Here’s the Whole Wheat Bread I make!

 

 

So, here’s the deal.  I’ve been hitting the rice sock HARD over the past couple days, but today I felt good enough to stand up for a whole five minutes and make this recipe posted by Mangio da Sola: 100% Whole Wheat Bread from Artisan Bread in “Five” Minutes.

I don’t usually post about food, but I’ve done this recipe several times, and it’s a hit.

A few tips for you:

• Yes, it really does only take five minutes to mix up.  I put on disposable gloves and mix (but do not knead) with my hands to make sure it’s a quick process.  I just use a large mixing bowl and cover it with a cloth napkin while the dough rises.  If I refrigerate the dough, I just cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap.  No big deal!  Jorge Garcia (Hurley from LOST) loves to make bread, too, but he uses those disposable plastic shower caps to cover his mixing bowls!  Brilliant!
• I do NOT let the bread dough rest after I take it out of the refrigerator, like they recommend.  I use this for sandwich bread, and the crumb/crust consistency is more like that of a packaged sandwich bread when I go straight from fridge to oven.  Today, however, I’m baking straight off the counter, and have had good results with that method as well.
• I freeze formed unbaked loaves in plastic wrap.  They take about a day to thaw in the fridge, then bake up beautifully!  One batch of this dough makes about two loaves.
• I cut into VERY thin slices with an electric knife.  I try to make the slices about 1/4 inch thick, because this is SUCH a dense bread.  I love it though!  Lettuce, ham, cheddar, tomatoes, mayo or brown mustard!  MMMM!!!  It’s downright gourmet when served up on these slices!  Tonight, I’m serving pulled pork on it!
• I store the cut slices in a bag in my fridge.  There’s no preservatives in this loaf, so I do my best to keep it fresh as long as possible!  We always run out before it goes stale or gets moldy as long as it’s stored in the fridge!

Who knew it could be so easy to be so fancy!  Also, I broke down the price of all my ingredients, and it costs about 75 cents to make one of these loaves.  That’s a pretty substantial savings over store bought loaves, considering how little effort is put into the recipe!  YUM!