The Art of Making Perfect Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

The journey to creating the perfect whole wheat sandwich bread begins with kneading and massaging a mixture of flour, water, yeast, and salt until it comes together in a cohesive ball. The dough is then rolled out to a long, thin rectangle, about 20 inches in length and no wider than the intended loaf pan. This rectangle is then rolled up tightly and placed into the well-lubricated loaf pan. A sheet of parchment paper is cut to size and pressed into the pan, with two inches of overhang on each side, before the loaf is dropped into its resting place.

To ensure that the bread rises evenly, it is important to handle it carefully. Some bakers may choose to score the loaf after it has risen, but this can cause it to deflate slightly. In an effort to achieve a perfectly round loaf, I attempted to score mine unevenly, with disappointing results. For those who are new to bread-making, I would recommend exercising caution when handling the dough and avoiding scoring unless absolutely necessary.

The baking process is crucial in bringing out the full flavor of the whole wheat bread. Preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, the loaf is placed in the oven for 40-50 minutes, or until it reaches an internal temperature of between 200-210 degrees Fahrenheit. To prevent over-browning, a sheet of foil is loosely tented over the loaf at the 30-minute mark. Once removed from the oven, the bread is brushed with melted butter to give it a rich, sheen.

Once cooled for at least two hours, the bread can be sliced and served. I opted to pair my freshly baked whole wheat sandwich bread with a generous slathering of high-quality marmalade, made from genuine Seville oranges. The combination was truly delightful, with the tart brightness of the marmalade perfectly balanced by the hearty, wholesome flavor of the bread.

But what about scones? Are they not a classic accompaniment to marmalade and tea? Indeed, they are. In fact, I believe that Paddington Bear would have approved of my decision to serve my whole wheat sandwich bread on its own, sans accompaniments. However, for the true aficionados out there, I present to you a recipe for traditional English-style scones.

To begin, we combine 425 grams of all-purpose flour, half a teaspoon of salt, and two tablespoons of baking powder in a food processor. Pulse until the ingredients are well combined before adding in 50 grams of cold unsalted butter. Continue to pulse until no large chunks remain, almost as if you're making a short crust. Next, we whisk together one cup of whole milk and two large eggs in a separate bowl before adding the dry ingredients. Fold the mixture together using a rubber spatula until it forms a shaggy dough that holds its shape.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface and knead just enough to eliminate any large cracks. Roll the dough out to about a one-inch thickness, then use a fluted pastry cutter (such as myself) to cut into two-and-a-half inch rounds. Dust each round with flour to prevent stickage before placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Brush the scones with a mixture of equal parts beaten egg and whole milk before baking in a 450-degree Fahrenheit oven for 10-12 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. The perfect accompaniment to elevenses or afternoon tea, served warm and straight from the oven with butter and marmalade at the ready.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni don't know if did you learn to use a knife like that you don't want to know well it's jolly good well now right it's time for the sugar that's what turns the juice into marmalade watch oh a lot hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at the marmalade from the paddington films and children's literature for which of course we're going to need a whole bunch of oranges about 3 pounds of scrubbed oranges for this recipe now you can use normal navel oranges but to make genuine marmalade you need seville sour oranges these are only ripe in the dead center of winter and are a bit hard to find but are the only way that you're going to make the tart slightly bitter concoction so enjoyed by the brits scots and peruvian bears alike seville sour oranges are different in a few ways first off they are positively chock-full of seeds this is a good thing for making jelly as seeds contain lots of pectin second off you will find that they are very very sour and that's about it now we're going to play a game of passing the oranges back and forth across the screen a few times first slicing them in half and then juicing them into a bowl by hand of course just like mad eye moody does in the film and we're making sure to reserve the pulp and skins which we are going to separate using a spoon orange pulp and seeds are both good sources of pectin so you'll see how we put those to good use later on take care not to pile your orange peels too high otherwise you might experience complete structural failure then we're going to strain the seeds out of the juice and add them to the orange flesh and then you have yourself the core components of traditional orange marmalade there's one more step to be taken with the peels and that is to slice them into small bite-sized pieces i personally prefer really chunky marmalade but you can break them down into as small pieces as you like go ahead and set those aside because up until now this party's been all about the oranges and it's time to make it a bit of a lemon party ideally you want to use the slightly smaller sweeter meyer lemon but all i got here is a regular lemon which i'm going to deseed and cut into small chunks then we are dumping the orange peels orange juice and lemon chunks into a large stock pot we're also going to add just enough water to cover them all up in my case about six cups now you could just add liquid pectin later on in the marmalade making process but we're going to extract it naturally from all those orange guts