The BEST Bread! Seriously!

A good friend of mine, Sara, gave me this wonderful bread recipe. It is 100% whole wheat and is so soft & yummy! Even Johnathan, who is picky about eating whole wheat foods (he usually doesn't want more than half of it to be wheat) LOVES this recipe! I made it yesterday and took pictures so I could share it with you.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread (Makes 3 loaves)

3 1/2 cups warm water
4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (or 4 tsp. instant yeast)

Let yeast dissolve in water for 5 minutes. If you are using instant yeast, skip this step & add the yeast to the top of the flour. (Instant yeast doesn't need to dissolve in water)

Then add...

1/3 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp. soy lecithin
9 TBL vital wheat gluten
3/8 tsp. citric acid
3 1/2 cups flour

Here's everything in my mixer ready to be mixed

Mix together.

As you can see, it's really wet

Now cover & let raise for 30 minutes.

Here's a picture of the less common
ingredients. On the left is the Lecithin,
top right is the wheat gluten, bottom
is the citric acid. I bought all these at
Good Earth. They are dough enhancers
& are healthy. :)

After raising for 30 minutes

After raising for 30 minutes, Add:

2 TBL melted butter or margarine
2 tsp brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 TBL salt
3 1/2 cups flour (add slowly until it's the right texture)

You may need to add more or less flour until your dough is pulling away from the sides of your bowl and when you touch it, your fingers are mostly clean with a little dough stuck on them.

Mix & let raise for 30 more minutes

Now knead for 5-10 minutes. You can use your bread hook, do it by hand, or even add it to your bread machine to knead it.

After raising 2nd time

Now shape into 3 loaves, cover & let raise in warm spot until about 1 inch over tops of pans. A trick I've learned is that you can speed up raising time by warming up your oven for a couple minutes (sorry I don't know a temp.) and letting the dough raise in there. Just don't get it too hot! It should be comfortably warm when you stick your hand in.

After raising 3rd time

Now Bake at 350* for 25 minutes. (I have to bake mine at 340* for 30 minutes because my oven is hotter. Kind of a trial & error sort of thing)

Finished Product! Mmmm!

So YUMMY! I love the smell of fresh baked bread!

Sara gave me some tips to making good bread:
1. Good flour- (Far better when you grind your own wheat)
2. Not too much flour
3. Kneading
4. Make sure your water isn't too hot when you dissolve the yeast
5. Don't over-cook. It will make a dry crumbly loaf.

Good Luck & ENJOY!