Wheat Bread
Holly Harwood
(Bosch Kitchen Center)
4 cups Warm (on the verge of hot) Water
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbsp Salt
3 Tbsp Yeast
1/2 cup gluten flour (available at Macey's and it's called Vital Wheat Gluten)
Wheat Flour (8 to 9 cups--keep adding until it cleans the side of your bowl)
Mix all ingredients and 1/2 the flour until combined. Slowly add the reset of the flour one cup at a time until the dough forms a ball and cleans the side of the bowl. Knead on the lowest setting in the mixer for 8 minutes. Remove from mixer and form into 3 loaves. Place in greased bread pans and cover with a clean dish towel. Let rise until loaves have doubled in size: approximately 35 minutes. (It took mine longer--probably because it's winter.) Once risen, place all three pans into a cold--not preheated--oven. THEN test the temperature to 350 degrees and the timer to 26 minutes. The loaves should be golden brown on top when time is up--if not bake for a little longer checking it every minute. Immediately remove bread from the pan and place on cooling racks to cool. Once cooled store in bread bags.
Helpful Tips
- Buy the largest container of honey that will give you the ability to pour it to measure--squeezing the little bear takes WAY too long!!
- SAF blend yeast works well. IF you cannot find it, this recipe requires rapid rise yeast. (SAF brand can be found at Bosch Store and Maceys).
- Gluten flour is important because it bonds to the yeast to give the bread a lighter and more airy texture. It also helps the bread maintain its freshness. It too can be purchased at the Bosch store or Maceys. If you can't find gluten or just don't care, simply add an extra half cup of flour at the beginning ant it will turn out okay--it's just not quite as good.
- I like to grind my own wheat because it is a lot less expensive and contains no preservatives. If you want to use freshly ground wheat, but don't have a grinder, you can have it ground at your Bosch store for about 40 cents a pound.
- While freshly ground wheat is the best for this recipe, you may use either whole wheat or white flour--whichever suits your personal tastes. I would recommend only using bread flour because it bakes up differently than unbleached flour. My favorite brand is Gold Medal Better for Bread flour which comes in both white and wheat varieties. If you use white flour, you will need to add more than if you use wheat.
- Don't be intimidated by the vague flour measurements. I add a different amount of flour to every batch of bread I bake. I simply wait for the dough to begin to pull away from the sides of my mixing bowl. It's more about the look of the dough than the precise measurements and it turns out better when I am not precise. Once the kneading is done it should be soft and slightly sticky.
- You can either purchase bread bags at the Bosch or grocery store. The bags at the Bosch store will be quite a bit longer and easier to fit the loaves in.
