Whole Wheat Bread

After 3 years of praying for a wheat grinder, I finally got one last year for my birthday!!  I was so excited I ordered wheat berries right away - TONS of them!  Actually, it was more like 100 pounds, but who's counting, right?

I got busy baking bread.  But it didn't work.  Something was really wrong!  I couldn't figure it out! 

My chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, pumpkin breads, and plenty of other such recipes worked just fine, but the regular, old sandwich bread that I kept trying to make was a flop!  As in F-L-O-P!! 

After much confusion, research, and way too many wasted wheat berries, I finally begged a friend of mine, who was in town visiting her parents, to come rescue me.  {More like rescue my husband and children from many frustrating rants of self pity due to the fact that I was by no means the natural born bread maker that I had imagined myself to be.}

Kami came and with her the knowledge that all wheat berries are NOT created equal.  In my attempts to make a healthy, yet soft wheat bread that my husband and children would adore, I bought soft white wheat berries.  Did I mention I bought  ONE HUNDRED POUNDS of them??  In my little brain it made complete since.  They were completely natural, organic, and fresh ground.  What could be wrong with them?  Not a whole lot if all you plan to make is cakes and cookies, but for sandwich bread it was all wrong. 

Long story short - I had to buy another big bag of hard white wheat and another of hard red wheat beside the 100 pounds of soft white berries I already had!  <sigh>  The good news is that my Kami's bread turned out just as soft and yummy as I had originally hoped! 

Here's Kami's recipe: 

1 1/2 cup warm water
1/3 cup of oil - I suggest cold pressed coconut oil or olive oil.  I use olive oil.

1/3 cup of raw honey

2 teaspoons of sea salt

4 1/2 cups of flour - which being interpreted is 1 1/2 cups of hard white wheat berries and 1 1/2 cups of hard red wheat berries.  Throw it all in the ole grinder and there you have it - 4 1/2 cups of fresh ground, whole wheat flour!! 

1 Tablespoon of yeast

1 Tablespoon of lecithin

1 Tablespoon of gluten 

Slight variation: * I don't use lecithin or gluten.  I simply throw in an egg and it works just as well.

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in warm water.  Add oil, honey, salt, *egg and flour.  Mix together.  I don't have a mixer - YET - so I kneed by hand.  It really isn't that hard and makes me feel quite domesticated! 

Put dough in warm place to rise until doubled.  This takes about an hour.  After dough has doubled, punch it down.  Separate your dough into 2 equal parts and form your loaves.  Let your loaves rise in greased bread pans.  Bake at 350* for only around 20 minutes!  Very easy and delicious!! 

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