I am not a whole wheat person as a general rule, but rules were made to be broken!
My little friend Brody loves the whole wheat and honey apple bread sold at our local Wegman's food markets.... It's delicious.
But I wanted to see if I could come up with a reasonable facsimile at home... so I hopped onto the World Wide Web and came up with this likely candidate aimed at a bread machine.
I don't do bread machines.
I did once. Someone got me one, but I'm not a bread machine person. I like the hands-on of me doing it. I like the texture. I like to eyeball my work and see if something needs a pinch of this or a dollop of that.
So I converted the recipe. Followed standard bread rules... warmth, time, enough moisture and yeast.
It came out great. I did an apple version and a dried cranberry version. I found that dried apples are crazy expensive so I peeled three small apples, sliced them and dried them in a 225 degree oven for about 25 minutes.... Better than letting them go soft in the crisper, right? I doubled the recipe to make two 8" x 4" loaves.
And here's the recipe inspired by this one on All Recipes dot com: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/17718/cranberry-wheat-bread/
Wheat & Honey Apple Bread
1 1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
2 tablespoons soft butter
1/3 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup dried fruit
Procedure:
Stir yeast into water. Add butter, honey and salt. Mix in bread flour. Mix on medium for about two minutes,. Add whole wheat flour and spices... Mix on low until well incorporated, then use dough hook to knead until dough cleans sides of pan and looks firm.
Add 1 cup of fruit now and knead again or turn dough onto counter, table, and clean spot you have and knead the fruit in by hand.
Put dough in greased bowl, cover with towel and let rise in warm spot. (This takes more time to rise than traditional white bread, so that's a major difference. The heavier dough and fruit weigh this down.... patience is a virtue.) :)
When risen, push or punch down dough, roll it into a 9 x 18 inch rectangle, then roll it up from the 9" side.... fold ends under and tuck into 8" x 4" greased pan. Grease top of dough. Let rise about a half hour or so in warm spot.
Bake at 400 on center rack. (I had them on the bottom rack and one of the loaves got overdone on the bottom) for about 25 minutes/30 minutes depending on oven. Bread should rise and be firm and dry and when you turn it out onto a cooling rack, sides should be light brown.... Butter the outside of the bread while warm (retards toughening) and then wrap tightly once cool... but it is okay to taste it while warm.
I'm just sayin'... :)
This was great bread for eating and especially good for toasting with a little bit of soft butter... Oh my stars, so good!
Life here is showing hope for spring.... still cold and now muddy and with the promise of 50 degree weather.... Happy dancing!
So as I work on an autumn-set book the promise of spring prickles and teases... but for the moment, I've got plenty of inside work to get done before spring really comes.
I'm letting myself enjoy these final weeks of inside work and writing fun.... and still baking!
Oh my goodness, you made my mouth water with this one!! I just love freshly baked bread. I haven't made it in years, but I may just have to do it soon.
ReplyDeleteBTW, we never see white bread in our household, so this was right up my alley! :)
What? No pictures of the sliced bread? Ruthy, I wanted to see all those chunks of apple inside. Nonetheless, this looks like a yummy recipe. I bet your Brody was very happy.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so good!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the last few weeks of indoor writing work, Ruthy. You know you'll be outside doing farm work before you know it!
Ruth! This looks so yummy!! I am a fan of whole wheat (done right) and the apple bits sound so so good!!
ReplyDelete