90 Minute Whole Wheat Bread

My husband's aunt Jamie is an absolutely fabulous cook. One day we asked her if we could come watch her make wheat bread to learn how she does it and that experience has changed my life. I haven't bought a loaf of bread at the store since January. We make our own bread and it is the most delicious that I have ever had. All the credit goes to Jamie of course. It really does only take 90 minutes! Enough of those hours and hours, we usually make it on Sundays or whenever we run out.

Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients:

5 cups wheat flour (I use about 1/3 red and 2/3 white wheat kernels)

½ cup gluten flour

2 Tbsp. instant yeast (SAF is my favorite)

4 cups hot water (run sink so it is hot but not scalding)

1 ½ Tbsp. salt

½ cup oil (can reduce this amount if desired)

¾ cup honey (we use a little more, more like 1 cup)

2 Tbsp. lemon juice, bottled

5 cups wheat flour, in addition to previous 5 cups

Add first 5 cups of wheat flour, gluten, yeast and hot water in mixer and mix for 1 minute using wire whisk attachment. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes (if your kitchen is cold, it may take a few minutes longer to rise). Add salt, oil, honey, lemon juice and rest of flour (one cup at a time). Change to dough hook before adding remainder of flour. Let beat for 10 minutes until dough pulls away from sides of bowl (the texture of dough will change during the 10 minutes, so make sure to give it that time).

Heat oven to lowest temperature possible (e.g. 160 degrees). Turn dough onto oiled counter top. Knead together. Divide and shape into 4 loaves. Spray pans with oil and place dough in pan. Place directly in oven to let rise for 10-15 minutes. Once bread is about ½-1 inch from top of pan, increase temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. (Don’t remove bread from oven while waiting for oven to heat up). When baked, butter tops and remove from pans onto cooling racks.

Makes 4 loaves.

You'll find a picture of the bread here with blackberry jam. We're almost out so I will be making some probably tomorrow. I'll try to take some pictures step by step so you will know what it should look like. It is definitely worth the time. This bread is so soft and stays soft. We just put one or two loaves in the the freezer and one or two in the fridge and it never goes bad before we get to it. Enjoy!