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Making Basic Whole Wheat Bread Using a Stand Mixer and a Dehydrator


I am always on the look-out for great videos** that can illustrate a concept or recipe that I am including on my blog.  "Making Basic Whole Wheat Bread" is a current interest of mine.  I have the books.  I have bookmarked the links.  I went out and bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer after having drooled and dreamed about one for a very long time.  I thought that I would start turning out perfect bread loaves (something I have never in my life done) but it was not to be.

This looks like a high maintenance bread recipe, eh?  Stand mixer and dehydrator for raising the dough?  I can see my grandmother chuckle.  She was always able to make more loaves from scratch than I could from with whatever "no fail" recipe I had at hand.  But somehow I know there are others out there who have the fancy equipment and are dreamers like I am.  This bread is for you!


Please watch the video (above) to get all the fine points you will find transcribed below in the recipe.  A video is really worth about 10,000 printed words, right?  After you watch the video you might want to copy and paste and print the following recipe:

RECIPE FOR MAKING BASIC WHOLE WHEAT BREAD USING A STAND MIXER

Set up the Mixer.

INGREDIENTS:

Measure out :
10 C. Fresh-Ground Whole Wheat Flour OR 6 C. Whole Wheat/ 4 C. White Flour (60% Whole Wheat)
1 T. Sea Salt
2 T. Instant Dry Yeast
6 T. White Sugar
5 C. Water at 110 degrees F. (you can barely keep your finger in it for 10 seconds) From the "The Back to Eden Cookbook" there is a suggestion that you use nut milk instead of water to get a tastier bread.

METHOD:

1. Set up the Mixer with the Cookie Mixer (General Mixer)
2. Add 5 C. W/W Flour to bowl
3. Add 1 T. Sea Salt to bowl
4. Add 2 T. Instant Dry Yeast to bowl
5. Add 6 T. White Sugar to the bowl
6. Put on your General Mixer / Cookie Mixer
7. Raise your bowl (Kitchen Aid) or Lower your Mixer (Viking)
8. Mix on LOWEST setting for a minute to get all mixed together
9. Slowly add the 5 C. of 110 degree F. water while the mixer runs on lowest setting
10. After water has all been poured in, let it continue to run for about another minute until mixture is fully incorporated.
11. Begin to add other 5 C. of flour little by little. You can turn up the speed on the mixer when the flour will not be flying all over. You may NOT need all 5 C. of flour.
12. Bread should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl. When you see that the dough is pulling away, stop the mixer and Lower the bowl (Kitchen Aid), Raise the mixer (Viking)
13. Remove the cookie dough mixer.
14. Put in the bread hook and Raise the bowl (Kitchen Aid), Lower the mixer (Viking)
15. The dough hook should pull the dough from sides of the bowl more. You may increase the speed again. .
16. Wait for flour to work itself in before adding any more (and keep your eye on the sides of the bowl)
17. Add small amounts of flour until the pulling away is pretty much complete
18. The magic in the bread happens when it pulls everything off the sides and it sticks unto itself and not to the mixer.
19. When you judge that all the flour is off the sides, stop the machine and flip the bread dough over carefully to see if there is any flour on the bottom of the pot.
20. Run the mixer for another minute or so, adding another tablespoon of flour if you think it is warranted. Whole wheat dough is better a little on the wet side than it is if it is too dry (=bricks or paperweights). Stop the mixer and lower the bowl (Kitchen Aid) or raise the mixer (Viking)
21. Remove dough hook.
22. Pat dough lightly to even out a bit in bowl.
23. Let it rest for about 20 minutes (make yourself some tea?)

RAISING THE DOUGH IN THE DEHYDRATOR

My old Excalibur-- bought on eBay, back when people did that-- makes a good dough raiser.  95 degrees Fahrenheit
You do not need to use the dehydrator-- it is standing in for something people have used for generations called a "proof box".  If you live in a house where lots of bread yeast is in the air, you can just do it old-school, sitting on top of the fridge with a warm damp cloth on top.  Or in a very cool oven (100 degrees F.) I have this idle dehydrator that I am experimenting with.

24. Get the Excalabar Dehydrator ready for the raising.
25. Take out all shelves except for one.
26. Put a flat tray of warm water on the bottom of the dehydrator
27. Fit the dehydrator shelf  just above the flat tray of water
28. Place the bowl of dough with a clean damp tea towel (linen works great) over the dough bowl and engage the setting for the raising.
29. Raise for one half hour (30 minutes) to 1 hour.
30. Preheat baking oven to 410 degrees F.
The dough rose enormously after 30 minutes in the dehydrator!

31. DO NOT PUNCH THE DOUGH DOWN. There will be big air bubbles in the dough and the bread will have holes in it. Put the bowl back on the mixer and using the dough hook, mix down for about a minute and a half. (Really, watch the video a couple of times)
32. If you want a fluffier loaf of bread, you can let it do a rise in the bowl for another 30 minutes in the dehydrator, or you can divide it into loaves/buns at this point and let it rise for about 20 more minutes on the kitchen counter before putting into the oven to bake. If you choose to do the second rising, then preheat your oven to 410 degrees before putting the bread in the dehydrator (and kneading afterwards with dough hook again).
33. Bake bread for about 30 minutes for a small loaf. About 20 minutes for buns. (This recipe made me 3 medium sized loaves)
34. Cool completely on racks before slicing.  If you want a tender crust, pat the crust when you put it on the racks with a sponge dipped in olive oil (this is from the "The Back to Eden Cookbook").       I haven't tried that... yet.

**I am very thankful to the woman who made the video for this recipe.  She appears to have had a blog with the recipe on it, but it no longer exists, so I took the recipe from the video and transcribed it to fit with adjustments as to what I was planning to do.

HERE ARE SOME OTHER BREAD-RELATED ARTICLES:

 Bread Baking Tips by Darlene Blaney, PhD Nutritionist

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