In the Kitchen with Farmgirl Susan: Make the Bread & You'll Make the (Leftover Turkey?) Sandwich

I'll admit that things have improved somewhat over the past several years, but for the most part, bread still doesn't get the respect in the United States that it deserves—especially the poor old sandwich loaf. Is there anything more depressing than a sandwich that is packed full of amazing stuff yet held in place by two totally disappointing slices of something that barely deserves to be called bread?

In a perfect world, both the filling and the bread would be wonderful, but I, for one, would much rather have a so-so filling surrounded by superior bread than the other way around. Bad bread can ruin even the best sandwich, and good bread can make it.

We're a very bread oriented household here on the farm, and we take our sandwiches seriously. I took it as a compliment when a houseguest once said, after polishing off a homegrown lamb salami sandwich I'd made him, "I'm so full. Your sandwiches are like a meal!" but at the same time part of me was thinking Well, yeah. It was lunch.

A sandwich shouldn't be something you're forced to eat; it should be something you want to eat. And it doesn't have to be expensive or fancy to be fabulous. Start with nice ingredients and you'll end up with a very nice sandwich. Plain old peanut butter and jam? A perennial favorite around here. But the bread is freshly baked, the peanut butter and jam (reduced sugar—you can taste the fruit!) are organic, and the mandatory ice cold glass of milk served alongside comes straight out of a happy Jersey cow who lives six miles down the road. In fact that's what I had for breakfast this morning, open-faced on lightly toasted Honey Bran Whole Wheat.

Boring old tuna on toast? Not anymore. Make the bread, make the sandwich, make a meal.

Crusty, freeform artisan breads are popping up all over, but the sandwich bread section at most supermarkets still remains a disappointing (and sometimes frightening) place. How can ingredients with 22 letters belong in a loaf of bread? And why is Oroweat not spelled Orowheat? Is it like creme and cheez, which don't contain cream or cheese?

The sandwich solution? Set aside a couple of hours every week or two and bake your own loaves. It's easier than you think, tastier than you can imagine, and costs less than the storebought equivalent—that is if you could actually find a storebought equivalent. You'll have friends and family singing your praises, and your sandwiches will never be the same. All because of a simple loaf of bread.

Susan's Honey Bran Bread
Makes 3 large loaves, about 36 ounces each

When it comes to baking bread, my motto is If you have friends or a freezer, never bake just one loaf at a time. It only takes a few extra minutes to bake two or three loaves, and homemade bread freezes beautifully.

This is a variation of my popular Farmhouse White bread which is the kind of simple, scrumptious loaf people tend to imagine grandmothers baking. Farmhouse White is also almost foolproof, which makes it a great beginner's loaf. I realize that in these health conscious days white bread isn't for everyone, but if you've had disappointing, doorstop-like whole grain baking experiences in the past, you might want to bake up a batch or two of the basic white recipe first and then start making it healthier.

Farmhouse White is open to an infinite number of interpretations, and this is my latest favorite variation. It also makes wonderful dinner rolls and burger buns. It's not 100% whole grain and uses white whole wheat flour, which means it's a lighter, easier dough to work with and rises better, yet still offers plenty of whole grain goodness, especially with the 2 cups of bran tossed in.

You don't have to weigh your ingredients when baking bread, but a digital kitchen scale really does make baking and cooking a whole lot easier. It's especially nice to be able to weigh your dough as you're dividing it into loaves (or rolls) so you know they're the same size. I love my new Oxo Good Grips Kitchen Scale: it weighs up to 11 pounds, lets you pull the display out from the base so you can weigh really large bowls (so cool), and was recently voted #1 by America's Test Kitchen, the people who publish Cook's Illustrated magazine. Can you say incredibly useful, under $50 holiday gift?

Bake your bread in 8" x 4" pans if you like taller loaves with mushroom-shaped tops or in 9" x 5" pans for shorter, more square-shaped slices. I can't say enough good things about these Chicago Metallic commercial loaf pans. For the price of a few loaves of bread they're definitely worth the investment—and come with a 25-year warranty.

As always, I urge you to seek out local and organic ingredients. I've found that organic flour makes a big difference when baking bread, and often only costs a few more cents per loaf. Look for organic flours and brans in the bulk section of natural food stores.

If you don't have bread flour, just use more all-purpose flour in this recipe. Increase the honey to 1/2 cup for a slightly sweeter loaf. I like to bake all my breads, including those in loaf pans, on a baking stone, as I find it bakes them more evenly and gives the bottoms a nicer crust, (and it also simulates the ceramic deck in the 7-foot wide bread oven in my someday-bread-bakery-to-be) but it definitely isn't necessary.

