I made fresh homemade bread today and it turned out just perfect. The texture, the rise, the consistency, and the aroma. Mmmmm.
My favorite recipe originally came from Allrecipes.com. Then I found others and incorporated bits from those. I have played around with it so much that now I can't remember how close it is to the original.
Here's what I did today:
Whole Wheat Honey Bread
Place wet ingredients in bread machine pan.
- 1 1/8 cups warm water
- 1/3 cup honey
1 T milk (actually I used kefir)
1 1/2 T safflower oil
1 1/2 t salt - don't let it touch the yeast
Place dry ingredients in the bread machine pan.
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1/2 t sugar
Make a small indentation on top of dry ingredients (make sure it doesn't reach the wet ingredients) and put the yeast there.
1 1/2 t yeast - I used breadmaker yeast, but rapid rise and active dry have also worked fine.
Bread machine settings:
Select - Whole Wheat
Loaf Size - 1 1/2 lb
Crust Control - Light
Press Start. Time = 3 hours 27 minutes
If you want to let the bread bake in the oven, which I do, take the pan out just before the baking cycle begins - that's the last 37 minutes on my machine.
Today I split the dough into 2 stoneware loaf pans. The one on the right is darker because it is better seasoned. The newer, lighter one has a ways to go before it reaches stoneware nirvana.
Bake at 350 degrees as follows:
one loaf - 40 minutes
two loaves - 30 minutes
two soup bowls - 30 minutes
rolls - 15 minutes (works well to bake in muffin tins)
The actual hands on time is very little. It's really easy to make but there's something very "domestic goddess-y" about baking bread.