Multigrain Bread

The story: Recently I have been trying to make bread at home. We normally don't eat much bread so I figured that this was an attainable goal. I didn't take into account that we would eat more of the homemade bread. I have started out by trying some of the recipes that came with my bread maker. Hopefully at some point I will graduated to making bread in the oven.

I have been experimenting with this recipe for Multigrain bread. I have made it a few times using the 1.5 pound loaf measurements, but today I made the 2 pound loaf.

The recipe: Multigrain bread
1.5 pound loaf
3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons margarine or butter softened
1 and 1/3 cup bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup 7-grain cereal
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 and 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 and 1/2 teaspoons yeast



2 pound loaf
1 and 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons margarine or butter softened
2 cups bread flour
1 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup 7-grain cereal
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 and 3/4 teaspoons yeast

For my bread maker the instructions go as follows:
1. Measure and add liquid ingredients to the bread pan.
2. Measure and add dry ingredients (except yeast) to the bread pan.
3. Make a well in the flour where you will pour the yeast. Yeast must never come in contact with a liquid when you are adding ingredients. Measure and add the yeast to the well.
4. Snap the baking pan into the bread maker and close the lid.
5. Press "Select" button to choose the whole wheat setting
6. Press the "Crust Color" button to choose light, medium or dark crust.
7. Press the "Start/Stop" button.

My notes: I used "Bob's Red Mill 100% Whole Wheat Flour" for both of these loaves. I selected the light crust setting on both. The 7-grain cereal was purchased in bulk at Winco. I used butter not margarine.

I added 1 tablespoon gluten to the 1.5 pound loaf and 3 tablespoons gluten to the 2 pound loaf. The gluten is supposed to keep the top from sinking. I think if I were to make the smaller loaf again I would add 2 tablespoons of the gluten. I think I recall that 1 tablespoon per cup of flour in the recipe is needed. That rule seems like it would hold true with this recipe, but I haven't done enough experimenting to be comfortable saying it will be true in every case. Other than the gluten I followed the recipe.

I also stopped the bread maker about 10 minutes early today with the 2 pound loaf. The bread maker bread has a thick crust on it. I'm trying to figure out how to fix that.

The results: This is a good wheat bread. Almost too good. We all want to snack on it instead of saving it to use for sandwiches.