Recipilicious

I’m back!  Back and more from-scratch than ever!

To usher in my return, here’s a recipe for Whole Wheat Bread courtesy of the wonderful authors of “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.”

Makes enough for at least four 1-lb loaves. The recipe is easily doubled/halved.

Ingredients:

• 7 cups whole wheat flour (or substitute whole grain spelt flour, see page 12)
• 1 ½ tbsp granulated yeast, or 2 packets (decrease to taste, page 15)
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• ¼ cup vital wheat gluten
• 3 ¾ cup warm water

What you do:

1.Mixing and Stirring Dough: Whisk together flour, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a 5-quart bowl, or a lidded, not airtight, food container

2. Add the water and mix without kneading, using a spoon, a 14 cup food processor, or a heavy duty stand mixer—this can also be doe with a hand mixer if need be. You might need to use wet hands to get the last bit of flour to incorporate if you’re not using a machine.

3. Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses (or flattens on top), approximately 2 hours.

4. The dough can be used immediately after the intitial rise, though it is easier to handle when cold. Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 10 days.

5. On baking day, dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1-lb piece (grapefruit size).  Dust the piece with more flour  quickly shape into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four side, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.

6. Allow the loaf to rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap, on a pizza peel prepared with cornmeal or lined with parchment paper for 90 minutes (40 minutes if you’re using fresh, unrefrigerated dough). Alternatively, you can rest the love on a silicone mat or greased  cookie sheet without using a pizza peel

7. Thirty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 with a baking stone placed in the middle rack. Place an empty metal broiler tray on any other rack that wont interfere with the rising bread.

8. just before baking, use a pastry brush and paint the top with water. Slash the loaf with ¼ inch deep parallel cuts, using a serrated bread knife.

9. Slice the loaf directly into the hot stone (or place the silicone mat or cookie sheet on the stone if you used one). Pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, until richly browned and firm. If you used parchment paper, or cookie sheet under the loaf, carefully remove it and bake the loaf directly on the stone or an oven rack two thirds of the way through baking. Smaller or larger loaves with require adjustments in resting band baking time.

10. Allow the bread to cook on a rack before slicing and eating.

Yum!  Hope you like it!