I LOVE the aroma of fresh bread baking in the oven. I have looked for years to find a whole wheat bread recipe that turns out and tastes good. I tried another bread recipe last week from a gal's blog. It didn't turn out. It didn't rise very high. After I baked it I thought it would be better for a door stop! I was so disappointed. I guess if you have a good recipe you should stick with it! I found my recipe on the Internet. It took a lot of different recipes to find a good one! I love the bread recipe I found and I have been making it for a few years now. I use hard white wheat because I don't care for the taste of red wheat. I usually double the recipe to make 4 loaves instead of two.
I was telling my husband that I should sell loaves of bread. We went to Great Harvest Bread today. I didn't buy any bread but I was curious to see how much the loaves cost. They were anywhere from $4.50/loaf on up. WOW! That is expensive!
Here is my recipe:
Delicious Whole Wheat Bread
By Crystal Miller
Makes 2 loaves
2 cups warm water
1 T yeast
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup oil
2 t. salt
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten flour
5 to 7 cups whole wheat flour, freshly ground if possible (I use Hard White Wheat)
In a stand up type mixer such as a Kitchen Aid combine water, yeast and honey. Let this sit for about 5 minutes or until the yeast is nice and bubbly. Add oil, salt, gluten flour and 3 to 4 cups of whole-wheat flour. Knead this with your mixer and continue to add more flour until the dough does not stick to the side of the bowl and does not feel sticky to the touch. Knead for another 7 to 8 minutes. When dough has finished kneading let it sit in the mixer bowl and rise until doubled in volume. This usually takes about 45 minutes. When it has finished rising, turn on your mixer and knead again for a few more minutes to get all the air bubbles out. Remove from mixer and divide the dough into 2 pieces and shape into loaves and put in bread pans that have been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Let the loaves rise until they are about to 1 inch above the rim of the bread pan. Bake at 350 for approx. 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Enjoy!
