100% Whole Wheat Bread

I've got a whole lot of recipes scattered across three blogs now, and I'm going to slowly start moving all of them over to Carl's Kitchen because I think it'd be easier not to have to search my two former blogs every time I want to track down a recipe. Also, I can reach the voluminous audience that reads Carl's Kitchen. Why, I'm certain that there are a plethora of wombat and yak chefs out there just waiting to learn about my recipes. After all, Carl's Kitchen is the number one blog read amongst wombats and yaks!

This is a recipe for whole wheat bread that I've made many, many times. I cobbled it together from research and trial and error with other recipes. Mainly, I wanted something that was not dense, but also did not employ the use of white flour in the mix to make it less dense. This uses a little oatmeal, but no white flour. I've modified it slightly since the original recipe appeared on my old Monster Flower blog because it included more honey than necessary for the yeast to do its thing. The main problem with all of that honey wasn't that the bread was too sweet, but rather that it got incredibly dark when used for toast due to the excess sugars in the honey.

Here is the original post, with some of the commentary trimmed and the recipe modified to reflect how I currently make it:

After years of bread so dense I'm surprised it didn't form its own singularity, I finally stumbled upon what seems to make the difference in getting bread made with whole wheat flour to rise, wheat gluten. If you add a couple of tablespoons of vital wheat gluten to the dough, it seems to puff up and make a much lighter whole wheat loaf. With a little help from a random recipe I ran across on the web and some experimentation on my part, I finally have a recipe for what I'd consider about the best bread machine recipe for whole wheat bread.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread (for ABM):

• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1/4 cup Canola oil
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 2 tbsp. vital wheat gluten
  
• 3 1/4 cups (regular) whole wheat flour
  
• 1/2 cup oatmeal (regular rolled oats - not quick)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. yeast

Place the liquid ingredients in your bread machine, then the oatmeal, and then the remaining dry ones (add the yeast last, making sure it doesn't touch any wet ingredients). Allow the flour and oatmeal to sit in the bread pan and absorb moisture for about an hour. You can also just leave it sit overnight if you'd like, though you should watch the moisture level if you do this. You may need to add a little more water to the dough if too much is absorbed overnight. You may also want to wait and add the yeast just before starting the bread machine if you're going to allow it to set overnight so it doesn't get wet. Set the crust color to light and choose the whole wheat setting on your bread machine. Press start.

by Shari (Orchid64)