Having trouble making whole wheat bread in my Zoji Home Bakery Supreme
I've just received my replacement Zoji Home Bakery Supreme and am about at the limit of my patience with the darned thing. The last one was defective; Amazon sent a replacement right away and I eagerly made a whole wheat loaf this morning.
And I just threw away yet another wasted effort. Yes, it kneaded well, yes it rose and filled the pan (both things that did not happen with the first machine). I wouldn't say that it rose as much as I would have expected it to; it was for a 2 lb. loaf, and it was still almost two inches below the top of the pan when the last rise ended. But at least it rose, which my previous whole wheat attempts did not. Even so, I was pretty sure the loaf would fail. The dough was very sticky (and I mean like glue; I touched it and my finger came away with dough stuck to it, like cake batter). I left it as it was because I just wanted to let the recipe and the machine do their thing without my amateur interference, but in my inexpert opinion there was something wrong with the dough. So I'm not suprised it failed; during the cooking cycle it fell and produced an inedible, absolutely flat brick exactly 2" thick all the way across.
This recipe and almost all of the other failed recipes I've tried came from an apparently well-regarded bread machine recipe cookbook I purchased with the original machine. The other WW recipe I tried was the one that came with the machine. It was the worst of all - though this morning's attempt came close.
I'm just getting a wee bit frustrated at not being able to actually produce a loaf of bread. This is expensive and frustrating, and not at all what my husband had in mind when he bought the machine. It was supposed to be a fun hobby, not a head-banger.
Does anyone have a nice, tried and true whole wheat recipe I can try? We don't really like white breads very much.
Thanks in advance.