I love making things.  I love the experience of seeing something from raw material to finished product.  I love feeling connected to the things around me, and the things I eat.  I’ve been making most of the bread we eat for years now.  I remember dreaming of getting a Zojurushi bread machine and then one year I had enough birthday money to get one!  One loaf at a time worked pretty well for a long time– as long as I remembered to put a loaf in in the morning, but as our family has grown making all of our bread just one loaf at a time was a constant project.  For a while I was making batches of 2 or 3 loaves and kneading them by hand, but I just wasn’t good at that– and bonking my big pregnant belly against the counter just didn’t add to the fun.  So, this year I got a Bosch mixer.  Love it.  Now I can make 4 loaves at a time, so bread making just has to happen once a week or so.  Much more doable than every day.  Now that I’ve had my mixer for a few months we’ve fine tuned our favorite recipe, so I thought I’d share it.  You can always cut it in half or fourths if you have a smaller mixer or need to knead it by hand.

First, grind your flour, if you have a wheat grinder.  Before I had one I used a combination of King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and White Wheat flour.  Now I just grind whatever kind of wheat that is in my open bucket.  I really love hard white wheat, but it was hard to come by for a while there.  I think our local Home Storage Center has it in stock now, I just haven’t gotten myself out there.

Now you’re ready.

mix:

• 5 1/3 cup really warm tap water
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 1/2 Tbl yeast

add:

• 1/2 cup oil (I love it with coconut oil, but my kids don’t, so I usually just use canola)
• 1/2 cup powdered milk
• 3-4 Tbl vital wheat gluten
• 2 Tbl sea salt or Real Salt
• 6 cups whole wheat flour

once that is all mixed up add:

• 6-7 more cups of flour.

Knead by machine for 8 minutes or so.  (If you’re kneading by hand keep at it for a good 20-25 minutes.)While that is happening, grease your pans.  This is the ONLY thing I ever use shortening for, but it works the best of anything I’ve tried.

Turn on your oven to 350 degrees.  When  the dough is all kneaded, divide it into four, shape it into oblong loaves, and plop it in your pans.  Let rise, covered with a warm damp towel, until the loaves are the size you want.   This usually takes about 30 minutes here, sometimes less.

Pop your loaves in the oven and bake for 25-28 minutes.  27 is the perfect amount of time for my oven.  The timing takes some experimenting I think.

That’s it!  Eat your bread, or let it cool and slice it up and put it in bags.  I just use plastic bread bags from the store.  Refrigerate or freeze the extra loaves.

You can find a couple of other bread-makin’-mama’s bread recipes here and here.