My Favorite Bread Recipe

On my family's journey of eating healthy, one habit has been to make our own bread. Two Christmases ago I was in search of my Christmas present which was a heavy duty mixer for baking. After lots of research I came to find out that the Bosch Universal was the top of the line heavy duty mixer that everybody was raving about. It has a motor of 700 watts of power and can mix and knead up to six loaves of bread at a time. I don't remember how many pounds that was. Ever since I got it I've been using it to make our own bread. There's nothing like fresh homemade bread straight out of the oven. With the prices of a loaf of bread at $ 4. nowadays you can't beat having 6 loaves of bread homemade without all the preservatives and junk, each for pennies and in less than two hours!! The only problem is keeping your family from eating it all in one sitting. I try to make one batch which is six loaves to last us the week, but making fresh bread only means that I have to make more. Talk about yummy! Our favorite is fresh hot whole wheat bread with butter and honey to top it off. Oh soo good! You should try it, even if you don't have a heavy duty mixer. Don't let that stop you from feeding your family good wholesome bread.

Whole Wheat Bread (6 Loaves)

6 cups warm water

2/3 cup olive oil

2/3 cup honey

On top of the wet ingredients without mixing, add these dry ingredients:

8 cups of whole wheat flour

2 Tbs. vital wheat gluten

2 Tbs. Dough enhancer

2-3 Tbs. yeast (saf-instant brand only)

Mix all ingredients together until moistened and let rise until it has reached the rim of the bowl, about 10- 20 minutes. This is the proofing process.

Once it has proofed, you can start mixing the rest of the flour:

5- 8 more cups of flour

You will know that you have added enough flour when the dough starts pulling away from the bowl.

While adding the flour mix in:

2 Tbs. salt

Dump dough onto oiled surface with oiled hands and start kneading away about 6-10 minutes.

Break dough into separate pieces and form into loaves and place them into pans that have been oiled. I use pam nonstick spray fro baking. It does wonders. When the loaves are done baking they fall right out onto the cooling rack.

Cover, let rise about double in size and bake in a non preheated oven at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Immediately out of the oven take loaves out of the pans and let cool on a cooling rack. You don't want them to have soggy bottoms.

Baking bread really is a science. It has been trial and error for me. There is always something new to learn. So have fun you won't regret it and your family will be happy too!

One more thing, if you don't know. When you measure your flour you do not want to pack the flour down in the measuring cup. Fluff your flour up in the bag, as the bag has been sitting and the flour has settled. Scoop the flour up in the measuring cup and level it off with a knife. This will prevent you from using too much flour hence making heavy dense bread. Happy Bread Making!