Whole Wheat Organic Bread Made Easy(er)

Whole Wheat Organic Bread Made Easy(er)

Before we begin, I must let you know that I got the basics for my recipe from:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/potato-wheat-bread-recipe

I did alter the recipe in a few ways that made vast improvements, but if you would rather trust the flour company, that's ok. They also have you do a lot of extra steps that I found completely unnecessary to a delicious loaf.

Bread baking. Doesn't seem like it should be too hard. I mean 100 years ago, everybody was doing it. There has to be a way to simplify the baking of bread so that the average person doesn't really mind baking some up once in a while. Bread machines are great, but I'd rather spend my money on a day at the spa or something and use my hands. My goal with this blog entry was to simplify the process of bread baking so that anyone can do it, and not feel overwhelmed.

And another thing that bugs me: what are all the ingredients in store bought bread? 

Here's an example.

Bleached flour? Abcorbic Acid? Calcium Peroxide? High Fructose Corn Syrup? 

Good Heavens!

Now I do know some things on there, and I know others have a purpose for preserving and vitamins, but come on! I'm not even going to try to google all of those to figure it out. 

Bread should be simple. Flour. Yeast. Water. Sugar (to activate the yeast). Why is it so complicated when I look at this label?

I'm all about simple. I'm all about knowing what the heck I'm eating every day. And I am all about easy. I found a recipe that wasn't hard and altered it a little after baking bread several times to make a loaf of organic whole wheat bread that is so tasty and I feel good about eating. All the ingredients I use are organic, except the salt and yeast.

These are the ingredients in this bread recipe, I forgot the honey in the pic though. Oops.

Whole wheat flour 3 and 1/2 cups

1 cup warm water

Honey 2 Tablespoons

Yeast 2 and 1/2 teaspoons

Salt 1/8 teaspoon

Butter 4 Tablespoons 

1 medium sized potato

Milk 1/2 cup

That's it! Simple. I love it!

The first step is to peel and slice a medium sized potato. The potato brings moisture and really adds a nice flavor. Then you cover it in hot water and boil it on the stove until they are cooked very thoroughly. That usually takes around 20 min. 

While that is happening, I take 1 cup of warm water, and 2 and 1/2 teaspoons of rapid rise yeast and dissolve the yeast completely in the warm water. Let it sit and stir your potatoes.

Once the potato is cooked well, mash it up very well with a fork so that it is smooth, like mashed potatoes. The recipe recommends that you blend it but I have found if you mush it very well and put a little elbow grease into it, you don't have to clean a blender. Yay!

It should look like this:

Then take 1/2 a cup of warm milk, 4 tablespoons of warm butter, 1/8 teaspoons of salt, and 2 tablespoons of honey all together, with the yeast water and the mashed potatoes.

Instead of butter I use an organic spread made out of coconut oil and that works just as well, butter adds a little more flavor, so it's up to you.

Then you add 3 cups of whole wheat organic flour. 

This can be pricey, but I find I usually spend about $2.50 on a loaf of bread, which is easy to do on store bought bread anyway.

Knead the dough for a few minutes until it is well mixed. I just knead it right in the bowl. You may have to add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup to the bottom of the bowl while you knead to made sure the dough is formed but very slightly sticky still.  

Then I just throw the bowl into a sink full of hot water to rise. 

Well don't throw it, set it gently. Like this:

Let it sit there until it is about doubled in size, that usually takes me about an hour. Time to do other chores. Goody.

It will look like this:

Then I just take it out of the bowl and place it in a greased 9 x 5 bread pan. Then I put fresh hot water in the sink and let it set in there to rise again. 

See?

Be careful to not fill the sink too full so that no water gets into the pan. I usually have it in the hot water another hour, yours may take a little longer. It will almost double in size again, and be about 1/2 inch above the pan and look like this:

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees. Then once the bread has risen, I put it in for 40 minutes. Bake until you can poke it with a fork and the fork comes out clean.

I usually just set mine on the windowsill (how country of me!) or on top of the oven to cool. If you want to use a wire rack like in my first picture, go for it.

And that's it! It seems time consuming with all the rising and baking times, but really I just start it in the morning and while the bread is rising go about my business. By cutting out some steps in the original recipe I found that baking this bread was much easier and had less clean up time. I also added more yeast than the original recipe because I found the bread rose better with just a little extra. 

Whole wheat bread is very dense, do not be disappointed if there is no large peak or your bread doesn't look like store bought bread. It isn't store bought, it's homemade! It will not be super tall nor will it be as airy as store bread. 

So good though. I love to toast two pieces and put a little coconut oil spread on it in the morning for my breakfast. And added bonus, it keeps you full longer because of the amount of fiber within it. 

Happy Baking!