Adventures in Bread Baking: Whole Wheat Loaf

After my success with the crusty round country loaf, I thought I'd challenge myself and attempt to bake a whole wheat loaf. I should preface this by saying that I tend to eat whole wheat bread in my day-to-day life. Always endeavoring to maintain a healthy diet -- although I do indulge and treat myself every so often -- my normal diet consists of whole wheat carbohydrates. This includes bread, rice, and pasta. 

Keeping this in mind, and still feeling exhilarated from my recent adventures in bread baking, I thought I'd attempt Buzzfeed's "Amazing Home Made Bread" recipe. I'm sorry to report that this recipe did not go quite as well as my round country loaf.

If you go to Buzzfeed's website, they produce a beautiful looking fluffy whole wheat loaf, while mine was very dense -- also rock like. My read had a grainy texture -- made me think of a 12 grain country loaf. 

I'm not really sure why my loaf turned out different from Buzzfeed's. I have two hypotheses (1) I may not have let my yeast sit long enough to bloom and/or (2) the issue could have been my whole wheat flour, which was course grained. Although I'm not totally sure as to why my load ended up being small, denser, and coarser than what Buzzfeed, I still had fun baking. 

I'd like to attempt this recipe again and see if I can learn from my initial attempts. I'll be sure to let you know guys know if I do better the second time. Although my first attempt wasn't perfect, I still enjoyed the tasty. The loaf had a lot of bite and texture -- perfect for toast Very yummy. 

Ingredients:

- 1.25 cups warm water

- 1.5 tsp honey

- 1.5 tsp active yeast

- 2 cups whole wheat flour

- 1.3 cups all-purpose flour

- 2 tbsp oil (I used vegetable)

- 1.5 tsp salt 

Directions:

(1) Mix water, honey, and yeast together in a large bowl. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. Basically, you want the yeast to bloom. 

(2) In a separate bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, oil, and salt until the dough comes together to form a ball that doesn't stick to your fingers or the bowl. 

(3) Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough tightens and forms a ball. 

(4) Once dough is tight and rounded into a ball, transfer to a greased bowl. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and store in a warm place for 1 hour. 

(5) Once the hour has passed and your dough has doubled in size, lay dough out and knead once more. Then shape dough into a 7x7 in square. You'll then want to fold the square into thirds on top of itself to form a rectangle. Pinch the fold to seal the dough. 

(6) Once the seam has been pinched, flip dough over and fold both ends up toward the center. You can't to create a log shape. 

(7) Transfer dough to a greased loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour. 

(8) Once your dough has risen, preheat oven to 375 F. Place bread in oven for 50-55 minutes or until the dough has formed a slight brown crust. 

(9) Once the loaf has baked, remove from pan immediately and let cool at least 1 hour before slicing. 

Note: you can store this bread for up to 6 months in the freezer