Since cutting out the grocery store we’ve been making our bread from grain I grind myself. The grinder was the best purchase I’ve ever made. Not only are we saving money by buying our grain in bulk, freshly ground grain has a higher nutritional value since it hasn’t sat around oxidizing for months and I know it’s not rancid because I ground it myself.
Each week I’ve changed one or two things to my bread recipe which I’ve tweaked from the whole wheat sandwich bread recipe in Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor
. This book will explain everything you ever wanted to know about the science behind bread.
Each week we say the bread is amazing, the best yet but it somehow continues to get better each week. I’ve been holding off posting my recipe until it stopped getting better but I’m just going to post it now and make changes to it as I change the recipe more.
The one thing neither of these books tells you to do is to soak your grains first which I always do. It’s disturbing to me that whole wheat consumption is rising and so is Celiac’s disease so I take the conservative road – one that also makes your bread more flavorful with an amazing crumb structure.
This recipe will make either 2- 9″ loaves or 3- 8″ loaves. You can also reserve one of the loaves for making rolls, hamburger buns, cinnamon rolls or breadsticks. This recipe calls for both a soaker and a sponge. It is a little more work to make two doughs the night before and then incorporate them on bread day but I’ve tried it every which way and the combination of the two takes your bread to a whole new level. It’s well worth the extra few minutes.
One final note before the recipe – I grind my own flour so you may find you need less than these quantities. Store bought flour has settled. By stirring your flour with a fork or whisk before measuring you will come closer to the quantities I am using here.
Soaker
3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (I use hard red wheat)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups milk plus 2 Tablespoons of whey (or you can substitute buttermilk, yogurt or kefir for the milk and whey but your bread will be tangier)
Mix all ingredients until it forms a ball and cover the bowl until you are done with the sponge.
Sponge or Biga
3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (I use hard red wheat)
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cup filtered water plus 2 Tablespoons whey
Add all the Sponge ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and knead using the dough hook for several minutes until it forms a dough. Let it rest for 5 minutes then knead it for one more minute.
Place this dough ball on top of the soaker dough ball in the bowl, cover it and let it sit on the counter overnight. If you won’t be making bread the next day you can put this in the fridge for several days but bring it to room temperature before making bread, which takes several hours to do.
When you are ready to make the bread add:
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons butter (optional)
6 Tablespoons honey, agave syrup, or organic cane sugar (is using sugar add an extra 2 Tablespoons water)
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
Knead this all in the bowl of stand mixer using the bread hook for about 6 – 8 minutes. Wait until your dough has been kneading about 4-5 minutes before adding more water or flour to get the right texture. Your dough should be “tacky but not sticky” according to Peter.
Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
Knead it again for 1 minute.
Check the final dough by taking a small piece of dough and stretching it out to perform a “windowpane test”. Your dough should be elastic enough to stretch, creating a window you can see light through without tearing.
Shape the dough into a ball and return it to the bowl. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave it to rise in a draft-free place until you can poke your finger into the dough and the indentation from your finger does not fill in. I let me dough rise in the oven with the light on for some warmth. You can also let it rise on the counter but it may take longer. Mine takes about 1 1/2 hours for the first rise but my house is about 66 degrees. If this takes too long for you try doubling the amount of yeast – but remember that virtually all yeast is GMO so I try to minimize my use of it.
After the first rise you can shape your loaves (which I will have a later post on) then cover them with the tea towel and let them rise again, about 45 minutes to 75 minutes this time. Keep in mind they will rise slightly during the baking.
With experience you’ll figure out how high they should look in your pans before baking. If you get bread with large holes in the top you know you let them rise too long. If the crumb is dense you did not let them rise long enough. You may end up with several loaves that you save to make breadcrumbs, bread pudding or croutons out of but the experience you are gaining is immeasurable.
If you do happen to let the bread rise too long you can take a serrated knife and slash the tops before baking to keep them from rising up more.
Bake your bread in a 350 F degree oven for about 40 minutes, until they are deep brown and sound hollow on the bottom when thumped. An instant read thermometer inserted into the bottom of the loaf should read 185 – 190 farenheit.
Remove the loaves from the pans and place them on a wire rack to cool completely before you slice them.
Homemade bread will last for several days before it might start to mold so be sure to pre-slice and freeze any bread you don’t plan on eating in that time frame. You can pop it in the toaster to thaw and/or toast it when you want it.
Now you know how to make amazing whole wheat bread that everyone will LOVE.
Homemade whole wheat bread
One of my projects for this week, along with re-potting the tomatoes, was to make a scrap composter. We have a great compost program for yard waste in the city but I wanted those nutrients for my yard.
