Whole Wheat Bread

I have to share this bread recipe! Its awesome! My amazing friend Jill gave me this recipe and it is absolutely perfect for sandwich bread. She was also kind enough to do a bread making demonstration and I learnt so much from her and wanted to share some of her tips so that you can make yummy home made bread too!

I make about 70% of our bread now. We buy a few loaves here and there because lets face it, some things just taste better on store bought bread like grilled cheese in our sandwich maker or to use it instead of hot dog buns etc. But the rest of the time we have yummy homemade whole wheat bread which is delicious and so so so much better for you. It stores really well too if you slice it and then put it in the freezer. When we want some we just defrost it on 60% power for about 30 seconds. Peter isn't a huge fan of this but it works for Quinn and I and its nice to have a little stash in the freezer just in case.

Something that I thought was interesting about this recipe is that you add the flour in several stages. Maybe this is why this bread slices so well and isn't crumbly? Also, instead of dusting the counter with flour to shape your dough you use oil. This was the first time I had seen a recipe that required this but have seen a few more since. But I think that using oil instead of flour makes a big difference!

It is a pretty sticky dough. I have an electric mixer which works fine and it would obviously work well in a kitchen aid too. Again, using oil instead of flour to shape the dough is super helpful here as the dough is so sticky but you don't want to dry it out by using more flour. I realized a big problem I had when making bread was that I was using way too much flour. Make sure you don't use more flour than this recipe calls for, even if it does look too wet. Trust me, it will turn out perfect.

A great tip Jill had was to measure your oil first and then your honey into the oil so that it doesn't stick.

I usually half this recipe, I only have two bread pans. I think that my bread pans are pretty big though because the bread does come out a little shallow. I am planning on playing around with the amounts a little to fill up my bread pans a little more.

Oh, and did I mention it only takes about an hour from start to finish? With only 10 minutes of actual mixing, kneading etc its quicker to make then to go to the store and buy some!

100% Whole Wheat Bread

(4 Loaves)

Add: 5 to 5 ½ cups hot tap water

2/3 cup oil

2/3 cup honey (or 1/3 molasses + 1/3 honey) or ½ cup granulated sugar

1 very full Tablespoon salt

Run machine for 30 seconds on speed 1.

Add: 5 cups of flour

Run machine until batter is smooth. Use speed 1.

Add: 3 T. Saf instant yeast and 2 more cups flour

Run machine on speed 1 and continue adding 1 cup of flour at a time until the sides of the bowl are free from batter. The total flour used in the batter should be 12 to 13 cups.

Add: 1 to 1 ½ cups additional flour [there should be no more than a total of 13 to14 cups of flour used in this recipe]. Place the lid on the bowl. Turn machine on to Speed 3. Knead the batter with the machine for 4 to 6 minutes. Usually, 5½ minutes is just right. Stop the machine. Oil your hands and shape the loaves (do not use flour). Rise in the oven at 150 degrees until loaves are at top of pan. This takes about 15-20 minutes. Turn oven to 350E and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Baking time will depend on size of loaves as well as the oven features.