100% Whole Wheat Bread (smaller loaf)

One thing that really gets my goat is recipes that people advertise as "whole wheat" and then you find out that they include a mix of whole wheat flour and white flour. If it has white flour in it, it's just dirty white bread. It's not "whole wheat"! My poor old goat probably would be gotten a lot less if 90% of the recipes I check didn't contain this lie.

I've been making my regular whole wheat bread for quite some time, but there were always problems handling it because it was so huge. It wasn't just that it was hard to cut (especially thin slices), but it was also difficult to find space in my freezer to store such a large amount of bread. It also took ages to eat it all.

I tried to scale back the other recipe, but just cutting things in half doesn't always work properly. This is the recipe which I experimented and came up with for a small loaf. It works quite well and I make it about once a week for both my husband and I.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread (for ABM):

• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 tbsp. Canola oil
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. vital wheat gluten
• 2 cups (regular) whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. yeast

Place the liquid ingredients in your bread machine and then the remaining dry ones (add the yeast last, making sure it doesn't touch any wet ingredients). Set the crust color to light and choose the whole wheat setting on your bread machine. Press start.

whole loaf: 1182 calories
14 slices - 85 calories per slice 

by Shari (Orchid64)


There's an excellent general guideline to bread making here for anyone who is interested.

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)

Bread Machine Hamburger Buns

In Japan, I can't buy hamburger buns unless I go to an import shop. There are a few Japanese-made buns, but they are also only sold in the "gaijin ghetto" areas. For the record, the "gaijin ghetto" in Japan isn't some poor area with disadvantaged people. It's a very wealthy area full of people who are here on expense accounts and can afford maids and cars and to buy food from home all of the time.

My husband bought a bunch of American hamburger (you can't buy all-beef burger in my local markets - it's a pork/beef mix) and we've been waiting for the serendipitous appearance of the proper buns for him to eat them. Unsurprisingly, the burgers have been languishing in the freezer and the bun genie hasn't shown up to grant our wish.

If you don't have access to hot dog or hamburger buns, you may not realize how important they are to enjoying these foods. A good burger bun has to be soft, but not so soft that it squashes. It also can't absorb too many juices and turn all pink and icky. It also can't be too hard or the burger will tend to squish out or be hard to bite into. Finally, it can't be too sweet. One problem with all of the Japanese buns and rolls is that they're all noticeably sweet, even when they're designed for sandwich-making.

I decided to give in and try to make my own buns, but I'm also lazy so I wanted to do part of it in the bread machine and I didn't want to go shopping for special ingredients. I found a well-reviewed recipe on Recipe Zaar, but I didn't have bread flour so I decided to modify it to suit what I usually have on hand. Mainly, I had to use all-purpose flour and whole wheat.

The recipe as modified for my needs is:

• 1 1/4 cup slightly warm milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. Canola oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten (can be reduce and replaced with flour)
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• melted butter for brushing

Put all of the wet ingredients into your bread maker's pan then the whole wheat flour. Add the remaining dry ingredients except the yeast which should be placed in a well in the flour. Use the bread machine's "dough" setting to prepare the dough.

When the dough cycle has completed, roll the dough out (divide if necessary to accommodate your rolling space) and cut using a glass or biscuit cutter about the right size for your buns. Brush with melted butter. Allow to rise until doubled in size and bake at 350 degrees F./180 degrees C. for about 15 minutes. Note that my oven tends to be slow so your time may be shorter. I also use porcelain baking sheets which are slow to heat.


These made buns which were tender and soft, but I think they puffed up too much. I added 1/4 cup of vital wheat gluten to offset the fact that I wasn't using bread flour (which is higher in gluten) and the fact that I was using wheat flour (which often needs gluten to boost its rising power). I think I'll use the same recipe in the future, but roll them thinner and cut them smaller.

The texture is actually very much like what you'd get from a good commercially made hamburger bun. I was really quite pleased with how they turned out (except for the size).

by Shari (Orchid64)