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Entire-Wheat Bread
Use the preceding recipe without change other than in kind of flour and two additional tablespoonfuls of sugar.
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: it tells you to make the bread on the previous page with different flour and more sugar. A few points on what that substitution actually does.
- The base recipe is not on this pageYou need whatever loaf immediately precedes it in the book for quantities of liquid, yeast, salt and flour. The proportions are not recoverable from this line alone.
- Entire-wheat is not quite whole wheatAround 1900 "entire-wheat" flour generally meant wheat ground with most of the germ and finer bran retained but the coarsest bran sifted out — usually a finer meal than graham flour, which kept everything, though usage was not consistent between millers. Modern whole-wheat flour is the closest match.
- Why the extra sugarBran particles cut gluten strands and slow the rise, so the loaf tends to come out denser than the white version. The recipe gives no reason for the two extra tablespoons, but the likely effect is to feed the yeast and offset the bran's slightly bitter edge.
- HydrationWhole-wheat flour absorbs noticeably more water than white. Expect to add a few tablespoons more liquid than the base recipe calls for, or let the dough rest 20 minutes after mixing so the bran hydrates before you judge the consistency.
- OvenThe preceding recipe governs, if it gives a temperature at all. As modern guidance, a sandwich loaf of this type bakes at 375-400F for roughly 35-45 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches about 200F and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Rising timesDo not go by the clock from the white-bread version. A whole-wheat dough of the same weight typically takes longer to double, and it will not dome as high in the pan.
- For sandwiches specificallyFor sandwiches -- Bake it a day ahead: fresh whole-wheat crumb tears under a knife, while a rested loaf slices cleanly.
Janet McKenzie Hill's book belongs to the moment when the sandwich became a fixture of American luncheons, teas and card parties, and its attention to bread is telling you that the bread was considered part of the dish rather than a purchase. "Entire-wheat" flour was promoted heavily in the late nineteenth century by health reformers in the line running back to Sylvester Graham, who argued that sifting the bran out of wheat robbed it of nourishment; by 1900 millers were selling entire-wheat and graham flours to households that had absorbed the argument without giving up fine white bread entirely. The result is exactly this kind of entry he a a hostess could offer both light and brown sandwiches on the same plate.