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From A Year in Bread : Honey Wheatberry


I have decided to skip August in my journey through a year in bread and go straight to September. So I zip past the quick breads made with baking powder and what not, and land in the midst of whole grain breads. I picked Beth's Honey Wheatberry bread - I would claim that would have been my choice anyway but the fact is that was the only one I had all the ingredients for.

Beth made this bread to recreate the magic of Oroweat Honey Wheat Berry Bread. But there's a catch : the Oroweat bread was made with cracked wheat not wheatberries. So Bombay Foodie's bread is made with cracked wheat too.

Beth's original recipe is for two large loaves. What follows is 1/3rd of this original, enough for my shorter loaf. Pour 2/3 cup boiling water over 1/4 cup cracked wheat. Let rest for an hour for the wheat to fluff up and soften. To this, add 1/4 cup milk, 1/3 cup whole wheat flour and a tsp of yeast. Mix and set aside for 15-20 minutes until the mixture starts to bubble up. Add a tbsp each of butter and honey, then add enough plain flour to form a dough. Let it rest for 10 minutes, then sprinkle a tsp of salt and knead until the dough is smooth. I always need to add more flour at this stage to keep the dough from sticking.

Put the dough in a bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. I use straight plastic containers so it's easy to see when the doubling happens. Once the rise in done, shape the dough into a loaf, put it in a greased loaf pan and let rise again until doubled.

In the meantime, preheat oven to 175C. Bake bread for 45 minutes or until brown. If you want perfect slices for sandwiches, this needs to cool for at least an hour. If not, just tear chunks of warm bread and you will love it with butter.
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Comments

bluespriite said…
Most impressed.. baking bread and that too in this infernal heat (assuming you do live in Mumbai) is quite the work of champions. Though makes me want to try it.
June 17, 2009 at 8:49 PM
Bombay Foodie said…
bluespriite - I do live in Mumbai. But I bake all my bread, since I really can't stand the supermarket quality.
June 17, 2009 at 9:15 PM
Pinky said…
Hi Simran

Nice bread , even i hav jst started baking , & learning the tricks.is dalia n broken wheat the same? & do u have a recipe for a simple white loaf which u hav tried & which has come good coz i had tried & it was a disaster.
June 17, 2009 at 11:49 PM
Bombay Foodie said…
Pinky - Dalia and broken wheat are the same.

I've tried a simple white loaf in March as part of my "A Year in Bread" challenge. Here's the link: http://foodiezone.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-year-in-bread-white-sandwich-loaf.html
June 18, 2009 at 12:01 AM
pinky said…
Hi Simran

I did try out the white bread loaf today & it came out icely. my earlier white bread were disasters.This had a nice crust & a very soft texture inside. jst one thing i was not able to cut into nice slices , how u do u slice the bread?
June 18, 2009 at 11:55 PM
Bharti said…
What a lovely loaf. tearing it apart sounds good.
June 19, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Bergamot said…
The bread looks just great.
June 20, 2009 at 8:13 PM
CurryLeaf said…
Wow.I was wondering how you got wheatberries.That was the only reason I avoided it.Cracked wheat bread is great.
June 22, 2009 at 5:37 PM
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