Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

If you own a mixer with a dough hook . . . here is a recipe for such an EASY and DELICIOUS bread.  From beginning to end . . . I have homemade bread in about 2 hours!   Not to mention how wonderful my house smells as it is baking.

If you don't have a mixer with a dough hook, you CAN still make this bread.  The only tricky thing about making this without a mixer is the flour.    Because the dough is so moist, you will naturally need to add more flour just to be able to handle it  . . . which may lead to bread that is a little more dry or dense.  If you have a bread machine, that should be able mix this up just fine!  Depending on the size of your machine however, you may have to cut the recipe in half for all of the ingredients to fit.

I grind my own wheat for this recipe,  but store bought whole wheat flour will work as well.   Usually, I use white wheat, but I have used the red wheat and really like that too.   I also cheat a little.  I used to make this bread as stated, but then later decided I didn't want to keep buying the gluten flour.  But without the gluten flour (even with substituting it with whole wheat flour), my bread would taste great, but would not rise as tall as I like.  So . . . sadly I have to admit that currently,  I substitute the wheat flour listed at the end of the recipe for white.  I figure, my kids are still getting a lot of nutrients since more than half the flour used is whole wheat . . . but then my bread still rises tall and tastes wonderful.   See what works best for you.

I make a batch of this bread at least once a week . . .  I have a goal to not buy bread from the store at all this year . . . and so far so good!   My kids love it and will not touch whole wheat bread from the store . . . not to mention that I don't want to pay $3-$5 a loaf.  My kids can go through one loaf in one meal!
Depending on how much you are paying for ingredients, this bread can cost as little as $1 a loaf.

Hope you enjoy!

For 2 (9.25 x 2.75 inch) loaves

5 C. whole wheat flour
1/2 C. gluten flour (can be substituted with whole wheat flour)
2 TBS. instant yeast
3 C. steaming hot tap water (120-130 degrees)
1 1/2 TBS. salt
1/2 C. oil
1/2 C. honey or 3/4 C. sugar
2 TBS. bottled lemon juice (this acts as a dough enhancer)
3 C. whole wheat flour

Mix together first three ingredients in mixer with a dough hook.  Add water all at once and mix for 1 minute; cover and let rest for 10 minutes.  Add salt, oil, honey or sugar and lemon juice and beat for 1 minute.  Add last flour, 1 cup at a time, beating between each cup.  Beat for about 10 minutes until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl.  This makes a VERY soft dough.

Pre-heat oven for 1 minute to lukewarm and turn off.  Turn dough onto oiled countertop; divide, shape into loaves ( I don't spend a lot of time trying to shape them as the dough is usually pretty sticky) and place into greased bread pans.  Let rise in warm oven for 10-15 minutes until dough reaches top of pan.  Do NOT remove bread from oven; turn oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool on racks.

Thank you Janice R. and Emergency Food in a Nutshell, 2nd edition