Classic Brown Bread

Lending its notes from my infamous tale of Classic White Bread, I now bring to you the saga of its wholemeal counterpart. Packing a bigger flavour punch and a healthier reputation, this brown version of the world’s favourite staple will take pride of place in the food cupboard. So, whether making a sandwich, serving it with soup, or just munching on it with wild abandon, lets get busy baking a big old loaf of Classic Brown Bread.

Classic Brown Bread

Build the best sandwiches with your own homemade brown bread

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Prep Time 2 hours hrs

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 3 hours hrs

Course Baking

Cuisine International

Servings 10 Slices

Calories 210 kcal

Equipment

• 1 Kitchen Scales
• 1 Sieve
• 1 Mixing Bowl
• 1 Stirring Implement
• Plastic Wrap
• 1 Baking Tray or Bread Tin

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 250g (½lb) White Bread Flour
• 250g (½lb) Wholemeal Bread Flour
• 10g (1tbsp) Instant Dry Yeast
• 32g (2tbsp) Light Brown Sugar
• 6g (1tsp) Salt
• 32g (2tbsp) Olive Oil
• 325g (11oz) Luke Warm Water (around 36°C)

Instructions

 

• Place 250g of White Bread Flour, 250g of wholemeal Flour, 10 grams of dry yeast, 32 grams of Light Brown sugar, 6 grams of Salt, and 32 Grams of Olive Oil in a large mixing bowl, roughly mixing everything together
• Add exactly 325g of lukewarm Water (stick your finger in it, it should feel neither warm or cold) and crudely mix together with a rubber spatula or similar utensil
• Then, give your hands a wash and start working the ingredients together, eventually bringing the mix into a rough ball
• Next, turn the dough ball out onto a worktop and knead enthusiastically for around 10 minutes. If the dough is too wet, add a little flour, but remember that the it should remain sticky to the touch
• Return the Dough to the mixing bowl and coat with a very thin layer of Olive Oil. Rub your oily hand around the rim of the bowl, then cover it with plastic wrap
  
• Leave the dough somewhere warm to rise until it has doubled in size. The duration will depend on humidity, elevation, and ambient temperature. This can take anything from 30 minutes to 2 hours!
  
• Once risen, turn the dough out onto the worktop and knead again for 3-4 minutes. You will notice the texture of the dough has changed; it will be more elastic than the first round of kneading
• Form the dough into a small version of the bread shape you require, pinching it tight from the underside, and place it on a lightly floured baking tray (alternatively, place in a lightly floured bread tin) covering loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise once again until it has almost doubled in size
• During the second rise, pre-heat the oven to 190°C (375°F, Fan 170°C, Gas Mark 5)
• Once risen, perform a few decorative cuts in the top of the dough with an extremely sharp knife, or scissors. This will give hot air a place to escape instead of blowing a hole in the side of your bread. Dust with flour
• Place the bread in the centre of the oven
• After 50 minutes, check on the loaf. Protecting your hands, turn the loaf upside down and tap the underside, if the bread is ready, it will sound hollow (the noise it makes when you tap on a closed plastic box). If not ready, bake for another 10 minutes and repeat
• Leave to cool on a wire rack
• Take a moment to admire your beautiful Brown Bread creation
  

Nutrition

Calories: 210kcal

Keyword Bread, Vegetarian

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

A Few Notes on Brown Bread Making

Pick the Right Flour

I’m not sure if this has more to do with location than anything else, but I had a little trouble tracking down a decent wholemeal flour. Everything that I found in the local Makro seemed a little coarse for my breadmaking expedition. Essentially, you need a good and fine stone ground flour that won’t break your teeth when you bake with it. In the absence of the correct ingredient, I headed to the Indian section where I discovered a good chapati flour that worked perfectly.

A Confession

I’ve watched bake off, and am fully aware that bakers across the land will use an automated device to knead their dough. I don’t have one of these, but quite a few years ago, I did buy myself a bread machine. This basically came down to the fact that my Chinese base doesn’t have much access to real bread. Instead, only offering perfectly square loaves of something that tastes more like cake than the sandwich ingredient it claims to be. Then, however, covid struck, and I found myself ‘stuck’ in Thailand for 2 years, and my breadmaking returned to basics.

Now that I have regained access to the rest of the world, and been reunited with my $35 bread machine, it’s use has changed a little. These days, I will use only the kneading function to remove the hard labour from my bread baking, which also has the added benefit of lightly warming the dough as it does it’s thing! So, if you have one of these machines knocking about, put it to good use.