend adding entirely whole grain flour to a recipe unless you are very experienced with it.

The vital wheat gluten is also pretty important for this recipe. It’s a bit pricey, but a bag lasts for a substantial number of bread loaves. And try to find bread flour that is “unbleached” specifically.

What To Spread On Ed’s Bread?

So now you have bread. What to put on it? Give one of these a try, or just make your favourite sandwich.

Tips & Tricks for Great Bread

There are a few steps necessary for making really great bread at home, so here’s a few helpful tips. I’ve divided them into a few parts.

Part 1: Blooming the Yeast

• Use warm water. Make sure the water is heated to between 90˚F and 115˚F. I usually just microwave mine for 30-35 seconds.
• Don’t use too much water to bloom the yeast. I don’t use more than a half a cup of water to bloom the yeast. I tried several different amounts of water to bloom the yeast for this recipe, and a half a cup is the only amount that consistently worked, even with weaker yeast.
• Use honey! Honey (or sugar) activates the warmed yeast.
• Mix the warm water and honey before adding the yeast. If the honey and warm water are already well mixed, this will help your yeast activate more efficiently.
• Bloom the yeast for 20 minutes in the warm honey water. Honey and warm water are the ultimate secret to great bloomed yeast for this recipe. Mix these three ingredients together in a bowl, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a tea towel. Let it sit for 20 minutes to get nice, bubbly, and bloomed.

Part 2: Fermentolyse, Kneading, and Fermentation

• Create a “fermentolyse” mixture (a hybrid autolyse a.k.a. flour and water mixture allowed to pre-ferment, in this case also mixed with the bloomed yeast, salt and sugars). Mix together the whole wheat flour, vital wheat gluten, remaining warm water, bloomed yeast, molasses, orange juice, olive oil, and salt. Cover this mixture and let it and rise until doubled in size (in a warm room, this takes roughly one hour for me). Once this first dough ferment is complete, then add your bread flour and start kneading.
• Knead the final dough for 15 minutes. Don’t be afraid to knead that dough! Kneading your dough is a necessary step. Consider this your arm workout for the day. This dough contains whole wheat, so you will “need to knead it” a little bit more (15 minutes) compared to plain all-purpose flour dough, which only needs 8-10 minutes of kneading.
• Let the dough rise twice – before and after shaping. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and a tea towel, then let it rise for 2-4 hours in a warm room. Next, shape your dough into 2 loaves and place the dough in greased loaf pans. Let it rise for another 30-60 minutes, until the dough is about level with the top of the pan.
• Always oil and cover your dough. Every time you let the dough sit and rise, make sure both the dough and the inside of the bowl are coated with a little oil. Cover your dough bowl with plastic wrap and a tea towel. You don’t want your precious bread dough to dry out.

Part 3: Baking, Cooling, and Storage

• Bake the bread at 350˚F / 180˚C / Gas Mark 4 for 30-40 minutes. Being that this is your basic sandwich bread, a hotter oven temperature isn’t necessary. The loaf pan also helps the bread bake with a good structure.
• Wait an hour to slice your bread (or longer). As much as I love freshly baked bread, do let this bread cool for at least an hour before slicing – even longer is better, several hours is best. It will continue cooking inside once removed from the oven. If you slice the bread too early, you risk the bread having a gummy texture inside.
• Store your sandwich bread on the counter, in the fridge, or in the freezer. This bread keeps well in a sealed bag (or container) on the counter for about 4 days, in the fridge for up to 10 days, or in the freezer for 2 months. Make sure the container you use seals very well to keep the bread from drying out.

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Instructions

1. Bloom the yeast: In a heat-proof bowl combine the honey and ½ cup warm water, then stir in the yeast. Cover with plastic wrap, and wrap in a tea towel. Let it bloom for 20 minutes until bubbly.

2. While the yeast mixture blooms, measure out your other ingredients. If using a fresh fruit, cut the orange and extract the juice. Also measure out the molasses, oil, flour, wheat gluten, salt, etc.
3. Mix the “fermentolyse”: To a large mixing bowl add the whole wheat flour, vital wheat gluten, and salt. Mix until evenly combined, then add the fully bloomed yeast mixture, molasses, orange juice, olive oil, and the remaining warm water. Stir the mixture until smooth and evenly mixed. 
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, then wrap it in a tea towel. Let the mixture rise until doubled in size in a warm room (about 1 hour on average). 

5. Form the final dough: Gradually add the bread flour one cup at a time while kneading the dough. Knead for 10-15 minutes. Dust your fingers with bread flour if the dough is too sticky to handle.
6. Shape the dough into a ball, then coat the dough ball and inner sides of the bowl with a little oil. 
7. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, then wrap it in a tea towel. Place in a warm room. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size (about 2-4 hours on average).

8. Grease the loaf pans – or simply line the pans with baking parchment if preferred.
9. Cut the dough in half. Transfer the dough into the prepared loaf pans.
10. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap, cover with a tea towel, then place in a warm room. Let the dough rise again until it reaches the top edges of the pans (about 30 minutes to 1 hour).
11. Position the oven rack in the centre of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350˚F / 180˚C / Gas Mark 4.
12. Bake the loaves for 30-40 minutes, until the internal temperature of the bread is 210˚F / 98˚C. 
13. Once baked, remove the bread from the oven. Let it cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.
14. Allow the bread to cool completely before storing. Store the bread in a sealed bag or container. It keeps well on the counter about 4 days, in the fridge up to 10 days, or in the freezer for 2 months.

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Simple Homemade Croutons

Reheating Frozen Bread

Frozen bread keeps for 2-3 months in the freezer, which is very handy when you want fresh baked bread at a moment’s notice.

You can pre-slice a loaf before freezing it, or freeze it whole. Reheat an unsliced frozen bread on a baking tray in a 350˚F oven for 10-15 minutes.

So, did you make some of Ed’s whole wheat sandwich bread? Let me know!