This recipe comes to you courtesy of Musings of a Housewife and assumes that you are using a Kitchen Aid Mixer (which I believe that every person in the world should own...even those who don't have electricity! I couldn't function in the kitchen without my Kitchen Aid!). If you are looking for a yummy way to incorporate more whole foods in to your diet, make sure to check out all of Jo-Lynne's recipes!
(note: this may seem like too many steps, but it really isn't. Jo-Lynne is just really good at giving perfect descriptions to make your cooking fool-proof!)
Ingredients
6 cups whole wheat flour
⅔ cup honey
½ cup unrefined coconut oil or butter, melted
2 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons active dry yeast
4 ½ cups very warm water (120°F to 130°F)
2 cups Spelt or all-purpose white flour
4 to 5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Butter or margarine, melted, if desired
Directions
(for a step-by-step photo directions, check out the original post!)
1. Combine the honey, coconut oil, and water in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat until the mixture is warm, but not hot enough to kill the yeast (about 120 degrees.)
2. While that is heating, place the whole wheat flour, salt and yeast in your mixer bowl. Attach the dough hook and mix about 15 seconds on Speed 2.
3. Continuing on Speed 2, add warm water mixture to flour mixture and blend for about a minute. (At this point I usually need to scrape the sides of the bowl.)
4. Continuing on Speed 2, stir in the spelt flour (or 2 cups of white, if that’s all you have.)
5. Add the all-purpose flour ½ cup at a time and mix about 2 minutes, or until the dough starts to clean the sides of the bowl.
6. Knead on Speed 2 for another 2 minutes. When it’s ready, it won’t be sticky. It will feel smooth and elastic. At this point, dump the dough out onto a plate and grease the inside of the mixing bowl, all the way to the top. Return the dough to the bowl, and turn over so that it is buttered on all sides.
7. Cover it with a clean towel and place it in a warm place to rise. Usually the top of the oven works just fine, but on really cold days, I heat the oven to 130 degrees, turn it off, and then put the dough in the oven to rise. After about an hour, it should be doubled in size.
8. Dump it out onto a large cloth or rolling mat. Punch it down, and then divide it into four equal sized lumps of dough. Take one and roll it out and then roll it up tightly and pinch the loose ends into the dough.
9. Place in a buttered bread pan and do the same with the other 3 dough balls.
10. You can freeze some for rising and cooking at a later date, or you can cook them all off and then freeze the finished loaves for later. I prefer my bread to be freshly baked (Mindi's note: nothing better than freshly baked bread!) so I usually bake off two loaves and freeze two. But either way works fine. Put the loaves to rise in a warm spot, covered with a clean towel, for about 45 minutes or so.
11. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
12. Pop ‘em in the oven, and set your timer for 30 minutes. The bread is done when you tap it and it sounds hollow.
13. Immediately turn them out onto a rack to cool. I always slather butter on top because that’s what my mama always did. And because I’m a firm believer that you can never have too much butter. (Mindi's note: butter is a whole food group, as far as I am concerned!)
Julie
I love this stuff! It's the first bread recipe I've tried where we can actually make regular sandwiches. (My son is addicted to peanut butter and jelly, and that just doesn't work on most homemade breads.)