Bread Revisited
I was at Smart & Final a couple weeks ago and, while wandering the isles, saw a brick of yeast. I decided to get it since it was only $2.50. I figured it was cheap enough to get to see if that was the problem with my yeast. The first batch of bread I made with the new yeast was for rolls. They turned out superb (I used mom’s recipe, so of course they were good). Last weekend I decided to take on the arduous task of grinding 6 cups of wheat by hand, and trying the recipe Vickie uses for wheat bread. After a few hours of grinding on and off, and calling Vickie for ideas for substitutions (I had potato perls not flakes) I finally got to making the bread.
My kitchenaid bowl is too small. I need to see if they make a larger bowl for the mixer I have, the kneader kept pushing the dough to the top of the bowl where it would get stuck. I ended up using a spatula to push the dough down while the mixer kneaded. It wasn’t fun. I think the kneading process was more tireing using the mixer than it would have been to knead it by hand. Anyway, I finally finished. The dough rose quite well. The recipe only calls for one rise, which I think helped. My biggest complaint before was that it would rise fine the first time, but wouldn’t rise the second time. Maybe that is a common problem among whole wheat breads. I don’t know. I don’t have time to learn bread science right now. Maybe sometime in the future.
So at least I have one good way to make wheat bread. Now I have to find a recipe for the bread maker that works.
