100% Whole Wheat Bread
The Holy Grail of 100% Whole Wheat Breads?
All too often, a discussion of home made 100% whole wheat bread also includes some reference to a door stop, a shot put or an anvil. It’s challenging to make an all whole grain bread that is palatable.
This recipe from King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking not only produces amazingly light, tender and moist bread, but is fairly simple and quick to make and has a unique flavor all its own. King Arthur calls it “the Holy Grail of 100% whole wheat breads”. I’m not sure I would go quite that far, but then this is the lightest one of its kind I’ve yet to bake, so who am I to criticize?
This recipe yields one 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf.
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) orange juice
1 cup (8 ounces) lukewarm water
4 tablespoons (½ stick, 2 ounces) unsalted butter; cut into 6 pieces
3 cups (12 ounces) traditional whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons (1 ¼ ounces) sugar
Heaping ½ cup (1 ¼ ounces) dried potato flakes or 3 tablespoons (1 ¼ ounces) potato flour
¼ cup (1 ounce) nonfat dry milk
1 ¼ teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
Note: I neglected to mention in the video that the bread pan should be lightly greased before placing the dough in it. Also, you’ll probably want to mix and knead it more than I did. For this loaf, I didn’t knead at all; I just mixed with my dough whisk. The bread was a little crumbly and should have been kneaded some to develop the elasticity of the gluten. This happens automatically during the long wet fermentation of the no-knead method, but this bread recipe needs more human intervention in the form of good old fashioned kneading. A few therapeutic minutes aught to do it.
For another 100% whole grain bread recipe, see Rick’s Whole Wheat & Rolled Oats No Knead.
Here’s a particularly nice result from Breadtopia reader, Allan Castine:
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This sounds great, but is there anything I could do to leave the orange juice out & add something else? I can’t have any citrus at all
so I would like a idea to replace the 2 tbs with something else?
Thanks
the recipe I use is fairly similar to this one without the orange juice. The orange juice I am guessing is to help the acidic factor as a dough enhancer. Instead of OJ , I use white vinegr. Use the same amount of white vinegar as the yeast.
it’s really great,thank you
100% wholewheat bread WITH MINOR ALTERATIONS:
12 oz wholewheat flour
3 level Tbs sugar
1.3 oz cornflour
1 heaped Tsp salt
2.5 level Tsp dried yeast
230ml lukewarm water
25ml milk (3.5g fat/100ml)
2 Tbs orange juice
2 oz margarine
I mixed all the dry ingredients first, and then added the water and milk. Following a short stir, I covered it with plastic and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then I incorporated the orange juice and margarine and mixed it with the electric hand mixer for a few minutes. I covered it with plastic and let it rest and rise for 1.5 hours in a warm environment. For this, I place a hot water bottle into a plastic base and cover it with a blanket, making sure the bowl with the dough is not in direct contact with the water bottle! The technique creates an ideal environment for the dough in my otherwise not so warm kitchen. The second rise took about 80 minutes. I brushed the dough with lukewarm water and sprinkled it with some seeds. I then baked it in the lower third of the electric oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, and took it out of the tin for the remaining 5 minutes. A cover with foil was not necessary.
The bread turned out just perfect. – Nice and soft. There was no shrinkage to be observed either!
My sincere thanks go out to Eric for sharing this recipe!
I used cornflour instead of potato flour, and ordinary milk instead of non-fat dry milk. As mentioned above, the bread turned out really well, but I would appreciate comments on the effect these ingredients might have.
I incorporated the margarine (and orange juice) at a later stage, simply because I heard through central European sources that yeast dough should be given some time to become fully ‘active’ before it gets in contact with fat. Again, I would love to read about other people’s experiences with this.
Thanks again to Eric! Your videos are a very valuable source!
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