P.S. And I hope she reads this: Everything I learned about bread making I learned from my mom so thank you Mom!! And she learned it from her mom. Isn't that cute?Now for the highly anticipated bread recipe. A couple things though: We use
white wheat. White wheat unlike red wheat offers a lighter texture and flavor. Most store bought wheat will usually be the red wheat variety. I'm sure the bread will still be delicious if you use red wheat flour but know that you are missing out on the deliciousness of white wheat homemade bread!
Edited to add: After a bit of research I found that
King Arthur flour is made from white wheat.
You can buy white wheat pails online from emergency preparedness stores. I highly recommend that you do!
Next :If don't have one, invest in a wheat grinder. If you're really set on making homemade bread all the time then you'll absolutely need one. I use my mom's electric wheat mill but if the power goes out she has a hand grinder as well. (I better not ever move away! ha ha) With the electric mill it seriously takes a little over 5 minutes to grind about 12 cups of flour.
So the two keys to delicious bread: white wheat and a wheat grinder.
Without further ado here is my
Grandma's Whole Wheat Bread recipe:
4 cups
warm water (too hot will kill the yeast, too cold will not activate it)
2/3 c. honey
3 tablespoons liquid lecithin (you can find this at stores like Whole Foods in the vitamin sections)
2 tablespoons yeast
2 teaspoons salt
12 cups of flour
Now my mom has a knock off Bosch. That's what makes making bread so easy for me. You can dump all the ingredients together and then it will do the work and knead it for you. I love it!
But if you don't have $400 to spend on something like a Bosch then use your trusty KitchenAid (assuming you have one). Mix wet ingredients together. Add salt and then yeast. Slowly start adding flour. Secret time: I don't actually MEASURE the flour, I just keep adding scoops until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. That means no dough is sticking to the sides. It's one big lump.
I suppose at this point you would take it out and knead it but I've never actually done that. ha ha. If I had to I would though because it's worth it! So knead that dough! Then let it sit and rise until about double the size.
After it's risen punch it down a bit, form into bread loaves and put in pans; let them rise again. I have no idea what the dimensions of the bread pans I use are but they are on the larger side. This batch of dough makes two large loaves and one smaller loaf.
Note: Evenly coat the pans in crisco or else your bread will stick to the pan when you try and take it out.Once they are done rising for the second time, pop in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. As SOON as they come out of the oven, shake the pans and slide the loaves out. If you let them sit in the pans they will sweat and the bread will become mushy and saggy. Gross!
Finally, do yourself a favor and cut off the end of one of the loaves, slather on some butter and enjoy. DE-LISH!
*Now this all seems like a lot of work and initially it is but as with anything new, the more you do it, the easier it will become. Recently here at a women's fireside Julie Beck, the Relief Society General President said that making bread was "while work." You can get other things done with the bread rises and bakes. Saving 4 bucks on a loaf of bread is good incentive too.
So go out, buy your wheat and your wheat grinder and you're set! Ha!
