Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Whole Wheat Bread

My sister invited me over one time to make this bread with her.  She was trying it for the first time.  Now, in my mind when someone says, "hey, you wanna come over and make homemade wheat bread?"  It auto-translates in my mind to, "hey, you wanna come over and spend 4 hours making a crumbly brick that no one is even going to want to touch, let alone eat?"  BUT I'd do about anything if it was with my sister, so I went.  In all reality, she made the bread, and I was shocked that it took her about 15 minutes to get everything together and then it was in the oven.  I was even more surprised when she took it out and it was soft and had about the same texture of white bread - NOT like the hard, heavy chunks of home made wheat bread I'd had before.  Anyway, it takes about 1 hour - start to finish - and is YUMM-O!  Definitely worth trying.  Plus I feel good about making my own bread...makes me feel....well....domestic goddessy to be able to say, "here, try some of my homemade bread" and to know that it's better for us than anything we can buy.

Ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat ground into flour (or 4-5 cups whole wheat flour)
3 1/2 cups very warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup gluten flour
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
1 cup wheat bran
2 Tablespoons SAF Instant Yeast (DO NOT substitute)
1-2 cups white flour

Directions
Place 3 1/2 cups of very warm water in mixing bowl and add the salt, gluten flour, oil, honey, wheat bran and wheat flour.  Mix together.  Add 2 (level) Tbsp of SAF Instant Yeast, and enough white flour so the dough starts to pull away from the edge of the bowl.  Then mix with dough hook for 5 minutes.

Remove from bowl and place on lightly floured surface.  Divide into 3 loaves with a knife.  Rub shortening (or butter) onto hands and form into loaves.  Don't handle too much.

Place in pans sprayed with Pam.  Cover with a towel and let raise 8-10 minutes until dough reaches top of pan.  Put in COLD oven.  Turn oven on to 350 and bake for 31-33 minutes.  Remover bread from pans immediately.  Cool on rack.

***Hints:
1) Since you're measuring 1/2 cup of each, measure the oil before you measure the honey.  Makes it SO much easier to get the honey out of the measuring cup!
2) I found that by grinding my own wheat, my bread came out much MUCH heavier than the light, soft bread I enjoyed at my sister's house.  Maybe it's because I'm a beginner and didn't do it right, but I liked this bread much better with store-bought whole wheat flour.  In fact I almost gave up after it didn't come out right the first two times.  Wow...I can't believe I have an opinion about grinding my own wheat. Haha

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the 7 goddesses

These 7 goddesses share their wisdom with the rest of us. Click on their tabs above to learn their lessons and read their tips:

APHRODITE - goddess of love & beauty - this is you

NYX - goddess of night - lessons on wifery (is that a word?) and all things night time

LETO - goddess of motherhood - all things related to motherhood

DEMETER - goddess of food & harvest - and for that reason, my favorite. Find tried and true recipes here

HESTIA - goddess of hearth & home - on making your house a home

ATHENA - goddess of wisdom - making learning a lifelong journey (plus a killer book list)

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