Has anyone else noticed how expensive healthy bread has gotten at the grocery store? Or how much like cardboard they taste? I’m not sure if quality is really deteriorating, or if I’ve just gotten so used to home baked bread that store bread suffers by comparison. My quest for a good sandwich loaf intensified recently. My husband complained that the wheat bread I had been getting at the store tasted awful. I had switched from the now almost $4 a loaf “top-shelf” bread aisle bread to the $2 a loaf variety. (We all have to make sacrifices when the money runs low, and I thought this one was mine.) I complied by purchasing … white bread for him… blech! So a few weeks go by and he tells me that I should stop buying the white bread because it is too much like a confection, and he’s right. I’d hate to think about how much sugar the kids PB&J have in them when using that bread. Hence the quest for a whole grain bread for a daily bread.

My requirements were as follows:

• I know myself. As much as I love baking, I’m not going to get to it more than once a week, so the bread has to freeze well and not get too stale too fast.
• It had to include whole grain.
• It had to taste yummy, again, I know myself. If it isn’t a good bread, it won’t be worth the effort.
• It had to come together pretty easily and not be fussy.
• It had to slice well, thinly enough to make good sandwiches.

So began my search. I had both wheat germ and wheat bran in my pantry (I don’t remember why now, but it’s not uncommon to have unusual grain products around) so that is where I started. The first recipe I tried was a cooks.com recipe. It had several problems with it (I’ll discuss those in a minute) but I was blown away by the flavor. It had a perfect balance of sweet and salty and the grains gave it a slightly nutty flavor and texture. But there were problems. First, it’s a batter bread. Some people love these, but I find them a bit fussy (and I love getting my hands in the dough, something you don’t get with a batter bread). Also, so much moisture made the crumb very soft and difficult to slice into even slices. I couldn’t tell you how it froze or if it got stale, it didn’t last that long. Verdict? This bread satisfied requirements 2 and 3, but failed miserably on 4 and 5. Onward I go. I tried increasing the amount of flour so that rather than a batter bread, it was a moderately stiff dough. Research on The Fresh Loaf (if you’re interested enough in this to have read this far, you really need to check out this site. It is amazing) indicated that sourdoughs hold up to getting stale, so I replaced half a cup of flour and half a cup of water with a cup of sourdough starter. The result was better than I could have hoped for. It has great texture, slices well, goes stale slowly and while it’s not the kind of bread that draws undue attention to itself, it’s flavor is excellent. In other words, the perfect sandwich loaf. I’ve also adapted it for making oat bread. The recipe is:

• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup bran
• 1/4 cup wheat germ

Mix it all together to form a moderately firm dough. Let rise in a greased bowl 1 1/2 hours or until doubled. Punch down. Rest for 10 minutes. Shape the loaf place in greased pan and rise another 30 minutes to an hour. Bake in 350 degree oven until done. To make the oatmeal bread instead, increase the water to half a cup, and replace the bran and wheat germ with a cup of old fashioned oats. This recipe makes a two pound loaf. I usually double the recipe and then divide it into three 8×4 inch pans. I find the smaller pans makes a more sandwich sized slice. I put one loaf in the freezer, one in the fridge and one on the counter, where it usually doesn’t last a full 24 hours. The bread is best fresh, but it keeps an acceptable flavor and texture through freezing and several days of refrigeration.

Oh, and final cost, a little less than a dollar a loaf, at grocery store prices. I buy most of my baking supplies from Costco, so my actual cost is less.