The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Wholemeal Bread recipe - looking for improvements

rumpole's picture
rumpole

Wholemeal Bread recipe - looking for improvements

Hi all,

This is my first post here,

I've been making home made bread for the past few years, though up until recently it's been purely in a bread machine (with my recipe, got sick of buying the store-bought packet mixes early on..).  I'm just in the process of switching from baking the bread in the bread machine, to baking the bread in an normal electric Oven.

My question is, how can I improve on my recipe below ?  I would really like to see the bread rise more, and be a little lighter / less dense.  I'd also like to keep the recipe using 100% whole wheat. 

At the moment, the bread is also coming out just a tiny bit too sticky/gluggy.  I haven't had this problem before in the bread machine so I suspect I just need to make some minor adjustments how that its in a pan and uses about 20% more ingredients to fill it up.

I believe the hydration is 90% - though I am new to calculating this and that figure could be slightly out.

Recipe below:

    • 5 cups wholemeal flour

    • ¼ cup wheat gluten

    • 2 ½ tsp yeast

    • 2 ½ tsp salt

    • ¾ tsp Ascorbic Acid (vitamin c)

    • 2 cups water + 2tbsp

    • 1 ¼ tbsp olive oil

    • 1 tbsp agave syrup (instead of honey).

 

    1. Add the wet ingredients to the bread machine.  The water should be slightly warm.

    2. Add the flour to on top of the web ingredients and loosely flatten it out so it covers all the water.

    3. Add all the remaining dry ingredients one at a time.  Add them to on top of the flour but make sure they don’t touch

    4. Set the bread machine to the dough setting.  It will take around 1 hour.

    5. Transfer dough so a flat surface and shape to fit the bread pan. 

    6. Sit in a warm area for 40 minutes.
    7. Bake in the fan forced oven at 210 degrees C for 30 minutes.

    8. Once baked, place on a wire rack to cool.


     

    Loaf measures 12cm wide (at its widest) x 9cm high x 25cm long.

    Appreciate any comments or suggestions :)

    Picture below:

    Bread

    pmccool's picture
    pmccool

    Loved that show when we first saw it some years back and am now part way through a collection of Rumpole short stories.

    Back to the bread.  Read this post from txfarmer and focus on the principles she employs to achieve a soft and lofty whole wheat loaf.  Don't worry about the differences (sourdough, no bread machine, etc.) because they aren't nearly so important as the principles, such as intensive kneading.  After you've had a chance to chew on that (pun intended), let's talk some more about your situation.

    One quick suggestion to accompany your reading is that you change to weighing your ingredients, instead of using volume measurements.

    Paul