In honor of Lammas

I’d like to share my recipe for making 2 loaves of honey whole wheat bread. The recipe is easily doubled to four loaves, if you don’t mind kneading a lot of dough. I always found the 4 loaves to be very helpful, since once people find out that you make bread, they tend to want to share. The trick to really great whole wheat bread is really great whole wheat bread flour. If you plan to make bread on a regular basis, I totally recommend investing in a grain mill. I have a Wondermill, and I love it. It has a lifetime warranty, which I have already used, because I use my grain mill a lot. Why would you even want to grind your own flour? Because of rancidity. Whole grain flours go rancid very quickly, leaving a grainy, oily, bitter taste in the mouth if you taste a pinch of flour. Fresh flour tastes nutty, and doesn’t leave an oily residue on the tongue. Fresh flour also kneads up much more easily than rancid flour, and unfortunately, most flour at the store is rancid or close to it. If you don’t want to grind your own, look for a local source of freshly ground flour from a health store or co-op.

2 tsp. of yeast
1 c. warm water
7 cups of whole wheat flour.
2 tsp. of salt
1/4 c. of oil
1/4 c. of honey
Up to 3 cups of water
4. Tbsp. butter

First get your yeast soaking in the warm water, not hot, wrist temperature, in a cup and set aside. Then, in a large bowl, add the salt to the flour and mix. Then when the yeast is dissolved, add the water mixture, then add the oil, and then from the same measuring cup, the honey. If you do it that way, the honey easily releases from the cup and you don’t need to spend time trying to scrape it. Then add another cup of water and start to mix. It’s better to add less water at first and then add more than to add too much. Flour is a dynamic factor in bread making. Sometimes it needs less or more water to reach the right consistency. It should make a fairly stiff dough, though if it is too stiff it will be hard to knead. Keep adding water a little at a time until all the flour is mixed in. The dough will be lumpy and sticky at this point.

Walk away and ignore it for a couple of minutes now. Don’t bother getting your hands in there yet, it’s too messy at this point. Come back from putting the dishes away or playing with the kids in a few minutes and start kneading. The gluten should have started to develop, so it won’t be quite so gloppy. Knead until it’s starting to look less lumpy and acts more like chewing gum. Then take another break and do it all again. This time take the butter and smear it on your kneading surface, then flop the dough on top of that and knead. This will work the butter in and elongate the gluten at the same time. If you add the butter sooner it won’t have the same kind of effect on the bread’s texture. Then once all the butter is mixed in, plop it in the bowl, (which you can wash out during one of the breaks) and cover it with cling wrap or a wet towel.

Put it to rise someplace cool. Cool rises are slow and develop the best flavors. I find that if you have a spot that is around 60 to 65 degrees that’s the best. A basement or a cool spot on a north facing porch can work. Damp moldy mildew basements are bad. It takes about 8 hours so you can mix it up the night before and bake it in the morning, or mix it before work and bake it when you get home. It’s risen when you make a fingerprint with a damp finger and it doesn’t fill in. Now with a slow rise as I’ve suggested you need to give it a minute or two and wait to see if it fills in or not.

When it’s risen you can do a couple of things with it. First, you can stick it in the fridge for later, up to about 3 or 4 days. If it starts to look grey and smell beery, it’s probably past it’s prime (it’s still edible, just not as good) Second you can give it a second rise to get a really fine grained bread, or you can go ahead and bake it! Once you divide it and make the loaves, you have to let it rise one more time, at a warmer temperature, around 70 degrees or so, Let it rise until it’s doubled and has a nice round curve to the top. Cut into the top a line about a 1/4 of an inch deep. Then bake it at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, to help it rise and develop a nice crust. Then turn it down to 350 and bake for 40 minutes. It’s far better to overbake bread than to underbake it. If it doesn’t come out of the pan easily or if you tap it on the bottom and it doesn’t sound hollow like a door, bake it some more. Then attempt to get your family to wait while it cools. This is usually futile. If you can’t convince them to wait, then cut it very carefully and slowly, and set the loaf cut side down when you’re done.