Whole Wheat Bread
posted by on 12/5/06
There is a secret to getting everything you need from your daily bread. The greatest possible health benefits will be gained from your bread if you have a way to use freshly ground whole wheat. Flour loses almost all it’s vitamins 72 hours from the time it is ground. The nutrition in bread made from flour that is older than that comes from added artificial nutrients. The only way to healthily delay this loss is to freeze the bread, which we do quite often after slicing and double bagging it. We would by all means recommend purchasing a grinder and finding a source for buying wheat kernels so that you can enjoy every bite and experience the ultimate health benefits of fresh homemade bread.
Ingredients:
- ½ cup oil
- ½ cup honey
- 5 cups warm water (110 degrees)
- About 15 cups whole wheat flour divided. Grinding 5 pounds (12 cups) of grain yields 17 cups of flour.
- 2 ½ Tb. yeast
- 1 ½ Tb. salt
- 2 vitamin C tablets 500mg.
In a small container crush vitamin C tablets, add yeast and salt and set aside. In Bosch mixer equipped with kneading hooks, put oil, honey and warm water. Add 6 cups of flour. Jog on medium until lumps are gone. Mix in the yeast mixture thoroughly. Add flour until it looks spongy (probably 3 cups). Cover bowel and let rise 30 min.
Mix in flour until dough cleans the sides of the bowl (6 cups). Let Bosch run on lowest speed 6-7 min to knead dough.
Lightly oil a clean counter, turn out your dough onto it and divide into 5 loaves (1 ½ pounds each). Place in 5 none-stick-sprayed loaf pans. Cover with a towel and let rise in warm place at least 30 min or until loaves look as big as you want them. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 min. Enjoy!
You can also use this dough to make cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, buns and pizza crust.
Now those are some scrum-dilly-licous looking goodies!
Thanks for the comment Wilkes Team! Speaking of scrum-dilly-licous, we had some of your homemade apple butter for dinner tonight and it was very good. You should enter some for the Apple Butter Festival taste test!
Excellent post. Thanks for the recipe. Just got back into baking my own bread and was looking for the whole way of doing it.
It’s funny how ignorant or is it just crass lying that’s going on? that so many people do who are involved in the business of bread. I’ve left an excerpt from this website. http://www.namamillers.org/ci_Wheat-Flour.html
“Bakers buy a wide variety of flour types, based on the products they produce. The flour the consumer buys at the grocery store, called “family flour” by the milling industry, is usually a long-patent all-purpose or bread flour. Occasionally short patent flour is available in retail stores.”
“Reconstituting,” or blending back together, all the parts of the wheat in the proper proportions yields whole wheat flour. This process produces a higher quality whole wheat flour than is achieved by grinding the whole wheat berry. Reconstitution assures that the wheat germ oil is not spread throughout the flour so it does not go rancid so readily.”
“In the bleaching process, flour is exposed to chlorine gas or benzoyl peroxide to whiten and brighten flour color. Chlorine also affects baking quality by “maturing” or oxidizing the flour, which is beneficial for cake and cookie baking. The bleaching agents react and do not leave harmful residues or destroy nutrients.”
“The flour stream passes through a device that measures out specified quantities of enrichment. The enrichment of flour with four B vitamins (thiamin, niacin and riboflavin) and iron, began in the 1930s. In 1998 folate, or folic acid, was added to the mix of B vitamin. If the flour is self-rising, a leavening agent, salt and calcium are also added in exact amounts.
Before the flour leaves the mill, additional lab tests are run to ensure that the customers get what they ordered.”
[…] bake 5 loaves of bread once or twice a week so when we need a pizza crust we just make the crust instead of the loaves of […]