Wholemeal bread - a triple batch

I love making bread! Once you master it...your confidence grows even more to try other breads. When I make bread, I usually form it into rolls which is easily divided come meal time. Some favourites at home are our Kefir Milk Bread Rolls, Ground Soy Linseed and Almond bread and even the good old traditional white bread. I've even had a go at making Baguettes, but these recipes on my blog have all been using my bread machine in some way. I'm not sure I want to use my bread machine any more, as one thing that has always bothered me is the amount of dough for the time invested.......

I want to get the family used to eating my home-made bread on a day to day basis, but  it seems that old habits are hard to break when it comes to the lunch time sandwich......(And I have that extra challenge of making it every day myself, although I think it may be a timing challenge more than anything). When I was a Nanny back in my late teens, I made all the family's bread, but these days, I only make it roughly once a week, and on special occasions.....and it's always gone way too quick! 


For my birthday on Friday I was blessed to received a grain mill attachment for my Kenwood Mixer. So over the weekend I have been playing with the mill and also my lovely dough hook. Ahhhhh the joys of kneading are slipping my mind very quickly as I watch yet another big batch of dough working its magic in the Kenwood. "Maybe I can do this challenge" I think to myself. Maybe it won't be that hard if I don't have to knead the dough by hand............Maybe my family CAN enjoy the lovely aroma, flavour and goodness of fresh bread everyday; like the same that has come out of my kitchen for the last 3 consecutive days.

I've tried three recipes so far for Wholemeal bread...all bulk recipes to suit my Kenwood. I discovered in the instruction manual that the Kenwood can comfortably cope with 1.36kg of flour in making up a bread dough. This gives me more than one loaf of bread for the same amount of prep time. Brilliant!! I'm all for batch cooking as you know.

As I had trouble sourcing grain on Friday morning...I only bought 500g of wheat from the local health food store. This cost me $2.10....so there must be a cheaper way to buy wheat.....but seeing it was the first time I was using my new grain mill....I dismissed the price. (just this once). I have to be sensible about this too, seeing I still have plenty of bulk flour in my store cupboard to use up; but this also gives me time to find a cheaper supplier of fresh wheat, spelt, chia, quinoa, hemp or other grains.
Any suggestions for (bulk) grain suppliers for the Illawarra area would be greatly appreciated!! 
Or cost effective postable quantities ......

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Wholemeal bread........a triple batch! This recipe comes from the recipe book that came with my Kenwood Chef Major....I just tripled the recipe to suit.

1125 grams Wholemeal Flour
225 grams plain White Flour
6 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 teaspoons dried yeast
900 mls lukewarm water

Wow, 5 ingredients.....DS20 looked around for a recycled bread bag from a store bought bread and had to count the ingredient list....19 ingredients....Hmmmm there's something to be said there!

Sorry, I've been blabbing on a bit with this post, but it's been a while since I chatted with you all...lol...so......

Back to the recipe.....
Place the flours, salt and yeast in the Kenwood bowl, and using the dough hook on the minimum speed....gradually add the lukewarm water. Mix on minimum speed until a soft dough is formed.

Knead for 1 minute on minimum speed, then 4 to 5 minutes on speed 1. You are looking for the dough to be smooth (as smooth as wholemeal grain can look anyway)...and elastic looking.  Once the dough is kneaded....cover with lightly oiled plastic film and leave to rise. Best risen in a warm place....If it's a cold day, the perfect climate to rise a bread dough is in the warmth of a closed car parked in the sun.

Once the dough doubles in size........

Knock it back and roll out onto a lightly floured bench. Knead it for a few minutes to knock the air out of the dough.

This is when you shape the dough to what breads you want.....You could make one huge free-form loaf like this......

But this mixture was enough for two medium loaves of bread and 8 dinner rolls. The other night I also made 1 extra large loaf of bread and 10 rolls.

So it's really just up to your imagination or family needs. I can tell you though...that if you have just enough bread rolls to accompany a meal....there's no fights over anyone sneaking an extra slice when your not looking. We have 5 people in our family, so I always make up rolls in lots of 5. The rolls are shared out evenly, but also allocated for meals and NOT hungry teenager snacks. ...It can be frustrating to see all that hard work to be gobbled up in 5 minutes, just because your not in the kitchen when your boys come home....I'm sure you've been there, even with biscuits or cake too.

(Hubby is away through the week now...so this lot is two batches of four...Sorry Hubby you miss out on this lot) .....I did give Hubby a huge loaf to take with him though...... and have since been told that the lady he is staying with insisted they sat down and had a slice immediately ....with my home-made blackberry jam. I'm glad you like my bread Lola!

Weighing the dough out evenly for rolls
makes them bake all at the same size.

Preheat the oven now to 230 degrees celcius.....and allow the shaped dough to rise again....

Ready for the 2nd rise

Now add the rolls to the oven, these will be risen and ready before the loaves.....Bake the rolls for roughly 15 to 20 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Once the rolls are removed from the oven, place the larger tins in and bake for 10 minutes before turning the oven down to 200 degrees....and baking for a further 20 to 30 minutes.  Remove tins from the oven and take the bread out of the tin immediately....allow the bread to cool on a wire rack.

The wire rack is hidden beneath the tea-towel.
I also covered the loaves with the other half of the tea-towel
allowing them to cool before putting away.

I'm loving this wholemeal bread, I can't wait to source some wheat grain, so I can grind my own flour fresh for each loaf.


