Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Honey Whole Wheat Bread


 Lately, I have been experimenting with baking whole wheat, high fiber bread. This has proved to be a tricky challenge. The more fiber you add into the bread the denser it becomes. My family has issues with dense bread. They have only been eating  whole wheat bread, if it is mainly made from white flour with a little whole wheat sprinkled in (the big babies). I came across a recipe for Honey Wheat Bread in this month's issue of Taste Of Homes Healthy Cooking magazine. It looked promising! I baked up a batch, yesterday, and it was fabulous! The family ate it without complaint (Woo Hoo)!  I did tweak it a little bit to add more fiber ( I calculated it at 5 grams of fiber per slice).  Here is the recipe that I used (of course, you can find the original recipe HERE):

Honey Whole Wheat Bread
(makes two loaves - 16 slices each)

4 1/2 teaspoons yeast
3 cups warm water; divided
1/2 powdered milk
1/2 cup honey (you could substitute brown sugar)
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon wheat bran
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed ( I like Bob's Red Mill Ground Flax Meal)
2 tablespoons butter or canola oil
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups whole wheat flour
4 tablespoon wheat gluten
3 - 3 1/2 cups bread (or all purpose flour)
  1. Dissolve yeast in 1 cup warm water (add 1 teaspoon of sugar to feed the yeast). Let yeast sit for 5 minutes.
  2. In a large mixing bowl combine 2 cups very warm water, powdered milk, honey (or brown sugar), oil (or butter), and salt.
  3. Add whole wheat flour, wheat bran, ground flax seed, wheat gluten, and one cup of bread flour to the liquid mixture.
  4. Pour dissolved yeast on top of flours.
  5. Beat together until smooth batter forms (about 3 minutes)
  6. Stir in the remaining flour until a soft dough forms (it will be sticky)
  7. Dump dough onto a floured surface and knead (about 6 - 8 minutes) until a dough is smooth and elastic; adding white flour as necessary to keep it from sticking.
  8. Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover with a dishtowel, and let rise until double (about 1 hour).
  9. Punch down dough, divide in half, and shape into two loaves.
  10. Place loaves in two greased 9x5 bread pans 
  11. Cover loaf pans and let rise until dough has risen 1 inch above the rim of the bread pan (about 30 minutes).
  12. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes or until golden brown
  13. Remove baked bread from pans (lay loaves on their sides) and cool completely.

7 comments:

  1. Do you use red or white wheat? At our house, whole wheat bread is received a lot more pleasantly when I use the white wheat. It cooks up so much lighter and softer than the red and I'm able to get away with 100% whole wheat rather than mixing in refined flour. 1 Tbsp of vinegar and 1/4 cup of potato flakes in the dough also seem to make a big difference. (Hooray for ward cookbooks that give me these little hints!)

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  2. @ Angie - Great tips!! Thank you for sharing them. I am using up a bag of whole wheat flour right now (I'm pretty sure it's hard red). I have been buying hard white wheat to start grinding as soon as it's used up. I do add potato flakes to all my bread recipes (they keep the bread moist a lot longer). Vinegar is a must try!

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  3. Oh Yum!! Bring me a loaf!! I can almost smell it baking. Love the idea for added fiber.

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  4. I am new to your blog and just wanted to say thanks, I have learned so many fun things

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  5. oh, yeah! I must get off this computer and go bake some bread. thanks for the inspiration, TwM!

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  6. I'll bet your sandwiches are out of this world. That bread looks picture perfect!

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  7. This sounds like a wonderful recipe. I have been wanting to get back into making my own bread. I will have to try this recipe with my family and see if they like it as well.

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