We have been making all of our own bread for a couple of months now. As part of the whole weight loss, diet thing, I've tried to change some of the eating habits. Everything is mostly whole grain now. And I have started to move to more things from scratch, mainly because of all of the weird stuff they put into prepared foods these days. I'm not a total health food nut, I still drink my diet soda, and for convenience, I will often buy a Lean Cuisine freezer meal for lunch at work. But I figure a few steps in the right direction can't hurt.
We have some wheat that we have had almost as long as we have been married. Most of what I've read suggests that it's probably still OK. I'm not sure "good" would be the correct word though. Couldn't find anything concrete on the nutritional value of wheat that old. But most things I've read say it won't kill you. I've been mixing it in (about 1/3) with the newer stuff that I grind for flour. Something kind of new on the wheat scene is the new, Turkey White Hard Wheat. Brown bread isn't so "brown" when you use it. The protein count is a little different than the Turkey Red, but not much.
We had a bread maker, but I had a hard time getting it to cook the bread at the right time. The loaf would usually over rise, then fall some during the bake. I found though that if I took it out of the machine after the final rise, and put it in loaf pans, it cooked up great. The recipe makes really good bread so I have stuck pretty much to it. It's 1 7/8 cups water, 5 cups of whole wheat flour, 3 Tbs sugar, 2 Tbs powdered milk, 2 tsp salt, 4 Tbs Vital Wheat Gluten, 2 Tbs butter, and 2 tsp active dry yeast.
I've modified it a bit, I substitute olive oil for the butter, I use 3 Tbs of vital wheat gluten, and I add 2 Tbs dough enhancer. I sometimes substitute 3/4 cup of multi-grain hot cereal from the health food section for an equal amount of the flour. I put it in the water first and let it soak up some moisture first before adding the rest of the ingredients. I use a Bosch mixer and knead it for about 5 minutes when I first mix it, and then for about 5 minutes again when I punch it down and just before forming the loafs. It's really good bread, light and firm without being too airy or heavy.
I took a sandwich to work the other day and bragged that I had made the bread, made the peanut butter, and made the peach freezer jam. Not sure they REALLY believed me, but hey, I didn't care, it was delicous.
When we got the Bosch, we gave the Breadmaker to another family in the ward.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Pretty impressive.
I've started making some wheat bread too but I make it half wheat and half white because the whole wheat is too dense. Plus how do you make your bread light enough for sandwiches?
This bread is about as light as any of the real whole wheat breads in the store. I think it's because of thedough enhancer, and the gluten, but a lot of it is working the dough enough to develop the gluten in the bread. Also, whole wheat doesn't usually continue to rise after putting it in the oven. So I let it raise about as much as I want before putting it into the oven. One of my bread books suggests pre-heating the oven to 450 then putting it down to 350 when you put the loaves in. Then I turn the loaves around in the oven about 20 minutes into the bake and sometimes(usually) cover them with foil for the last 20 minutes.
Post a Comment