Healthy Cooking

100% Whole Wheat Bread That’s Yummy

Use freshly-milled flour from about 7-1/2 cups hard white wheat.

Fit your bread mixer with the mixing paddle. I have a KitchenAid and a Bosch, but I like using the Bosch for bread making.

In the mixing bowl place:

5 cups warm water

4 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup gluten flour (you can buy it at the Good Earth or any other health food store)

1 tablespoon Saf-Instant dry yeast

1 cup raw, unfiltered honey (you can use less but I like the honey taste)

Mix ingredients until well incorporated. Let stand 15-20 min. to rise. It should bubble and foam up.

Add:

1 heaping tablespoon Himilayan Crystal salt or sea salt

1 heaping tablespoon lemon juice (I use the bottled lemon juice, but you could just as well use fresh organic lemon)

Mix, then change to dough hook, sprayed with olive oil and add:

4 cups flour

Mix some more, then add:

4 cups more flour

Mix, then add:

1 cup flour more, if needed to clean the bowl. Dough will be quite wet, but will be gathered into a ball. Kneed for about 9- 10 minutes, or until you can “window pane” a little bit of dough. *

*Window pane means stretching a bit of dough with your fingers until you can see light through it without it splitting apart. If it splits while doing this,
knead a little longer.

Cover and let it rise in bowl

until doubled in volume—about 30 minutes, depending on how hot the kitchen is and your altitude. I live in the Rockies so it doesn’t take long.

Oil the work area and your hands with olive or coconut oil, then coax the dough from the bowl onto that area. Try not to deflate it as you divide it into four parts; pan out. I use coconut oil to grease my pans, which allows the bread to slip right out after cooling a bit.

Let rise to 1-inch above the pan. Bake 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a thermometer stuck into the back of the bread registers 180 degrees. I like to cover my bread with tin foil after about 10 minutes of baking to avoid over browning, which results because of the honey. If you like a deep brown crust, skip this step.

Let cool a few minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack. After 5 minutes you can use an electric knife to slice the warm, moist bread so you can load on tons of honey butter and then dive in. CAUTION: Dont try this at home unless you don’t mind consuming the whole loaf at one sitting. Heehee

I take a slice of this bread whenever I’m on the run and need a quick nutritious lunch, because  I don’t stop at the fast food places.  Spread with peanut butter it carries an even bigger  punch of nutrition, but you don’t need it because it is  already high in protein.  Just add a few raw carrot sticks, a banana and some  cold spring water and you’ve got the best  lunch possibe.

Good luck with your baking. Don’t hesitate to ask questions and be sure to report back, even some pics would be good.  I want you to be as excited about this bread as I am, so let me know if you have any problems.  I will be glad to help you achieve your best whole wheat bread ever.

Love,

Marly

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by
http://gnowfglins.com/2009/09/15/tuesday-twister-blog-carnival-2009-09-15/

How have I been twisting this past week?

Baking up loaves of good-for-you 100% Whole Wheat Bread, that’s how.

And this bread is so light and flavorful  it literally melts in your mouth with each delicious bite.  It has no fats, but is super-hydrated so it is moist and tender, and stays that way for days.  It’s great for  sandwiches and toast, or just plain with nothing on it, but I love it best of all when it’s  warm from the oven slathered with honey butter. Yummmmm!

It took me years to perfect a recipe for 100% whole wheat bread that you can actually eat and want to eat.   Everyone in my family loves it, especially my grandkids.  I don’t feel bad about giving them all they want because they are getting so much nutrition in each slice. 

I’ll be happy to share the recipe if anyone is interested.  Just leave note in the comments.

By the way, this is my first post on my new blog.  How’d I do?  I chose the “green” theme because it symbolizes  the “life” that  should be in all the foods we consume.  Thanks for visiting.  Come back again.

Love,

Marly