Baking wholewheat bread

Girl in the pink dress asked for a post on making wholewheat/wholemeal bread.  I made some yesterday so here are my thoughts.  The most important element in wheat bread is gluten, it gives bread its shape and fluffiness. There are 30 different proteins in wheat, glutenin and gliadin are the two that form gluten.  Gluten develops in the dough when moisture is added and the mixture is stirred and kneaded.  Bread must be kneaded for at least eight minutes, preferably 10 minutes, to develop the gluten so it's strong enough to hold the shape of the bread and all the air that gives us the lightness we want.  No one wants dense gluggy bread.

When you make white bread and knead the dough well, you'll get a light loaf.  When you make wholemeal bread, the added bran and fibre in the flour, makes it very important for you to knead the dough properly.  If you don't, the gluten won't be developed enough to hold the pockets of air and you'll get a small dense loaf.

Let me make this clear - it doesn't matter how you knead your bread dough.  If you want to use a bread maker that's fine!  If you want to knead by hand, that's fine!  The point of the exercise is to knead it sufficiently to make a decent loaf of bread.  Every loaf of bread you make at home will be better for you and cheaper than anything you buy.  If you want to produce most of your own bread and you need a breadmaker to do that, there is nothing wrong with that, despite what others might tell you.  You are your own boss, do what you know is right for you and your family.  If you love the feeling of hand making bread, do it.  If you don't have the time for kneading, can't seem to get it right or find it too difficult, use a breadmaker.  I have a breadmaker here and I often use it to knead my dough.  I never cook in the machine because I prefer bread baked in the oven.  But you do what is best for you and what is easiest.

 

I opened a new pack of yeast yesterday so I made sure I proved it.  To prove yeast, half fill a cup with warm water.  Don't have it too hot because hot water will kill the yeast. Add the amount  of yeast you need and a teaspoon of sugar and stir it until it's mixed properly with the water.  Leave it for five to ten minutes. 

With the water and sugar to feed on, the yeast will activate and start frothing.  You can see this in the photo above.

When you're sure the yeast is alive and active you can add everything to your bowl or bread machine bucket.  My recipe for yesterday's bread was:

• 3½ cups flour - I used half white and half stoneground wholemeal. Using some white flour will give a lighter loaf, using all wholemeal will give a heavier loaf.  You'll need 3½ cups, you decide how much white or wholemeal, if any, you'll use.  Buy bread flour, baker's flour, strong flour or high protein flour for your bread.
• 1½ teaspoons yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar 
  
• about 2 cups of water You'll use more water with wholemeal flour but all flours are different.  Add almost all of the two cups, mix the dough and look to see if it needs more.

This is the dough in my breadmaker after I added two cups of water.  You can see in the photo that the dough is too dry, so I added another ¼ cup, then another ¼ cup.  Don't add the extra water all at once because it might be too much.  You need to look at it and judge if you have enough water or not.  This really does change from flour to flour and also on how humid it is.  You'll need less water in humid weather because there will be more water (from the air) already in the flour.

 

Now the water is in and I see that the dough is moist but not wet and sloppy.  I can still see a bit of dry flour at the bottom so I know it's fine now to walk away and do something else while the machine kneads the dough.

 

When I hear the machine's alarm, I go back to remove the dough.  Lightly flour your clean bench.  If you don't want to use your bench and prefer a board, put a moist tea towel/kitchen towel under the baord so it doens't slip around. 

 

Knead the dough by hand for a minute so it's nice and round and all the uneven bits are underneath.  

 

At this stage you can either just shape it and put it in greased a bread loaf tin or chop it into pieces to make bread rolls.  I did both and used my small loaf tin.

 

Wet the tops of the dough and sprinkle on anything your heart desires. I used polenta yesterday but I often use rolled oats, sesame or poppy seeds or a mixture of all of them.

 

Leave the dough in a warm spot to rise.  My kitchen was warm yestrday (28C) so I left the dough, uncovered, on the bench. Half an hour later it was ready to bake.  Make sure you don't let the dough rise too much because it will puff right up then collapse.  Also, handle the dough gently after it has risen because if you drop it or tap the side of the tin hard, it will lose all the air that's just caused it to rise.  If you do that, you'll have to let it rise again.

There are two kinds of rise when making bread.  One is the rise caused by the yeast and the gluten trapping the air given off by the yeast.  The other rise is oven lift and it happens when dough is placed in a hot oven.  A hot oven will make the dough puff up and then cook.  Make sure your oven is hot before you put the dough in.

About half an hour later you'll have a house smelling of hot bread and your lunch sitting on the bench cooling slightly before you cut into it.

Bread making is not just following a recipe.  It involves looking, touching and judgement.  Get in there and touch the dough, learn how a good dough feels, learn how to spot problems and how to fix them.  If you can bake a good loaf of bread and are the chief provider of bread for your family, you're doing your job of homemaker well.  Bread is a staple and it's well worth your time and effort to get it right.   You'll save money and provide your family with healthy food with no preservatives, and that is a fine thing.   Happy baking everyone!