Food Storage, Hairstyles, and a Bread Recipe

I don't know how it is at your house, but at my house the food storage has always been off limits.  I was very proud of all those #10 cans, and it was clearly understood by everyone that they were not to be touched until the day when we had nothing else to eat.  Soon after we were married (15.5 years ago), Jef and I made an attempt to get some food storage for our new family.  We didn't make much headway, but we did acquire a few cans of food.  It was a comfort to know we had them, and they have been sitting on a shelf ever since.  But for some reason a couple of months ago, I opened a couple of them.  I opened one can of white flour, and one can of wheat.  Who knew that I was actually opening a whole new phase in my cooking?

First of all, the white flour was disgusting.  It was seriously awful.  It just tasted and smelled stale, and it passed on that stale taste everywhere it went. I did manage to make it through the whole can, but it certainly opened my eyes to the state of my food storage.  The can of wheat was better.  It didn't taste or smell stale, but it had definitely lost something during those years of sitting, because there was just no way on earth to make my bread rise when I used that wheat.  (And I'm pretty sure I did try everything on earth.)

So it was clearly time to do something different.  I decided I needed to start making more of my own bread.  I had started making our bread a while before this, but I had been using half white flour and half whole wheat.  But if we're living on our food storage, then white flour is going to become very precious very quickly.  And whole wheat flour is better for you, anyway, right?  So I went in search of a bread recipe that used all whole wheat flour.

I had been using this recipe off of Nicole's food blog, and it was fabulous.  Everyone loved this bread, but it did call for half white flour.  It seemed fairly simple to me to just substitute the white flour for wheat and proceed as normal.  Wrong.  Turns out that leaving out all the white flour results in bread that just doesn't rise very well.  (Even when you're using fresh wheat.)  So we ate some very short, dense loaves of bread for a few weeks until I got sick of it and went looking for a new recipe.

I soon found that the term "Whole Wheat Bread" can mean anything from half wheat/half white flour to adding just one cup of wheat flour.  Rarely does "Whole Wheat Bread" mean that there is no white flour involved.  Who knew?  But I finally found a 100%-whole-wheat recipe that claimed to rise beautifully.  And it did!  It just didn't taste very good, is all.  Sigh.


So here's the part where hairstyles comes in.  (You were wondering, weren't you.)  My theory on recipes is that they're a lot like hairstyles.  Several times my ward Relief Society has passed out a recipe which people were supposed to make and bring to a dinner.  Funny thing is, when we got to the dinner, every dish was different!  And I know that every woman there was thinking, "What is wrong with these people?  Can't they follow a recipe?"  And every woman who made that recipe thought that she was doing exactly what the recipe said.

But recipes are like hairstyles.  Even if you cut your hair exactly like someone else's, it's still going to look different - because it's on you!  No one else's hair does just what yours does.  That lady over there doesn't have your cowlicks, or your wavy parts, or your straight parts.  Her hair is thinner or thicker or finer or coarser than yours.  And even if somehow her hair was exactly the same as yours, she still blow dries it in a different pattern around her head, or holds her curling iron differently, and after all that she has different cheekbones and a different jaw line and different eyes, and it just doesn't look the same.

And that's how it is with recipes.  Probably without realizing it, you have developed your own style of cooking.  You like to add the ingredients in a certain order, and you like to use certain spoons for certain things.  You've decided it's important scrape off every cup of flour, or you've decided that just shaking it til it looks even across the top is good enough.  You diligently measure out every teaspoon of vanilla, or you've given up and just give a good "bloop" for every teaspoon. However you run your kitchen, you've got your own way of doing things, and that will be reflected in the end product, no matter how closely you think you're following the recipe.

My mom made wonderful bread when I was growing up, and it always (that I can remember, anyway), turned out perfectly and was super yummy.  But shortly after I got married I tried to make her bread, and it just wasn't as good.  I always ended up with big holes in my loaves, and the bread didn't have good "crumb."  It just fell apart, and I couldn't even butter a slice without getting a lap full of crumbs. Not that it was dry, it just needed to be a little more dense than it was, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  Thus ended my bread-making for many years.  That bread recipe matched my mom's cooking style perfectly, but not mine.  A lady told me a story once about a peanut salad that her mother-in-law made, but which she could never get right.  She even had her mother-in-law stand in her kitchen one time to tell her every step, and it still didn't taste the same.

