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100% Whole Wheat Bread
The Holy Grail of 100% Whole Wheat Breads?
All too often, a discussion of home made 100% whole wheat bread also includes some reference to a door stop, a shot put or an anvil. It’s challenging to make an all whole grain bread that is palatable.
This recipe from King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking not only produces amazingly light, tender and moist bread, but is fairly simple and quick to make and has a unique flavor all its own.
King Arthur calls it “the Holy Grail of 100% whole wheat breads.” I’m not sure I would go quite that far, but then this is the lightest one of its kind I’ve yet to bake, so who am I to criticize?
This recipe yields one 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf.
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) orange juice
1 cup (8 ounces) lukewarm water
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 2 ounces) unsalted butter; cut into 6 pieces
3 cups (12 ounces) traditional whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons (1 ¼ ounces) sugar
Heaping ½ cup (1 ¼ ounces) dried potato flakes or 3 tablespoons (1 ¼ ounces) potato flour
¼ cup (1 ounce) nonfat dry milk
1 ¼ teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
Note: I neglected to mention in the video that the bread pan should be lightly greased before placing the dough in it. Also, you’ll probably want to mix and knead it more than I did. For this loaf, I didn’t knead at all; I just mixed with my dough whisk. The bread was a little crumbly and should have been kneaded some to develop the elasticity of the gluten. This happens automatically during the long wet fermentation of the no-knead method, but this bread recipe needs more human intervention in the form of good old fashioned kneading. A few therapeutic minutes aught to do it.
For another 100% whole grain bread recipe, see Rick’s Whole Wheat & Rolled Oats No Knead.
Here’s a particularly nice result from Breadtopia reader, Allan Castine:
100% Whole Wheat Bread