Recipe For Whole Wheat Bread
Recipe For Whole Wheat Bread – FUNDAMENTAL FACTS – PART II
41⁄2 cups sifted whole wheat flour 2 cups sifted enriched white flour (about) Keep whole wheat and white flour separate until the recipe calls for mixing. 1⁄2 cake yeast softened in 1⁄4 cup lukewarm water at 80° to 85° F or 1⁄2 tablespoon active dry yeast softened in 1⁄4 cup warm water at 110° F.
Place in mixing bowl:
21⁄2 cup scalded milk
3 tablespoons shortening
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
When the milk mixture is cooled to 90°F (100°F in cold weather) add: 3 cups of whole wheat flour. Beat well. Then add the softened yeast. Add the remaining whole wheat flour.
Beat until all the whole wheat is thoroughly mixed into the dough. Then add enough of the white flour to make a soft dough. Mix until the dough forms in an elastic ball in the bowl. Cover and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
This rest will relax the dough and make it easier to knead. Put one cup of the measured white flour onto the kneading canvas and rub it into the portion of the canvas where you will do the kneading.
Keep the whole wheat dough as soft as you can handle. The stiff dough dries out quickly after it is baked, and gets too crumbly.
Follow the kneading directions given with the recipe for white bread. Use the same method for putting the whole wheat bread to rise.
Whole wheat dough ferments much faster than does white dough. If it once gets too light, the finished bread will be coarse and crumbly.
The ripe test will come much sooner after the whole wheat dough is put to rising than it does in the white dough. The whole wheat dough usually will be just slightly more than doubled in bulk when it is “ripe” for the first punch down.
It may take slightly less or slightly more than 1 hour for the first rising.
When the whole wheat dough shows the ripe test:
Punch it down, turn it over, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes.
Punch it down, turn it over, cover, and let rise for 20 minutes.
Divide into balls for loaves. Cover and rest the dough for 10 minutes.
Mold into loaves and put into pans as directed on page 15.
Cover the loaves with a damp cloth and keep them in a warm place 80°F to 85°F until ready for baking.
The whole wheat dough in the pans will be ready for baking in a shorter time than will the white dough. Notice the difference in the height of the white and whole wheat loaves when they are ready for the oven.
Bake in a 450°F oven. Bread will bake at this temperature for 35 minutes at elevations up to 4,500 feet. Bread baked at higher elevations will need 40 to 45 minutes in a 450°F oven.
Try this milk topping on your bread. When it has only 5 minutes left to bake, take it out and brush the top of each loaf with milk. Then put the bread back into the oven to finish.
The milk gives an interesting glaze to the crust.
Follow directions on caring for white loaves from this point on.
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