and seeds from earlier we're going to tie them in four layers of cheesecloth tied up tight with a bit of butcher's twine and then squeeze it into the hot tub just make sure it's as submerged and saturated as possible and bring this guy to a rolling simmer for anywhere from 30 minutes to a full hour we want the orange peels to show absolutely no resistance when cut in half with a spoon now we're taking this guy off the heat and removing our sack of scraps set that aside we're not done with it yet but first we're going to measure exactly how much marmalade we have i ended up with about seven cups then we're gonna add three quarters of a cup of sugar for every cup of marmalade so that comes out to five and a quarter cups we're just gonna give that a cursory mix to dissolve and then it's time to contend with our pectin we're gonna give this bag a good hard squeeze not only to get any residual juices out but all this thick almost creamy liquid which is pure natural pectin we want at least a tablespoon's worth but don't squeeze your bag too hard otherwise i'm sorry that is the only sound effect i could make for that anyway we are now bringing this guy to a constant simmer adding an optional pinch of cinnamon and doggedly pursuing a temperature of 220 degrees fahrenheit it's gonna come up to 212 very very quickly but it's going to stall around 216 for like half an hour while water continues to evaporate so it can reach its target temperature then to test to see if the jelly is going to set we're gonna drizzle a small amount onto a dinner plate that's been chilling in the freezer if the mixture wrinkles when you push it with your finger it is ready to go now this is the point where you can optionally preserve your marmalade into some sanitized canning jars they go lids tightened and placed in a steaming rack set in a pot of simmering water 10 minutes in the simmering water and then 24 hours at room temperature making sure the safety buttons have popped down now in the movie and on the posters it looks as though paddington enjoys his marmalade sandwiches on semi-whole wheat bread so in the bowl of the stand mixer we're combining 250 grams of whole wheat flour 2 tablespoons of honey and 325 grams of water regular size whisking until smooth and then topping with 250 grams of all-purpose flour an additional half teaspoon of instant yeast one teaspoon of kosher salt and a tablespoon of olive oil cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes until big and foamy and puffy and it makes you think of brad leone the reason we've made this sort of whole wheat sponge is because whole wheat flour takes longer to absorb water so now when we knead it together on medium speed with a dough hook for about seven minutes we're gonna get a more accurate picture of how hydrated our dough is and your first reaction is gonna be oh my god it's way too sticky i wasted a pound of flour how am i going to get into heaven now but worry not because we want this dough to be very well hydrated and it will become much more handleable after rising in a well-oiled bowl for one hour or until doubled in size so cover it in plastic wrap and let it hang out until it's big and poofy and ready to be shaped into its final form first up we gotta generously flour our worktop and then we're gonna turn the dough out massage it minimally to knock out any air bubbles and then we're rolling it out to one long big old thing with a length of maybe 20 inches and width no wider than your intended loaf pan we're then going to roll it up tightly and place it in said loaf pan after it's been well lubricated with vegetable oil then we are cutting some parchment paper down to size pressing it into our loaf pan with about two inches of overhang on each side dropping the loaf in and then generously greasing up two sheets of plastic wrap we want plenty of plastic wrap so it can be tinted over the loaf and we want oil so it don't stick and as you can see the overhanging parchment paper helps us tent the plastic wrap over the loaf so it is not impeded during its one to two hour rise now mine rose a little unevenly so i made the inadvisable decision to score it which made it deflate a little bit so only do that if you have to but either way we're baking at 425 degrees fahrenheit for 40 to 50 minutes checking at 30 minutes and loosely tenting with foil if the loaf is starting to brown too quickly once the loaf is done it should have an internal temperature of between 200 to 210 degrees fahrenheit and should look almost exactly like a loaf of whole wheat bread we're now going to use our handy dandy parchment paper overhang to retrieve it from the pan place it on a cooling rack and brush the whole thing down with melted butter this is going to give our loaf a nice sheen while we let it cool completely for at least two hours cut into it one minute sooner and you will annihilate your bread's texture and there you have it folks a little weirdly shaped but perfectly serviceable half whole wheat sandwich bread ideal for the making of marmalade sandwiches the only other ingredient of which i could see in the movie was a generous slathering of high quality butter an absolute necessity to balance out the extreme sharpness of our genuine seville orange marmalade normally i'd want to toast a sandwich like this but paddington's appeared to be soft and rather pliable so there you have it all the vitamins and minerals of bad needs for a whole day more like all the sugar and carbs you could possibly fit into a sandwich time to take a big cartoon shaped bite and i'll tell you this is really really good tart bright fruit and rich creamy butter tucked between two slices of hearty wholesome weedy bread really my only complaint is paddington's claim that a wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich under his hat in case of emergencies an experience like so many others that left me feeling confused and sticky but before we call it a day i want to share with you what i think is the ultimate expression of marmalade and