I am terrible at posting on here. I just cannot find the time for anything lately. I feel like I spend all of my time homeschooling the kids and the rest of it trying to keep the house up and running. I have barely even touched my sewing machine! But now that we barely make it above freezing lately we do not spend as much time outside so I am going to try to post a little bit more!
But I have been trying something new around here. When I moved to the middle of no where I decided to try making homemade bread all the time. Bread is so expensive here and I have to drive forever to get to a walmart, so it seemed like a good idea. I also decided to do 100 percent whole wheat. Might as well make it healthy right? And it helps that I can get wheat from a local farmer here for a smokin' deal!
I have baked before, just rolls and sweet bread. I never really got into bread making, but now that I have been doing it every day for 4 months I think that I am getting the hang of it. I have had a lot of help though, this is the main recipe I use. You can find it here. She gives a lot of fabulous tips and helps with whole wheat. I have also included it at the bottom of this post.
I have to be honest with you, my first couple of loaves were about two inches tall and super dense! I tried alot of different recipes trying to get something to work, and when I did it was a pretty much a red letter day in our house.
This is what they look like baking:
And they slice up so nicely - and are soft even when they have cooled off a little bit. But i never let it get that far cooled. I love my bread warm right out of the oven with butter, because let's be honest that is really the best way to eat bread right?
Doesn't that look just lovely? Especially on those cold day that we have been having lately.
I just love it and my kids do too. We now go through about 5 loaves a week - and the kids are the only ones that eat it!!
Here is the recipe, I wish you all the best of luck.
2 tablespoons instant yeast
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1 (1000 mg) vitamin c pill, crushed (I know, this sounds strange but apparently the acidic properties in the vitamin c or lemon juice, as some recipes call for, help the gluten to develop)
6 1/2 cups very warm water
2/3 cup oil
2/3 cup honey or sugar
2 tablespoons salt
In a large bowl (or stand mixer, like the almighty Bosch), mix together 5 cups of wheat flour, yeast, vital wheat gluten and vitamin c. Add the warm water and mix well. Add the oil and honey (or sugar) and mix again. Cover the bowl and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. Add the salt and start the mixer (or mix by hand), adding the remaining flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl to form a soft dough. You may not need to add all of the flour! Judge the dough by feel not by the amount of flour you’ve used. It might be slightly sticky but should hold it’s shape. Let the dough knead for 7 minutes in the stand mixer (or 15 minutes by hand). Form into 5 loaves (for the 8 1/2 X 4-inch loaf pans) and place into greased bread pans. Let rise until the bread is 2 inches above the top of the bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (I like to let the bread rise 1 inch above the top of the pans and then put the bread in a cold oven and turn the oven on to 350 degrees and bake the bread for 32 minutes).
