Here's a very basic bread recipe. I use it all the time for my family's daily bread. I use the same recipe to make rolls, pizza dough, and sweet rolls. With a busy schedule of hugging kids, home schooling, keeping a home, and running our home business, sometimes variety is a luxury. It's nice to have a recipe that works for everything. Days that I have time, I open a cook book (my favorite is Wildflour Cook Book) and try something different. Below is the same recipe for bread but the first is for kneading by hand, the second is for the Zojirushi Bread Machine, and the last is for the Bosch Universal.
Whole Wheat Bread By Hand (makes one 2 pound loaf - use a 12" pan)
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons of oil
2 Tablespoon honey or other sweetener
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
About 4 1/2 cups flour, separated
2 teaspoons SAF Yeast
1 Tablespoon Vital Wheat Gluten and /or Dough Enhancer, Optional (I have found in high altitudes, VWG is a must)
Add all ingredients but only 2 cups of flour. Mix well. Quickly add rest of flour until ball of dough cleans the side of bowl and dough isn’t tacky to the touch. Turn dough onto an oiled board. Don’t flour your board. Knead dough for 5 to 7 minutes. Put dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rest for 45 minutes. Gently punch down dough and form into a loaf. Pinch seam and ends, put in an oiled 12inch pan, cover, and let rise for 40 to 45 minutes. Put into preheated 350° oven for 25—30 minutes. (Time and temperature depends on your oven). To test bread’s doneness, tap on loaf. If it sounds hollow, it’s done! Turn loaf out of pan onto a cooling rack. Let it cool on it’s side. Cover with cloth.
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Bread Machine Method—makes a 2 pound loaf
(All Bread Machines are not alike. Some don’t like 100% Whole Wheat. Their motor isn’t strong enough to knead it. The Zojirushi Bread Machine is designed to handle 100% whole wheat—and makes a horizontal loaf. Also, different bread machine’s capacity’s vary. Try using your bread machine as a kneading machine and bake it in your oven for even better tasting results).
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons of oil
2 Tablespoon honey or other sweetener
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
About 4 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons SAF yeast
1 Tablespoon Vital Wheat Gluten and/or Dough Enhancer, Optional
Put all ingredients in your Bread Machine and set the machine to the Dough Setting. Turn on. (If you don’t use SAF yeast, put the water, sweetener, and yeast in machine. Mix and let set for 5 minutes before adding rest of ingredients and then turn machine on). After the machine beeps to tell you the dough is done, gently punch down dough and form into a loaf. Pinch seam and ends, put in an oiled 12inch pan, cover, and let rise for 40 to 45 minutes. Put into preheated 350° oven for 25—30 minutes. (Time and temperature depends on your oven). To test bread’s doneness, tap on loaf. If it sounds hollow, it’s done! Turn loaf out of pan onto a cooling rack. Let it cool on it’s side. Cover with cloth.
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BOSCH Universal Mixer Method—makes 4, 12” loaves of bread (2# each)
6 cups warm water
2/3 Cup of oil
2/3 Cup of honey or other sweetener
2 Tablespoons of salt
About 18 cups flour, separated
2 Rounded Tablespoons of SAF Yeast
4 Tablespoons of VWG and Dough Enhancer, optional
This is the easiest method! From Start to finish it’s about 1 1/2 hours.
Mill grain—about 5 - 10 minutes
Mix up ingredients in BOSCH mixer for about 7 minutes (you can clean your stuff up and spray your pans while the BOSCH is kneading the dough). * Shape loaves and place in 12” pans, cover with a tea towel (this will take about 5 minutes tops). Let loaves rise for 40 minutes (use this time to wash the bowl and bread board). Bake in a preheated oven for about 30 minutes.
Yes, but how:
Pour all the warm water into the Bosch bowl. Add all the oil, honey, salt, yeast, VWG, Dough Enhancer, and about 5 cups of the flour. Mix on #1 for a minute. Quickly continue adding flour until dough cleans the sides. Stop machine and touch dough. If it’s very sticky, add one more cup of flour and mix it in. Repeat until the dough is no longer sticky but it should be tacky. Continue mixing for the remainder of your seven minutes. * Take out of bowl, cut into 4 equal parts. Shape into loaves and put into greased 12” pans. Cover with tea towel and let rise for 40 minutes. Bake at 350° in a preheated oven. Take out of oven and put the loaves on their sides on the cooling rack, cover with towel.
* (You can let it rise in the mixing bowl for 90 minutes, gently push down and then form loaves. This allows the enzymes to be released for better digestion then take out of bowl and continue as above).
Basic Bread Recipe
