Monday, March 02, 2009

Homemade whole wheat bread

I don't think I've shared this recipe with the world at large yet. And I can't imagine why, because we LOVE this bread. I think I got the original recipe from my mom, but I've tweaked it since then to make it my own.

Whole Wheat Bread (2 lb loaf)

1 2/3 cup water (about 2-4T of this can be replaced with milk, if you like)
1 cup wheat bran
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup white bread flour
2 t. salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 T. butter
2 t. yeast

Place all ingredients in a bread machine and set on the whole wheat cycle. In about four hours, voila! Fresh bread!

I am so glad that I have a bread machine. It saves money, saves time, and provides an awful lot of enjoyment! My first one was a gift from my parents, but the one I'm using now was a $5 thrift store find! So if you don't have one, keep your eyes open at second hand shops because they do turn up there sometimes.

Enjoy!

4 comments:

Cowen Family said...

Do you have an easy method for slicing for sandwiches? I go through phases where I use mine all the time and then I don't for quite a while. We use ours more for rolls(I need to share a yummy recipe for those) and then for dinner breads. I get discouraged with the slicing...then again, maybe it's just me:)

Trace said...

Oh this sounds delicious! This is such motivation for me to get out my bread machine! We got it as a wedding gift and I have never used it! Dumb huh? I would really love to try this. Definitely cost-effective and sounds pretty easy!

Amber said...

1 cup of wheat bran, that sounds interesting! I'll have to try it out. Thanks for posting it!

Amber said...

I was wondering - have you tried reducing the sugar and salt in this recipe at all? 1/3 cup and 2 t seems like a lot for a 2 lb loaf. I'm thinking about trying it with 2-3 T of sugar and 1 or 1/2 t of salt. I think there is such a large amount of salt in order to retard the growth of the yeast w/ all that sugar.

Just wondering if you have played around with the proportions at all... I think I'm going to start a loaf tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it turns out.