Do you have a grain mill? If so, what other ingredients do you mill?

Kefir Milk Bread Rolls

After making those lovely Kefir Scones last week....I've been wanting to add Kefir milk to my bread....
not wanting to look around too much, I found a recipe in my bread machines recipe book...called Milk Bread......so that's what I used....


Milk Bread.....for a 1.25kg bread....

450mls Milk   (I used my Kefir Milk here) 
2 tablespoons Margarine
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon bread improver
760 grams white flour
2 teaspoons yeast

I set the bread machine on the dough setting....

then I punched the dough down...and halved it.....then weigh it to make sure it is even......
then divided each half into 5..(to suit our family).....then weigh it to make sure it is even......
each tenth piece then got halved again...and weighed again.......


This makes sure that each roll is very similar in size after rising.......and no fighting...lol
then placed slightly apart on lined baking tray....and covered with plastic wrap....

Then placed in a warm area....because of the heavy rain since we got back home...I have washing TRYING to dry near the heater....so the tray got put on the clotheshorse....
and it worked very nicely.....

I then glazed them all with milk and sprinkled them with Chia seed and sesame seeds.....

Into the oven for about 20minutes on 180c....although I didn't time them....

Fresh and hot out of the oven, they got glazed with milk again....

Sorry, but I do have to blow my own trumpet...These are the best rolls I have ever tasted...soooo light and fluffy...with a lovely soft crust which I like....and a mild tang you get from the Kefir milk.

Next time I will halve the amount of sugar I used....and I will double the time for my Kefir Milk fermentation to 48 hours...

It can only get better from here.....oh and half of them are gone already...I don't think any of these will make it to the freezer.

Are you baking this weekend?
If so, leave a comment about it...
even better; leave a link to your blog about it.

Clean Oven, LSA Bread & new Vinegars

Yesterday I set myself a challenge. There has been a lot of chat on the Down to Earth forum about keeping your oven clean.....Realising after many comments that this is one of those taboo cleaning projects that needs to be done in many a household...I decided to give it go....
I am proud to say that my oven is almost clean....I have done the door and the base which was very hard with lots of baked on grime...so I guess the worst is over....Using only Baking Soda and a spray bottle with Vinegar...I tackled the job, while sitting on a milk-crate (much easier).
I bought oven liners a few months back and had to go looking for them, I did buy them with good intentions, I just thought they would be used a bit sooner than this...Oh well, better late than never...lol.

I just need to clean the racks and the sides now, but I had bread to go in the oven soon, and I think it will be better for my aches if I break up the job over a few days and not necessarily consecutive days either...lol.

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I am almost out of flour, last time I needed to buy flour I couldn't get to my usual outlet, so I settled for the 5kg from Supermarket...which was $9.90 for the 5kg.....I'm pleased to say that I recently seen a 10kg bag for the same price at my local greengrocer, and I asked if it was going to be a regular item, which the told me it will.....so here is what I used last time, and here is the new bag of flour which I will be using in the future,

5kg $9.95

10kg $9.95

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Ground Soy, Linseed & Almond (LSA) bread and rolls.

Weighing the rolls, so they all turn out the same size.
 

Ta Dahhhhh!

The loaf will go in the freezer, and we have rolls for two nights...Yumm!

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I recently mentioned to someone that I put down some more vinegars....I had bought some cheap fruit before leaving for Canberra, and with all the excitement of such a trip with such short notice; I forgot about the fruit...I found it all still sitting on the table on the back verandah, still in plastic bags :(...so vinegars it is! ....

Apple Cider Vinegar, Honey Dew Melon Vinegar, and Fruit Salad Vinegar.   I picked these jars up at the local cheap shop, for $3.95...Total bargain, as they are much larger than any others I have........I emptied both my citrus cleaners into one jar, and still have room for more peels...So it's all good from here. 

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Today I have lots to do...for starters I need to put all those dishes away that I used and washed yesterday...then plan for tonights dinner...make up some printouts for my MM's so they can work out all my new recycling rules....lol.............I have more to do...but I'll write about that as I go....Oh a few challenges to come........

Using the dough cycle

After creating many loaves of heavy bread in my bread machine....I have asked around and found that a few people are getting a better loaf when they use the dough cycle and bake it in the oven. So I thought I would give it another try.......
We were having a Curried Chicken with Rice for dinner on Sunday night...and I thought it would be nice to serve a bread roll with the meal. So I halved the dough and out of it; I made one small loaf of bread and ten bread rolls.

The recipe I used is from the book I got with my bread-maker...As I had not tried this method before, I started with just a standard plain white mix.

TRADITIONAL WHITE BREAD
515mls Water
3 tablespoons Margarine
2 1/2 teaspoons Salt
1 1/2 tablespoons Sugar
3 tablespoons Skim Milk Powder
1 teaspoon Bread Improver
760 grams Plain Flour
2 teaspoons Yeast

For baking bread, I have always stored the non-perishable ingredients in a tub. It just makes it easier to carry from the store-cupboard out to the kitchen. All I need to gather is water, and margarine & yeast from the fridge, and the flour. I actually store my yeast in the freezer.

My Bread Mix tub

Rolls nearly finished rising, and ready for the oven. 

Nearly ready for the oven

The best bread rolls I have made ever.

 The lightest loaf of bread I have made since owning a bread machine.

Well, I am impressed with this method....a much better, lighter loaf....and the rolls....Oh the rolls....they were so good....DS16 wants me to make them every day and hubby said they are far better than any of the store ones.