Whole Wheat Bread

One of my goals this summer was to bake bread from scratch. It took a few tries and completely coated my kitchen in flour  but I do love a good baking adventure. I wouldn’t have minded, however, if it had been slightly less educational. On a somewhat unrelated note, it turns out bread is an integral part of both society and the human experience: for more than you ever wanted to know about bread, watch Conan O’Brian interview a Cornell History professor here. (Note: my bread-baking experience, perhaps due to my inexperience, was not nearly as pleasurable as Professor Kaplan would make it seem.)

Attempt 1:

I thought I’d try for some tried-and-true classics for my first breadmaking experience. Most of the recipes I found online required 12-18 hour ferments and would make something like six loaves; I was hoping for something I could make in a day. I turned to the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (new as in 1981).

Whole Wheat Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Combine the 2 cups flour and yeast. Mix and heat the water, sugar, butter, and salt “just until warm.” Better Homes and Gardens recommended 115º-120º, which seemed awfully hot. Add to yeast mixture, beating at low speed for 30 seconds, then at high speed for 3 minutes. Stir in the whole wheat flour and as much of the all-purpose as you can with a spoon, then, on a lightly-floured surface, knead in the remaining flour for 6-8 minutes. To knead, fold the dough toward you, push down and away with the heels of your hands, turn the dough 90º, and repeat. After kneading, shape into a ball and place in a large, lightly greased/oiled bowl and turn once so that all surfaces are oiled. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until about double. If your kitchen is chilly, you can preheat your oven for about a minute and then turn it off, and let the dough rise inside.

After the dough has risen, punch it down, turn it out onto a floured surface, divide in half, and shape into two loaves. Place in 2 greased 4×8″ loaf pans (Who has so many different sized loaf pans lying around?? Ours were 5×9!). Cover and let rise again for about an hour. Preheat oven to 375º and cook for about 45 minutes, covering with foil for the last 20 to prevent overbrowning.

In an act of unforgivable hubris, I increased the whole-wheat to all-purpose ratio and put in maybe half the amount of butter. The Better Homes and Gardens people did not look upon this leniently. Although the dough expanded beautifully during the first rise, in the loaf pans it sagged into two dense, depressing bricks; my confidence followed a similar trajectory. I baked them anyway, in the name of science. The bread (if you could call it that) actually tasted pretty good but the texture was, well, less than ideal.

Fail.

Attempt 2:

Chagrined, I delved further into the past, vowing to follow the recipe exactly. Joy of Cooking. 1975. Preceding the bread section is a lengthy dissertation on the proper mixing and kneading of bread, with this creepily chirpy opening: “Once upon a time, when the English language was young, the word from which the modern English ‘lady’ sprang meant ‘loaf-kneader’ and the verb ‘to knead’ has even prehistoric origins! To our own and our families’ distinct profit–and with little effort–we housewives can become ‘ladies’ again.” Having only moments previously been reading Backlash, I cringed. Sorry, Susan! But I’d like to think that for our generation, saving the world and kneading ladylike loaves don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Whole-Grain Bread

1/4 cup water, 105º-115º
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1 egg
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4-1/2 cup honey
4 cups whole-wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve hot water and yeast and let sit 3-5 minutes. Beat together egg, butter, water, salt, and honey and add to yeast mixture. Add flours and stir, then knead for 10 minutes with floured hands until dough is “smooth, elastic, and satiny.” Place in greased bowl, turn, cover, and let rise for 1-2 hours. When ready, the dough won’t spring back when pressed with a fingertip (Why is all the bread in my life like memory foam?).

Punch the dough down, form into a ball, and knead a few times. Divide in to three 5X9″ loaf pans and let rise again until double, another 1-2 hours. Heat oven to 350º and bake for 45 minutes. Bread is done when it has shrunk from the sides of the pan and sounds hollow when tapped (for proper tapping technique, see 5:27 into the above posted video. I doubt you watched that far. You’re missing some quality innuendo).

Success! It wasn’t particularly special, perhaps a small step up from everyday sandwich bread, but bread nonetheless. It could have used the 1/2 cup instead of the 1/4 cup of honey, and more time on the second rise. Still, goal achieved! Time to take on crusty, 12-hour rustic bread!

Attempt 3:

Armed with a little more advanced planning and a replenished flour supply, I decided to tackle big-girl, not-your-mother’s-home-economics bread. Minus the overnight fermenting, this recipe is much lower-maintenance than the previous–no kneading necessary (this, perhaps, is the key to women’s liberation).

Crusty Whole Wheat Bread
from Martha Stewart Living

2 1/4 cups unbleached bread flour
3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups cool water (55º-65º)

Mix flours, salt, and yeast. Add water and mix with a spoon or your hands until combined and sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 12-18 hours–it should be double in volume and bubbly. Turn onto a floured surface (you’ll need a spatula) and, with floured hands, turn edges under to create a loose ball. Dust a dishtowel generously flour and place dough in center, seam side down. Dust the dough with more flour and fold the edges of the towel loosely over the top. Let rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours, until double in volume. When ready, the dough should, memory foam-like, retain a fingerprint. My dough definitely was still springing back but it was beginning to intrude on my social life, so into the oven it went.

After dough has risen 30-40 minutes, preheat your oven to 475º with a 3 1/2 quart dutch oven in the lower third. Being no Martha Stewart, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a dutch oven, much less possess one. I used a stock pot with metal handles and crossed my fingers that non-stick coating doesn’t become toxic or carcinogenic at oven temperatures.

When the dough is ready, remove the dutch oven/pot from the oven, unfold towel and invert into pot (the dough sticks ferociously to the towel. I imagine Martha doesn’t have this problem). Cover and cook for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake another 10-15 minutes, until bread is brown. Remove bread from pot and transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy!

"Dutch Oven"

Well that wasn’t so difficult. Now on to world-saving…

-Julia

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