High Protein Sandwich Bread

I got tired of buying sandwich bread in stores because the list of ingredients is long, and I cannot pronounce most of them. The bread I chose to buy was very low in calories which is hard to beat. My favorite brands have been: Publix low calorie wheat bread, Nature’s Own Keto, and the latest I discovered: Aldi Fit and Active. All of them had 40 calories per slice, which is great for anyone who counts calories. They had only 2 grams of protein per slice but the calorie count just cannot be beat.

I needed to find a recipe for a higher protein bread that is not too high in calories.

I found something I can work with on a @Exercise4CheatMeals channel.

I do want to remove as much processed foods as possible from my diet and baking bread is an easy one. I was not able to make a lower calorie bread, not yet, but this recipe for sandwich bread has relatively low calorie count and more protein than any bread out there. Most importantly it is made from scratch and has only few ingredients.

HOW TO MAKE HIGH PROTEIN SANDWICH BREAD

We are going to need 405 grams of water (14.5 oz) plus 45 g for yeast starting. You can also use milk, the bread will be much fluffier. I lately started using half milk and half water mix.

Heat the water up to 105F or so.

I am going to use bread flour (you can also use all purpose flour) and high gluten high protein flour: Vital Wheat Gluten.

It is important to weigh your ingredients, measuring with cups will vary too much and may change the texture of your bread.

330 g of bread flour and 165 g of this vital wheat gluten four.

10 g of salt.

Mix well, making sure both flours are well combined . The vital wheat gluten is very sticky and you want to avoid any clumps in bread. Add water and combine. 25 g of white vinegar, supposedly it makes the dough plump. You won’t taste it or smell it in final product. Combine all ingredients into one sticky dough. Cover it up and set aside.

To 45 g of water, add 15 grams of active dry yeast (3 tsp). Mix well and set aside for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes add the yeast to the dough.

And this is the most laborious part. It takes about 3-4 minutes to do it right.

You want to keep on squeezing the dough to the max. You will feel how the dough becomes softer. The dough is a bit sticky. Cover up again and let it rise for 30 minutes.

Wet your hands before handling the dough. This is a very important step, it will help tremendously with the dough not sticking to your hands. Now keep on stretching the dough (see the pictures below), until it gets impossible to stretch anymore. Form a ball and cover again for another 30 minutes.

And I am going to repeat the process one more time. Look how silky and smooth it is this time. And less sticky, but do not forget to wet your hands before handling the dough. Keep on stretching like before and form a nice, smooth ball. Cover for another 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes the dough grew large and is much smoother. This amount of dough is good for 2 smaller loaves. So I need to divide the dough into 2 parts. I like 2 smaller loaves so my slices are not bigger than one ounce each.

I am flouring the surface, but I learned that making the surface wet works even better. So you can try that. Stretch the dough well by letting it hang (see the picture below).

Start rolling it into a cylinder and try to pop all the bubbles. The bubbles will become holes in your bread and we don’t want that.

I prepared 2 loaves and lined them with parchments paper. Repeat the process with the second dough.

And now they are ready for the last rise (30 minutes). Cover them so they don’t dry out.

After 30 minutes they are ready to go to a preheated oven, 350F (180C), for about 30-35 minutes.

I remove them right away so they don’t sweat, take the parchment paper off and lay them down on a rack to cool completely.

I usually freeze one and eat the second one right away. This high protein sandwich bread keeps well in the fridge for a while. It is also much easier to slice when it is kept in the fridge. You can slice it and toast it before eating.

This is a much better bread than the store-bought option.

Both loaves weigh 30 oz (840g) so 1 oz (28g) has about 62 calories and 6 grams of protein.

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