Andrew’s Whole Wheat Bread
Credits for my whole wheat bread recipe go 100% to my husband, Andrew. You see, years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to bake bread using whole grains and natural sweeteners. So I’d find a recipe and try it…and fail it. Then I’d try it again, just in case, you know, something would be different, but I’d be met with the same results so I’d try a different recipe and once again be met with disastrous results. I became proficient at baking up tasteless bricks and decided that it was absolutely impossible to make decent homemade whole wheat bread.
That’s when Andrew stepped in.
With his scientific mind and amazing research skills, it wasn’t long before he was producing some beautiful loaves of bread and began to fancy himself a bread making guru. His philosophy can be summarized as follows: beautiful loaves of bread begin with beautiful dough. If you want to follow Andrew’s bread making process to the T you must take a victory lap through the house with the dough—patting it, and passing it back and forth between your hands asking everyone you see, “Isn’t this dough amazing? Look at this beautiful dough!”
With love like that the dough has no choice but to fulfill its destiny as a beautiful loaf.
When you look at the recipe it might seem a bit overwhelming at first because the ingredient list is long. But many of the items are either to make the yeast happy (beautiful dough comes from happy yeast) or to condition the dough (that means keep it soft and fluffy) and you don’t want to skip that or you’ll end up with bricks (trust me).
There is a lot of inactive time during the two rising and one baking periods so the most challenging part is finding a long stretch of time when you’ll be around and available to move the bread through the stages. It’s not hard to do but you’ve got to be there to do it.
These days, I don’t bake bread often, (see paragraph above) but there is something therapeutic about it when I do get the chance. Connecting to this slow, ancient process—the miracle of rising dough, the delicious smell that fills the house, the golden loaves cooling on a rack—has a calming and grounding effect. And the sitting down and breaking the bread together and eating the bread together? That’s just the final burst of joy in the whole, satisfying, totally worth it process.
So give it a try. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. And maybe try again. And, if you are like me, a few more tries. But don’t give up! You can do this!
Recipe Notes
I use fresh milled flour from hard wheat berries. I know not everyone has a grain mill but it does make a difference. If bread does not turn out with store bought whole wheat flour you could try a mix of whole wheat and white flours.
For sweetener this recipe uses part honey and part sucanat, an unrefined cane sugar. You could substitute brown sugar.
A handful of ingredients—soy lecithin, citric acid, vital wheat gluten for example—might not currently be in your pantry but if you buy them, then they will be in your pantry and you’ll be all set to make happy yeast and soft dough and lovely loaves of bread. It just takes that initial investment.
I like to use stoneware bread pans.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Andrew's Whole Wheat Bread
Ingredients
- 7 cups of whole wheat flour, preferably freshly milled
- 1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
- 1 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup whole milk or coconut milk
- 1/4 cup butter or coconut oil
- 1/4 cup honey, preferably raw
- 1/4 cup sucanat or brown sugar
- 1 tbsp granulated soy lecithin
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 cup warm water (105-110 degree F), like a warm bath, not burning to touch
- 1 tsp sucanat, brown sugar, or honey
- a pinch of ground ginger
- a pinch of citric acid
- 4 tsp of active dry yeast (1 packet is 2 1/4 tsp)
Instructions
- Combine all yeast proofing ingredients in a small bowl (I use a 1 cup measuring cup). Stir well and let sit 5-10 minutes until the mixtures foams and rises. The sweetener, citric acid, and ginger should really get the yeast going!
- While the yeast is proofing, pour the water in a pint measuring cup and then add the milk so you have 2 cups of liquid. Put all of the other liquid ingredients in a 1 quart sauce pan. (Soy lecithin and salt aren't liquid but add them anyway.) Pour enough of the water/milk mixture in to blend the ingredients. Put the pan on medium heat and stir until the oil or butter and honey are melted and everything is incorporated. Add the rest of the water/milk and remove from heat. Adding the cold/room temperature water/milk at this point should cool the contents of the pot down if it had gotten too hot in the melting process. If, after adding the water/milk, the mixture is uncomfortably hot (stick your finger in it to check!), let it cool off further before continuing. It should be comfortably warm, not hot.
- Put flour and wheat gluten in the bowl of a stand mixer.
- When the liquid ingredients are combined and warm (not hot) and the yeast is proofed, add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients. Start mixing with the dough hook attachment. When the liquid ingredients are about halfway mixed into the flour, add the yeast mixture.
- Continue to kneed the dough for 10 or so minutes. Dough should be soft and pliable but not sticky. If it is tough add a little water at a time. If it is too sticky, add small amounts of flour at a time. The dough must be just right moisture-wise so keep working it until is neither sticky nor tough. It also needs to be well kneaded. Even if you reach the desired consistency quickly, keep kneading!
- Once done kneading, knead by hand a bit and form it into a nice ball shape. Put in a large bowl (I just use the mixer bowl) and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Put bowl in the oven with the light on to give it a nice warmish place to rise. Allow to rise 45 minutes or until roughly doubled.
- After the 1st rise, punch the dough and remove it from the bowl. Divide the dough into two equal sections and form each into a loaf shape. Set each shape in a loaf pan. Cover pans with a towel and put back in the oven to rise again for 45 minutes.
- After the 45 minutes, remove the loaves. Set them on the counter still covered and allow them to continue rising. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- When the oven is preheated and the loaves have roughly doubled, put the loaves in oven. Immediately turn the oven temp down to 350 and bake for 30 minutes.
- Allow loaves to cool for five minutes or so in the pans and then remove them to a wire rack until completely cooled.
