Whole Wheat Bread that isn't heavy?

Kim's tried and true--works every time-- Winter White Wheat Bread recipe

icerose, I make my own bread. I also grind my own wheat into flour. I'm not sure if you have the equipment for that but if you go to a local grainery, ask for a wheat flour that is a HARD Winter White Wheat/Flour. It is a bit higher in protein than red winter wheat and has less gastrointestinal side effects and it's a lovely wheat. Now for the recipe (I have a bosch bread mixer btw.): *NOTE: There are both soft white wheat grain and hard white wheat...while the soft is for pastry making and bakeries use it for bread quite often, it IS the whole grain, but you don't want that...you want the HARD Winter White Wheat grain.

6 cups hot water
1/2 cup powdered milk
1 stick of butter/cut into tablespoons slices so they will melt. (I do not use oil, shortening or margarine but you can; 1/2 cup if you do)
1/2 cup clover honey (you can use sugar but it's better with honey)
2 tbs salt
2 tbs quick yeast
3 eggs (omit if you don't want it but it makes a lighter bread and adds protein
16-18 cups flour

Makes 6 loaves

Hint: use pam non-stick spray or butter or shortening to grease your pans but never EVER flour them.

Directions:

Use a very large mixer bowl for this. Put hot water, powdered milk, butter, honey, eggs, salt, and 9 cups of flour into the bowl and mix until completely blended...add the yeast and cover...allow time for the mixture to become bubbly (known in baker's circles as a sponge) so you know the yeast is active.

Then add the rest of the flour one cup at a time. You may not use all the flour but you will know when you have enough when:
If you are doing this by hand it should not be sticky to the touch but be moist. Knead 10 minutes for well mixed bread.
If you are using a bread mixer it will be ready when it no longer sticks to the sides as it turns. Leave in mixer for five full minutes. (as you add one cup at a time, the mixer will be doing it's work as you go.

Now, you can at this point put it right into the six greased bread pans but I let it go for another rising. When it's doubled in the bowl I let it go for another five minutes or 10 by hand.

Hint: When making on the counter, I have a clear plastic slab I do it by hand on and I do NOT flour the surface in the second stage of the kneading process, I use pam non-stick on the surface. Many people make the mistake of using flour, (traditional) but then wonder why their bread is heavy and dry. When you use flour, you are ADDING it to the dough. It can be too much..so once you know you've added all the flour you need and this has had it's second rising, that's when you don't use flour to push it down and work the air out. (Clear? probably like mud)

Divide into loaves. Now...here's the thing that to this day cracks my kids up. I scoop out of the bowl an amount that I know is a loaf and without putting it on the counter to shape, I do it in my hands and I slap the loaf..like a spank..till it's smooth with no bubbles as I mold it into a loaf...if that makes any sense.

Let it rise in the pans till about a half inch above the top and put it into a cold oven at 350 degrees. It is done when you tap it and the crust is firm and you have a sort of hollow sound or approximately 20 minutes. I bake by look, sound and smell, I hate timers.

Now, alternative:

I never recommend anyone jump into 100% whole grain wheat if they haven't been eating it regularly so...I recommend half white baker's flour (not the kind with yeast already in it) and half whole white wheat.

Hint: I absolutely LOVE my homemade bread pans. I buy those cans of juice in the store that come in pineapple and orange, mango or whatever. They are tall and not as big as a #10. I fill the bread dough about half way up and you get these perfectly tall, round loaves that are just a slightly bit smaller than a traditional loaf. There's virtually no crust. I will hunt down the photo my friend from Cape Town took this last winter when she was here visiting and I made bread for her.

So how'd I do ladies?

icerose said:

Sounds good Maryn. I have dozens of bread recipes that I love, they're just now suddenly irrelevant. If it's delicious though, post away, I just don't want the dull low flavor stuff. Maybe I need to add molasses...

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Half honey, half brown sugar.

Or...
try adding millet seed, sunflower seeds, raisins.

I'm looking for a good Rye Bread recipe as well.

Ken's Panflakes:
Mix whole wheat flour with water.
Spread on a sheet of aluminum foil, like a pancake.
Bake twenty minutes at 350 degrees.
Tastes like cardboard, but is healthy. I dip mine in tea to give it some flavor. Squeezed lemon works too.
I'm not much of a cook, lol.
ps One downer of this recipe is that the aluminum foil sticks to the bottom of the panflake.
It can be peeled off easily enough though.

Ken said:

Ken's Panflakes:
Mix wholewheat flour with water.
Spread on a sheet of aluminum foil, like a pancake.
Bake twenty minutes at 350 degrees.
Tastes like cardboard, but is healthy. I dip mine in tea to give it some flavor. Squeezed lemon works too.
I'm not much of a cook, lol.

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Light, Ken...she said LIGHT...of course after eating a few of these pancakes and a trip or two the bathroom, she might feel lighter.

lol :-D
(Will have to give your own recipe a try, Cass. Probably a bit tastier than mine ;-)

Ken said:

lol :-D
(Will have to give your own recipe a try, Cass. Probably a bit tastier than mine ;-)

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I've got it down so that now, I can have the process finished in about 2 hours...where it used to take me four. I don't even use exact measurements in flour. The weather and climate you are in makes a difference. icerose and I are in the same state and I know approximately where she is which is still a bit drier than where I am.

icerose, we should meet up the next time I travel down your direction.

... 2hrs isn't long at all, if you're making whole loaves.
I live in the part of the country where things take forever to cook,
unless I walk a way for a second, in which case the entree immediately chars to a cinder ;-)

icerose said:

Your recipe was perfectly clear, Cassiopia, I've been making bread for years, I'm just now venturing into whole wheat and found myself void of recipes.

I unfortunately don't have a grainery on this side of the state nor do I have a grinder so I'm stuck with the whole wheat flour from stores until I move. And by this fall it's looking like I'll be clear in Kentucky. Gotta go where we can get a job. But if you do come down this way before then, by all means, stop by.

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Any like...whole foods stores your way? You can ask for the white wheat flour..it's just they usually think you mean, white flour. The don't get it's whole white hard winter wheat flour.

Yes I do know what you mean, I've just broadened my job search to include the entire US and Canada. I have some hints coming my way from South Africa but I'm not ready to leap back that direction just yet.

Just got off the phone with a sister back home in South Dakota and she's hinting. But I know I'll miss the Wasatach Mountains if I move. I've been here coming up on 30 years. I'm a Utahan now.

Ken said:

... 2hrs isn't long at all, if you're making whole loaves.
I live in the part of the country where things take forever to cook,
unless I walk a way for a second, in which case the entree immediately chars to a cinder ;-)

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Oh I so hate it when that happens LOL

Look for a recipe that has added gluten. You can typically find them on the gluten box. You can find the gluten box at most health food stores, and sometimes in big grocery stores. I second the suggestion for white (as opposed to red) wheat flour as well, although hard white wheat is not always easy to find.

Gluten only adds to the elasticity. It's added as a cheat for faster rising and more elastic bread so you don't have to knead it as much. Adding gluten runs the risk of triggering an allergy.

I don't recommend it at all.

icerose said:

26 years here. Unfortunately we have one grocery store within 60 miles and they have one bag of whole wheat flour, it's western family. When I say middle of nowhere, I swear I mean it.

In some ways it would be really really good for us to move.

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oh my word..yeah I'm spoiled. But I might be moving too, hun. Gotta go where the work is, like you said.