I love homemade bread! The smell of healthy, home-baked bread wafting through the house brings a great sense of comfort to me. I loved coming home to this scent as a child, and enjoying the freshly baked bread that my mom had just pulled from the oven. I hope I am making those same memories for my own children. Below is my favorite Whole Wheat Bread recipe (I can’t believe I haven’t posted it already!). With a Bosch or Kitchen Aid, this recipe is simple. It makes about 6 / 1.5 lb. loaves. I originally got this recipe from a local kitchen store. The dough enhancer and vital wheat gluten are key. They make the whole wheat bread soft and absolutely delicious! I also use freshly ground hard white wheat for the flour, and this provides a mild flavor while retaining all of the nutrition of whole wheat. (My neighbors rave about it!) To cut down on sugary sweets, I gave loaves of this bread with homemade jam for Christmas neighbor gifts. If you don’t have homemade jam in your pantry, you can give something like the Alison’s Pantry jams pictured above, or some whipped honey butter.
WHOLE WHEAT BREAD
2 Tbsp. SAF Instant Yeast
2 Tbsp. Vital Wheat Gluten
2 Tbsp. Dough Enhancer
Whole wheat flour (about 10 cups)
6 C. warm water
2/3 C. oil
2/3 C. honey
2 Tbsp. salt
In a mixing bowl with dough hook, add yeast, vital wheat gluten, dough enhancer, 4 cups whole wheat flour, and water. Gently blend, then add oil, honey, and salt. Add more flour while blending until dough comes together and begins to pull away from the side of the bowl. When the sides of the mixing bowl stay clean, continue kneading for 10 minutes. This will develop the gluten and negate having to raise the dough multiple times for a light bread.
After 10 minutes, take the dough out of the bowl and place on a clean greased cookie sheet or countertop. Divide the dough into portions to suit your bread pans. Spray pans with Vegalene or Bak-Klene Bread Pan Coating. Mold dough portions into smooth loaf shapes and gently place into pans. Let bread rise for 30 minutes or until a nice rise above the edge of the pan.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown. I get 6-7 loaves out of this recipe.
I spray the tops of the bread with a little Vegalene to give it a bakery shine, and store it in Bakery Bread Bags (#5494), which are on sale this month for $3.99.
yummmmm seriously your bread is the best!
Okay, I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I just can’t make bread. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have official dough enhancer, so I used potato flakes, but it didn’t rise at all. I let it sit for 4 hours, but they were little bricks. What is weird is that usually when my bread is like that, it really is a brick – and totally not edible. But this time even though it didn’t raise, it was still nice inside.
Tammy,
Okay, let’s figure this out! Dough enhancer is great for making the bread softer and giving it a great texture, but it sounds more like the problem is in your yeast. If you are using fresh yeast, I think your water might be too hot. I have done this before and killed the yeast. If you are using SAF instant yeast, just add it in with your dry ingredients. (I have been using this kind for about a year and I love how it works.) If you are using regular non-instant yeast, put it into the warm water and then give it plenty of time to foam and “sponge” in the water. Then you can be sure the yeast is still working before you add all the other ingredients.
Another trick that works well is to let the bread rise in your oven with just the oven light on. It’s just the right amount of warmth, and you can avoid any drafts as the bread rises. And it definitely shouldn’t take 4 hours to rise! My recipe rises in about an hour. I hope these ideas will help. Let me know how your next batch turns out.
I’m back to tell you about my next try at this recipe. 🙂 I didn’t change anything (still used potato flakes and SAF instant yeast) except that I only let it rise for about 30-45 min and I am now at 4500 feet. I don’t know if altitude makes a difference, but the loaves still didn’t really rise much (but a bit more than last time), but this time when I baked them they almost doubled in size as they cooked. I think I ate half a loaf all by myself just that day.