Best Homemade Wheat Bread Recipe Ever

I am just a regular guy. We keep some wheat on hand, quite a bit, in case of an emergency. Well, a couple of years ago, I started thinking. How on earth am I going to use the wheat if there ever is an emergency?

You can eat it raw but it does crazy things to you if you aren't used to eating it raw. I started looking around for some good recipes and my mom gave me one. My mother-in-law gave me another. They had some similarities but they also had some significant differences. I worked as a cook in various restaurants for about 5 years through college and right after and I love to mess around in the kitchen. (By the way, I make some mean pies--maybe I will give out the recipes later).

Anyway, I didn't love either recipe as is--so I combined them and added a few ingredients. Voila! My very own fresh wheat flour bread--and my kids and wife almost fight over it it is so good. I make it every couple of weeks and the loaves don't even last a week. The first one is typically gone before the bread has been out of the oven for even an hour. Besides, this is a darn healthy treat.

Here is the ingredient list for a half batch:

Wheat Flour About 7 cups (I grind 4 1/2 cups of wheat and it normally is perfect. You can use white hard wheat or red hard wheat or half and half. I prefer white)

Water 2 3/4 cups

Oil 1/8 cup

Salt 1 TBS

Yeast 1 1/2 TBS (Fast Rising)

Dough Enhancer 1 TBS

Honey 1/3 Cup (I use fresh honey from my beehives--most delicious but you can use any basic honey if you aren't so fortunate to have your own bees)

Molasses 1/4 Cup (if you don't want molasses you can substitute water for this. The bread isn't quite as dark and is definitely not as yummy.)

Lecithin 1/8 Cup ( you can use another cup of oil instead of lecithin--I prefer the lecithin)

Gluten 1 TBS (You really do need to use this)

That is it! Later I will tell you how to mix up your batch of dough.

 See the notes above on individual ingredients--there are some substitutions you can make that will work okay.

Wheat Flour   14 Cups

Water 5 1/2 Cups

Oil 1/4 Cup

Salt 2 TBS

Yeast 3 TBS

Dough Enhancer 2 TBS

Honey 2/3 Cup

Molasses  1/2 Cup

Lecithin  1/4 Cup

Gluten  2 TBS

That is it.

 Here is the process I go through.

1. Grind the wheat in your wheat grinder.  You can actually use white flour but why?  It is not even half as good. 
2. Take half of the flour and put it in your mixer
3. Add the water
4. Mix it for two minutes
5. Add the oil
6. Add the salt
7. Add the yeast
8. Add the dough enhancer
9. Add the honey
10. Add the molasses
11. Add the lecithin
12. Add the gluten
13. Mix it for two more minutes.
14. Add about half of the flour you have remaining  (either 1 1/2 cups or 3 cups depending on half batch or full batch)
15. Now, you are going to mix the dough for eight minutes.  Here is the art part of the process.  About every 30 seconds or so--it really isn't that critical on the time, add another cup of flour.  Keep adding until the dough pulls off of the mixer walls.  Be really careful here--if you add too much your dough will be dry and nasty.  If you need to wait 1 minute between adding flour do that. 
16. Now, get two or four bread pans (you can put it in any combination.)  Spray your pans with PAM or wipe them down with butter or some type of cooking oil.  Then divide your dough carefully into 2 or 4 balls
17. Carefully fold the dough balls into themselves.  To do this, you pull the sides out and fold them under the ball.  Try to shape it into a longish piece so it will fit in your pan nicely.  It will, or should, fill about 1/3 to 1/2 of your pan.
18. Put all the pans in a COLD!!! oven.
19. Leave them in there for 30 minutes.  If you want, you can cover the bread pans with saran wrap, my mom insists you should but I never do.
20. After 30 minutes, open your oven and see if they have risen to about the level of the top of the pans--or maybe even a little higher (YEAH!)
21. If they have, turn your oven to 350 degrees and cook for about 30-35 minutes (I live at about 4500 feet above sea level so you may have to adjust accordingly).  Basically, just cook your bread until it is nice and golden on the top.
22. Eat UP!

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