Thursday, March 24, 2011

Whole Wheat Bread

It is Friday, and the day of the week when I must send bread in Saee's school lunch box. I know that white bread can be disastrous in the long run, where your digestive system is concerned. I am also concerned with the brown bread available in the market. There has got to be at least some refined flour in there. So I decided some months ago that I will make my own whole wheat bread.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups whole wheat flour
  • 3 tsp sugar
  • 2 tbsp melted butter
  • pinch of salt
  • water
  • 1/2 tsp dry yeast
First activate the dry yeast. Warm half a cup of water, add one teaspoon sugar and 1/2 tsp dry yeast. Wait until bubbles form in the water. This will take around 10 minutes.

Now sieve whole wheat flour, add the remaining sugar, a pinch of salt and mix. Make a well in the center and add the butter and the activated dry yeast. Knead into a soft dough. Add more water if necessary. The dough should be slightly sticky.

Place the dough in a plastic or glass container and cover with a cling film. Allow the dough to rise upto double in size. This may take varying amount of time, as the climate is different in different places. Don't keep the dough for too long, or it may get a sour taste.

Once the dough has risen, punch it to remove some of the air and redistribute the rest uniformly through the dough. Grease a baking tin and place the punched dough in it. Cover with cling film and proof it for half an hour. (Proofing means allowing the dough to raise again.)

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees centigrade and then place the tin in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes or till the top of the bread appears brown and your home smells of fresh bread.

Cool the bread. Cut into slices and serve!


Okay honestly, this doesn't taste anywhere close to your regular white bread. But at least it is healthy. If someone can give me any better bread recipe with whole wheat... please do so.

In the meanwhile,

Happy Cooking!

3 comments:

  1. Hey, try and add other stuff to it like oats or nachni, it will give it a very different texture.But always as an addition to the wholewheat flour. Instead of wrapping it in clingfilm, try and keep the dough covered with a damp cloth, not to wet the dough, just to keep it moist, to help the yeast work its magic.Even when u r proofing it, use the damp cloth. Try it this way. And yes, tastewise its nowhere close, but its better to develop a healthy taste than the horror of that mass of maida in ur tummy. Sorry, seriously we avoid maida and use it only sparingly. So its good that u r making Saee used to eating healthy aata pasanacha..I will also email u another recipe, try it, Saee might love it.

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  2. Gauri try recipes from this website . I have tried a few breads ad they always come out very nice.

    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/yeast-breads-and-rolls/bread-machine-breads-baked-out-of-machine

    ReplyDelete
  3. And this website too
    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe/

    ReplyDelete