Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

“Who will help me grind the wheat?” said the Little Red Hen…

Yes, I grind my own wheat now.

Wait! Come back.

I promise not to turn into a hippy who refuses to wear deodorant. I just want to share my new honey whole wheat bread recipe.

In September, my mom gave me a wheat grinder for my birthday because I had been hinting that I wanted one. Then my brother-in-law gave me a few different kinds of wheat berries for Christmas. Last weekend I finally broke out the WonderMill for the first time. I am addicted to all things carbohydrate and it is impossible for me to give up bread, but I figure if I want to get serious about my weight loss, at least I can make healthier bread options available at home. I like this recipe because there is no white flour or white sugar or preservatives in it (besides a little salt). I found a very similar whole wheat bread recipe on Life Blessons. I modified it a little bit to work with the kind of yeast and oil I had in the pantry. You do need to own a bread machine for this recipe. (Or I guess you could try replacing step 2 by kneading the dough for 30 minutes by hand and letting it sit, covered for 1 hour before transfering it to the loaf pan.)

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients:

1/2 cup lukewarm water + 1/4 cup hot water for yeast (100-115 degrees F)
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (Next time I’m going to try melted coconut oil or even just melted butter)
1½ tablespoons honey + 1/4 ts for proofing yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
3 cups of freshly ground flour, sifted (I used hard white wheat berries ground on the “pastry” setting in my WonderMill. I threw away the hard pieces that were left after I sifted the flour. You could also save them to add to the bread for texture or feed them to pets-anyone have chickens?- or put them on cereal or whatever.)
1 pack of active dry yeast

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, proof 1 packet of dry yeast in 1/4 cup of hot water. Add 1/4 tsp of honey and stir to dissolve and activate yeast.

2. Add the remaining ingredients to the bread machine in the order listed, saving the proofed yeast mixture for last.

3. Set the bread machine to “dough” and let it do its thing. I did have to scrape it down a few times during the first few minutes. It will take about an hour and a half to go through the dough cycle.

4. Remove the dough from the machine and transfer it to a greased loaf pan. Shape into a loaf and let it sit, covered, for one hour.

5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. (I like to put a metal baking pan with about an inch of water in the oven as it preheats. It creates a steamy environment for the bread and helps it not to dry out. I remove the water dish as I am putting the bread in the oven.)

This recipe makes 1 loaf.

I like it for breakfast with real butter and honey.

How’s that for diet food?

If you are in the market for a bread machine, this is the one I use.

I’m joining the Spring Recipe link-up.