that is on english style scones into the bowl of a food processor goes 425 grams of all-purpose flour half a teaspoon of salt 2 tablespoons of baking powder and 50 grams of sugar we're gonna pulse that to combine before stopping and adding one stick or 110 grams of cold unsalted butter which we're gonna pulse until no large chunks remain almost like we're making a short crust then into a large bowl goes one cup or 236 milliliters of whole milk and two large eggs whisk together and then add the dry ingredients then we're just going to fold this together using a rubber spatula until it forms a shaggy dough that just kind of holds its shape turn it out onto a well-floured worktop and knead just a little bit until no large cracks remain then we're rolling it out just a little bit we want to get it to about a one inch thickness which we're then going to cut into two and a half inch rounds i'm going to use this highfalutin fancy fluted pastry cutter which of course we're going to dust with flour to prevent stickage and then we're going to place our scones directly onto a parchment-lined baking sheet where we're then going to brush them down with a mixture of equal parts beaten egg and whole milk you could also optionally brush these down with melted butter or just egg or milk or nothing if you want your scones to be not as good into a 450 degree fahrenheit oven they go for 10 to 12 minutes until puffed and browned and flaky and scone-like the perfect accompaniment to elevenses or afternoon tea where they would most likely be served with butter and marmalade now as far as i know paddington bear does not mention scones as a preferred marmalade delivery system but i'd like to think that he would approve he is after all a very wise and very british bear youi don't know if did you learn to use a knife like that you don't want to know well it's jolly good well now right it's time for the sugar that's what turns the juice into marmalade watch oh a lot hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at the marmalade from the paddington films and children's literature for which of course we're going to need a whole bunch of oranges about 3 pounds of scrubbed oranges for this recipe now you can use normal navel oranges but to make genuine marmalade you need seville sour oranges these are only ripe in the dead center of winter and are a bit hard to find but are the only way that you're going to make the tart slightly bitter concoction so enjoyed by the brits scots and peruvian bears alike seville sour oranges are different in a few ways first off they are positively chock-full of seeds this is a good thing for making jelly as seeds contain lots of pectin second off you will find that they are very very sour and that's about it now we're going to play a game of passing the oranges back and forth across the screen a few times first slicing them in half and then juicing them into a bowl by hand of course just like mad eye moody does in the film and we're making sure to reserve the pulp and skins which we are going to separate using a spoon orange pulp and seeds are both good sources of pectin so you'll see how we put those to good use later on take care not to pile your orange peels too high otherwise you might experience complete structural failure then we're going to strain the seeds out of the juice and add them to the orange flesh and then you have yourself the core components of traditional orange marmalade there's one more step to be taken with the peels and that is to slice them into small bite-sized pieces i personally prefer really chunky marmalade but you can break them down into as small pieces as you like go ahead and set those aside because up until now this party's been all about the oranges and it's time to make it a bit of a lemon party ideally you want to use the slightly smaller sweeter meyer lemon but all i got here is a regular lemon which i'm going to deseed and cut into small chunks then we are dumping the orange peels orange juice and lemon chunks into a large stock pot we're also going to add just enough water to cover them all up in my case about six cups now you could just add liquid pectin later on in the marmalade making process but we're going to extract it naturally from all those orange guts and seeds from earlier we're going to tie them in four layers of cheesecloth tied up tight with a bit of butcher's twine and then squeeze it into the hot tub just make sure it's as submerged and saturated as possible and bring this guy to a rolling simmer for anywhere from 30 minutes to a full hour we want the orange peels to show absolutely no resistance when cut in half with a spoon now we're taking this guy off the heat and removing our sack of scraps set that aside we're not done with it yet but first we're going to measure exactly how much marmalade we have i ended up with about seven cups then we're gonna add three quarters of a cup of sugar for every cup of marmalade so that comes out to five and a quarter cups we're just gonna give that a cursory mix to dissolve and then it's time to contend with our pectin we're gonna give this bag a good hard squeeze not only to get any residual juices out but all this thick almost creamy liquid which is pure natural pectin we want at least a tablespoon's worth but don't squeeze your bag too hard otherwise i'm sorry that is the only sound effect i could make for that anyway we are now bringing this guy to a constant simmer adding an optional pinch of cinnamon and doggedly pursuing a temperature of 220 degrees fahrenheit it's gonna come up to 212 very very quickly but it's going to stall around 216 for like half an hour while water continues to evaporate so it can reach its target temperature then to test to see if the jelly is going to set we're gonna drizzle a small amount onto a dinner plate that's been chilling in the freezer if the mixture wrinkles when you push it with your finger it is ready to go now this is the point where you can optionally preserve your marmalade into some sanitized canning jars