4 cups | 1 lb-4 oz | 568 g all-purpose flour
2 cups | 10-1/4 oz | 290 g bread flour
1 cup | 4-1/4 oz | 122 g oat bran
1 cup | 3-3/4 oz | 109 g wheat bran
1-1/2 Tablespoons | 1/8 oz | 17 g instant yeast
2 Tablespoons | 30 ml canola oil or melted butter
1/3 cup | 3-5/8 oz |102 g honey
5 cups | 48 fluid oz lukewarm milk (about 85 degrees F)
4 cups | 1lb-5 oz | 604 g white whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons | 30 ml salt

Mixing and fermentation
In a very large bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour, bread flour, oat bran, wheat bran, and yeast (I use a wooden spoon). Make a small well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the canola oil, the honey, and then the milk. Mix well, then continue to stir vigorously, slowly adding 1 cup of the white whole wheat flour at a time, until you've added 4 cups, or until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough. This should take a few minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 6 or 7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to your hands or the work surface.

Place the mixing bowl over the dough, and let it rest for 20 minutes. This rest period is called the autolyse.

Remove the bowl, flatten out the dough with your hands, and sprinkle about half of the salt over it. Begin kneading the salt into the dough. After a few turns, sprinkle on the rest of the salt and continue to knead for 5 to 7 minutes, until the salt is completely incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.

Place the dough in a large plastic straight sided container with a snap-on lid. With masking tape or a felt tip pen, mark the spot on the container that the dough will reach when it has doubled in volume. Set it somewhere that is preferably between 70F and 78F for about one hour. Ideally, the dough should also be between 70F and 78F. It's easy to check the temperature of your dough and ingredients with an inexpensive instant read thermometer. You can even check the air temperature—just set it in a glass of water on the counter.

When the dough is ready to be shaped, you should be able to push a floured finger deep into it and leave an indentation that doesn't spring back.Unless your dough is rising in a straight-sided container, it can be difficult to judge whether it has "doubled in size" which is the guideline most recipes use. I find the finger poking method to be more reliable.

Shaping and final rise (proof)
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flattening gently with your hands to break up any large air bubbles. Divide the dough into three equal pieces.

Shape the dough into loaves and dust the tops with flour. There are dozens of ways to do this; more info on shaping sandwich pan loaves can be found in this post I wrote for A Year in Bread. Place loaves seam side down in greased loaf pans. I like my sandwich breads to be tall, so I use smaller loaf pans.

If desired, an hour before baking, place baking stone in the oven and heat to 375 degrees.

Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let them rise for 45 to 60 minutes. The dough should rise well above the rim of the pans, and when you lightly poke it with a floured finger it should spring back just a little.

Baking
Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the loaves are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow if tapped (you can carefully pop one out of the pan to test it and then put it back in if it's not quite done).

Remove immediately from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Try to wait at least 40 minutes before cutting into a loaf, as it continues to bake while cooling. Store at room temperature or freeze in zipper freezer bags. Make sure loaves are completely cooled before sealing in bags.

Still have some flour left? You might enjoy my other bread recipes:
Beyond Easy Beer Bread (my most popular recie-a warm, crusty loaf in under an hour)
Whole Wheat Beer Bread
Onion Rye Beer Bread
Easy Rosemary Focaccia
Savory Feta Cheese & Scallion Scones
Cranberry Christmas Scones
White Whole Wheat Scones with Currants & Oats
Parisian Four Hour Daily Baguettes (I love these!)
Italian Rosemary Raisin Bread (try it toasted with cheddar & apricot jam)
No-Knead Crusty Freeform Bread
Oatmeal Toasting Bread (makes great rolls, too)
Fresh Tomato & Basil Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
Italian Black Olive Cheeks
Carrot Herb Rolls (And A Bargain Bread Book For Beginners)
Three Onion & Three Cheese Pizza
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Farmgirl Susan, Gather Food Correspondent:

Susan's column, "In The Kitchen With Farmgirl Susan," is featured on GatherEssentials:Food and takes a Less Fuss, More Flavor approach to comfort food, seasonal eating, & organic kitchen gardening. Susan was a cultured California chick who happily turned manure mucking farmgirl and now lives on a 240-acre remote Missouri farm with several dozen sheep, a flock of crazy chickens, four dogs, eight cats, six very entertaining donkeys & one really wellfed farmguy. She shares stories and photos of her crazy country life with 60,000 visitors a month at her award-winning blog, FarmgirlFare.com.

Click here to find all of Susan's "In The Kitchen With Farmgirl Susan" articles, and click here to join her Gather network or subscribe to her Gather postings. You'll find Susan and other Food Correspondents plus celebrity chef content and plenty of other foodies at Food.gather.com.

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