Soft whole-grain, multi-grain? From scratch? Yes, it is indeed possible! No more will I have to buy the pricey, dense (but flavorful) wholesome loaves that the rest of the family isn’t entirely thrilled with – nor will they have to hop off the organic bandwagon to get something just as soft as the nutritionally-devoid, overly-processed white loaves we all grew up on.
This week had me taking loaves 5 and 6 out of the oven and my best ones to date, whether by hand, or by breadmachine. (For the record, old school has won out over the Zojirushi!)
Several recipes online offer up close variations on the Cooks Illustrated recipe that I’ve been using (yes – six loaves since Christmastime!) Starting out with anywhere from 1/2 to 1 1/4 cups of wholegrain cereal, (add hotwater, cool) then add flour 3-4 cups, yeast, honey, butter and salt – knead, rise, knead, put in pan(s), rise, bake and enjoy.
While there are some differences in ingredients, (primarily with the choice of sweetener, or ratio of flour to whole-grain cereal mix) the biggest differences are in prep. And while I’m not sure I’ve just had progressively better luck with each, or if adapting new methods to the same recipe has taken a short and dense loaf to a tall, airy loaf, perfect for sandwiches, toasting, or sopping up marinara and soup!
I know baking is a science, so perhaps somedays were just better bread days, but it seems to me that the method is what did the trick here, so if you choose to stick with your own recipe, and are less than thrilled with the size or texture, perhaps some hot water will do the trick for you too.
The recipe is at Cooks Illustrated, (which is fairly similar to this one – provided you add 1/2 stick of butter, and trade out the sugar for 1/4 cup honey) The revised techniques are adapted from Alton Brown (x2), Cooks Illustrated, Epicurious, Food Network, and just plain old luck.
Follow instructions through first rise (on counter). punch down, divide into pans, and let rise again – but this time in the oven (off) above a sheet cake pan 1/2 filled with boiling water to “Proof” the dough. Once doubled in size, turn the oven on to 375 and bake until 200 degrees in center (approx 40 min). If you overcook the bread (past 212) the bread will be dried out. (or so I’ve been told, makes sense though).
I’ve found with proofing, the second rise is much faster, higher, (or perhaps more controllable/repeatable!) and the hot water in the baking dish (while baking) allows the dough to continue to rise a bit, rather than yield a loaf no taller than the pan.
This recipe started out as a good tasting, but very dense 3″ tall loaf. Future attemps had me baking with the pan full of water to a slightly better (taller) loaf, but in the end, the proofing was the key.
Pictures? Maybe next loaf, this one is nearly gone! Soups, sandwiches, with poached eggs, buried under pasta, or simply toasted with butter and gomasio (but that’s another blog).
Mmmm, bread. 
January 15, 2007 at 8:37 am
thanks for the tips, i’m going to be bakig some bread today and lo and behold you write about it! i think im going to add some wheat gluten into the mix in addition to the suggestions at epicurious. today i a bit damp so i need all the rising help i can get!
January 15, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I agree on the proofing technique, I’ve had much more consistent sucess with warm water proofing than any other method.. Which is saying a lot considering my past debacles in the bread areana.
February 4, 2007 at 4:09 am
I also sometimes proof my bread in an oven heated with a pan of hot water. But usually I only do this during the summer when I have the air conditioning on in my house. I’ve been making cracked wheat bread lately which has been turning out pretty well. It’s definitely not llight and airy but it has a wonderful flavor. I pretty much always sweeten my whole wheat breads with honey rather than sugar and I usually use butter also. I really enjoyed your post!
February 11, 2007 at 12:55 pm
[...] bread recipe I’ve blogged about recently and the chocolate chip cookies I made almost 4 million of at [...]
February 14, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I’ve been working on bread (and pizza dough) for a number of years and the one thing I’ve recently found that helped was:
Autolyse – Autolyse is a fancy word that just means one simple thing. The flour and water should sit together for at least 20 minutes before kneading begins. It’s a CRITICAL step. Some say that you should mix just the flour and water together, then after 20 minutes add the salt and yeast, then mix. Others say you can add all the ingredients at the beginning. (from http://www.think2020.com/jv/pizza.htm )
This appears to hold true for most bread as well. I have a recipe for rolls that when you first mix it was more like a thick batter. After letting it sit and then rise, a very very light dusting of flour made it workable and easy to handle. Don’t think you need to keep adding flour – often you just need to be patient.
October 14, 2007 at 10:39 pm
[...] – in trying to put in a couple links…. I see my initial post of this recipe last january tells my I was a bit off with the temperatures I used – as stated above. That may [...]