they go lids tightened and placed in a steaming rack set in a pot of simmering water 10 minutes in the simmering water and then 24 hours at room temperature making sure the safety buttons have popped down now in the movie and on the posters it looks as though paddington enjoys his marmalade sandwiches on semi-whole wheat bread so in the bowl of the stand mixer we're combining 250 grams of whole wheat flour 2 tablespoons of honey and 325 grams of water regular size whisking until smooth and then topping with 250 grams of all-purpose flour an additional half teaspoon of instant yeast one teaspoon of kosher salt and a tablespoon of olive oil cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes until big and foamy and puffy and it makes you think of brad leone the reason we've made this sort of whole wheat sponge is because whole wheat flour takes longer to absorb water so now when we knead it together on medium speed with a dough hook for about seven minutes we're gonna get a more accurate picture of how hydrated our dough is and your first reaction is gonna be oh my god it's way too sticky i wasted a pound of flour how am i going to get into heaven now but worry not because we want this dough to be very well hydrated and it will become much more handleable after rising in a well-oiled bowl for one hour or until doubled in size so cover it in plastic wrap and let it hang out until it's big and poofy and ready to be shaped into its final form first up we gotta generously flour our worktop and then we're gonna turn the dough out massage it minimally to knock out any air bubbles and then we're rolling it out to one long big old thing with a length of maybe 20 inches and width no wider than your intended loaf pan we're then going to roll it up tightly and place it in said loaf pan after it's been well lubricated with vegetable oil then we are cutting some parchment paper down to size pressing it into our loaf pan with about two inches of overhang on each side dropping the loaf in and then generously greasing up two sheets of plastic wrap we want plenty of plastic wrap so it can be tinted over the loaf and we want oil so it don't stick and as you can see the overhanging parchment paper helps us tent the plastic wrap over the loaf so it is not impeded during its one to two hour rise now mine rose a little unevenly so i made the inadvisable decision to score it which made it deflate a little bit so only do that if you have to but either way we're baking at 425 degrees fahrenheit for 40 to 50 minutes checking at 30 minutes and loosely tenting with foil if the loaf is starting to brown too quickly once the loaf is done it should have an internal temperature of between 200 to 210 degrees fahrenheit and should look almost exactly like a loaf of whole wheat bread we're now going to use our handy dandy parchment paper overhang to retrieve it from the pan place it on a cooling rack and brush the whole thing down with melted butter this is going to give our loaf a nice sheen while we let it cool completely for at least two hours cut into it one minute sooner and you will annihilate your bread's texture and there you have it folks a little weirdly shaped but perfectly serviceable half whole wheat sandwich bread ideal for the making of marmalade sandwiches the only other ingredient of which i could see in the movie was a generous slathering of high quality butter an absolute necessity to balance out the extreme sharpness of our genuine seville orange marmalade normally i'd want to toast a sandwich like this but paddington's appeared to be soft and rather pliable so there you have it all the vitamins and minerals of bad needs for a whole day more like all the sugar and carbs you could possibly fit into a sandwich time to take a big cartoon shaped bite and i'll tell you this is really really good tart bright fruit and rich creamy butter tucked between two slices of hearty wholesome weedy bread really my only complaint is paddington's claim that a wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich under his hat in case of emergencies an experience like so many others that left me feeling confused and sticky but before we call it a day i want to share with you what i think is the ultimate expression of marmalade and that is on english style scones into the bowl of a food processor goes 425 grams of all-purpose flour half a teaspoon of salt 2 tablespoons of baking powder and 50 grams of sugar we're gonna pulse that to combine before stopping and adding one stick or 110 grams of cold unsalted butter which we're gonna pulse until no large chunks remain almost like we're making a short crust then into a large bowl goes one cup or 236 milliliters of whole milk and two large eggs whisk together and then add the dry ingredients then we're just going to fold this together using a rubber spatula until it forms a shaggy dough that just kind of holds its shape turn it out onto a well-floured worktop and knead just a little bit until no large cracks remain then we're rolling it out just a little bit we want to get it to about a one inch thickness which we're then going to cut into two and a half inch rounds i'm going to use this highfalutin fancy fluted pastry cutter which of course we're going to dust with flour to prevent stickage and then we're going to place our scones directly onto a parchment-lined baking sheet where we're then going to brush them down with a mixture of equal parts beaten egg and whole milk you could also optionally brush these down with melted butter or just egg or milk or nothing if you want your scones to be not as good into a 450 degree fahrenheit oven they go for 10 to 12 minutes until puffed and browned and flaky and scone-like the perfect accompaniment to elevenses or afternoon tea where they would most likely be served with butter and marmalade now as far as i know paddington bear does not mention scones as a preferred marmalade delivery system but i'd like to think that he would approve he is after all a very wise and very british bear you\n"