Lehi's Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

Making Bread isn’t as easy as it looks. I have failures all the time, mostly because Darce won’t let me use white flour… Whole wheat tends to have too little gluten. Gluten helps hold the CO2 pockets for light but not crumbly bread. Well, at least that’s how I see it.

Recipe for my bread…
Start with the dry ingredients.
5 cups Whole wheat flour - Ours is fresh ground. If you use store bought whole wheat, you will probably have plenty of gluten. (It’s just white flour with wheat germ added).

2 Tbsp yeast – added directly to the flour. You don’t need to bloom the yeast. If you want to, go ahead.

1 Tbsp salt – don’t let the salt and yeast touch until you mix the dry ingredients. Place the salt and yeast on opposite side of the bowl. Salt kills yeast.

3 Tbsp Millet – optional. Its ads to the texture…

2 Tbsp Sesame Seed – optional. It will add a nutty flavor. Add more if you like.

¼ cup Dehydrated/Powdered Milk – optional. It ads calcium to your diet… It doesn’t help the flavor much. So if you don’t know what to do with your year supply dehydrated milk here’s a good way to use it.

Mix the above dry ingredients together.

Add
5 cups water at approximately 102 - 105 degrees F.

Mix well.

Add to mix
½ cup melted butter
¾ cup honey. I normally pour the ¾ cup of honey into a microwave safe container and then add 1 cube (1/2 cup) of butter cut up on top of the honey. Microwave until it is warm enough to melt the butter, no more than that.

Mix well.

This part is important. You need to let the gluten have a chance to do its work. So, after you’ve allowed all that to mix, cover the bowl you are working with and let it stand for at least 1 hr. I have heard of setting it in a cool spot such as a refrigerator for as much as 24 hours but I only do it for 1 hour. Keep an eye on it. It will grow even through you don’t have all the flour in yet.

Mix in 4 to 6 cups of flour. This one I can’t tell you specifically. It depends on the moisture in the air. I could be more specific if I gave you weights instead of measures but I just haven’t tried to perfect it that much… Yet. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl and not stick to your fingers. Cover it again.

Let it rise again. Watch out. I have had it grow over the sides and make a mess.

After it has risen, form it into loaves and let it double in size. I normally cover the loaves with a wet towel. It usually makes between 5-6 loaves.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 17 to 19 minutes. It depends on how moist you like your bread. If you bake it too long it will be as dry as the desert. Too short and you will have hot dough instead of bread. Also, the time depends on the size of pan you are using.

Good luck.

By the way, we use a Bosch.