So I needed to take the best from these two bread recipes and make a recipe that would work for me.  It took several attempts, but I have now settled on the final version.  So part of the reason for the way-too-long preface is that I don't want you to feel bad if this recipe doesn't work for you.  You're different!  And since this recipe is the result of many experiments, it's ok for you to experiment with it as well.  Just because this hairstyle/recipe works great for me, it doesn't mean it won't need some tweaking before it will work for you.  So here you go.

My Version of

100% Whole Wheat Bread

that Tastes Yummy and

Actually Rises

Makes 4 loaves

Ingredients:

13 cups whole wheat flour, divided

1 cup seeds or nuts (optional) (ie flax, sesame, sunflower, whatever.  I like to grind up 7-grain cereal.)

4 1/2 tsp yeast

1 cup mashed potatoes

6 Tbs applesauce (or oil, cooked mashed beans, or cooled melted butter)

1 cup warm milk*

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

5 tsp salt
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten (this will really help your bread to rise, but if you don't have any, then make the bread anyway.)

water (see below for amounts)

Directions:

1. Soak for at least 30 minutes:

     6 cups flour

     5 cups warm water

     1 cup seeds (optional)

     Cover with a damp tea towel

Flour/water mixture shouldn't be too watery. Water should just mix into the flour without any excess.  Make sure there is no dry flour.  Add by the Tbs if more water is needed.  (I've never needed more water.)

2. Start sponge (15 to 20 minutes before starting)

     In 1/2 cup warm water, gently combine 4 1/2 tsp yeast and 1 Tbs sugar until just mixed.

    Set aside.

 Sponge should be visibly active - bubbles forming, etc. (much more than I was used to) - before adding to the recipe.

3.  After flour is soaked and sponge is bubbly, combine in mixer bowl and mix well:

     Sponge                                           3 eggs

     1 cup mashed potatoes                    1 cup sugar

     6 Tbs applesauce (or substitute)       5 tsp salt

     1 cup warm milk*                            wet flour & seed mixture
     1/2 cup vital wheat gluten

  

     * If you didn't add the seeds or nuts, use 1 Tbs dry powdered milk, instead.  

               You don't need the extra liquid.

4. Mix/knead in 6 - 7 cups more flour to the right consistency. Dough should feel pliable and not dry.

5. Knead for 15 minutes. (Yes, you can use your mixer, but take it out and knead it for the last 5      
 minutes by hand.)  Sprinkle counter with small amount of flour as needed to prevent sticking.

6. Place dough in large, greased bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel. Place in warm (not hot!) place and allow to rise until double. (About 1 hour.)

7. Remove from bowl, punch down, and knead by hand for 2 minutes. Divide into 4 equal parts.

8. Knead each individual loaf for 1 minute and form into a loaf. (One recipe suggested rolling it with a rolling pin, then roll up the dough and pinch the ends.)  Place in greased loaf pan.  Repeat for all 4 loaves.  Cover with a damp tea towel. 

9.  Allow to rise until double; about an hour.

10. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.  (Bread is not like cake.  It's better to bake it as long as the recipe says and bake it less next time if necessary.)

11. Remove pans from oven and immediately remove loaves from pans.  Place on a wire rack and brush the tops with butter.  Let cool completely before placing in plastic bags. 

In keeping with the food storage theme, I make my mashed potatoes with potato pearls, use powdered eggs and powdered milk, and the applesauce I bottled last fall. And since I have a bunch of buttermilk sitting around from making my own butter, I use some of that for soaking my flour at the beginning. I've also been using 4 Tbs dough enhancer which was left over from trying everything on earth. 

I realize this may be a pain to print, so if you'll send an email to stefanie at skaterace dot com, I'll send you a Word version.

Good luck!