Home Made Bread- Worth the Endeavor!

Most homes today are not fortunate enough to enjoy homemade whole wheat bread. Not so here! Indeed, it does take a little extra effort, but I feel that it is worth the endeavor! Here at our house, the smell of freshly baked bread wafts through the air about once a week. I remember my older sister making the bread for our family. Once she was married, I got to wear the apron!

 

We start out by grinding the wheat into flour in our Nutrimill. While that is going on, I measure out the warm water to dissolve the yeast. Then the salt, gluten, oil, honey, and half the amount of the freshly ground flour is mixed in. We proof the dough or let it rest, to make sure the yeast will do its job of making the bread rise. Tiny bubbles assure us that it is indeed alive. After this, the rest of the fresh flour is mixed in and kneaded in the Bosch mixer for five minutes or so. Kneading the dough stretches the fibers and helps produce gluten which forms when certain proteins in the flour are moistened. The word gluten comes from a Latin word meaning glue. The yeast in the dough produces carbon dioxide gas and the gluten from the wheat traps it in. This allows the bread to inflate or rise.

During the five minutes of kneading, I busy myself oiling the eight bread pans and getting the supplies needed for the next step... forming the loaves.

The dough gets transferred from the mixer to the lightly oiled tabletop and cut into eight equal parts.

One by one, I slam each piece down on the table a few times to remove any unwanted trapped air bubbles. If these remain, your loaf of finished bread will have large hollow air pockets inside. Ask me how I know!

 

Then, the each piece of dough is flattened with the rolling pin into a long oval shape and rolled up tightly as a scroll. I say tightly because that is another way that large pockets of air can get trapped inside.

 

The ends are now pinched and folded over onto the loaf.

Now it is flipped right side up, tucked around, shaped just so, and placed into its loaf pan. It takes me about ten minutes to get all eight loaves formed.

Then, covered to keep them from drying out, they rise for one last time before going into the pre-heated oven.

 

After spritzing some water into the oven to increase the humidity, thus keeping the tops flexible and allowing each loaf to spring, the timer is set for twenty minutes. This is when the lovely aroma makes its way about the house.

 

Once the beautiful golden loaves come out of the oven, they are carefully taken out of their pans and placed on a cooling rack. After cooling a while, into the bread bag they go. They are then stored in the freezer for freshness until we need them.

Fresh, warm, whole-wheat bread is so delicious. So much so, that occasionally, as a special treat, we take a loaf fresh from the oven, break off a hunk, butter it, and oh. . . simply enjoy! Home made bread. Mmm!

~Jayla McDaniel