Whole-Wheat Bread Recipe

Dear Readers,

Here’s a recipe for some tasty wholesome whole-wheat bread that’s been in my family for a while. Try it at home!

3 and ½ cup warm water
1 tablespoon salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1 and ½ tablespoon yeast
9 cups whole wheat flour

350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes. Makes 3 loaves.

Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl (Instructions 1), or in a bread mixer, (Instructions 2) or in a bread maker (Instructions 3).

Instructions 1. This way is messier and longer and harder, but it’s cool. Yeah, so just add all the stuff together in a big mixing bowl, adding the flour last. Stir in as much flour as you can using a spatula or a big spoon, and then you have to plop the dough blob on a lightly floured flat clean surface (like a countertop or a table) and get your hands in that sticky mess and squish it all up real good-like. Punch it a few times. Ha ha ha. Give those forearms, wrists and fingers a workout. Let that dough know you’re alive! After you’ve added all 9 cups of flour during the kneading process, put it back in the bowl and let it rise for a long time, maybe 40 minutes or so. Then divide the blob of dough into 3 equal parts (as equal as you can get it) and put them into 3 greased-up loaf pans. (I use Crisco, or non-stick vegetable spray if I’m out of Crisco, to grease the pans up. I also use cast iron pans instead of glass loaf pans. One time I dropped one of our glass loaf pans on the kitchen tile and it broke and I stepped right into a shard of glass and cut my foot open. Ouch. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter what type of pans you have and what type of greasing method you use. I just like Crisco because I like the way it feels to smear that white fatty grease all over the place. And I like using cast iron rather than a different kind of metal or glass because when I use cast iron- that heavy thick black metal- I feel patriotic and manly, like Davy Crockett, or Daniel Boone… or like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone combined!) Let the dough rise in the three loaf pans for… oh… 40 minutes or so, and then put them in the preheated oven. Bake it at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. It’ll be really good, especially when it’s hot and right out of the oven. My wife says if you tap it and it sounds hollow, then it’s done, but I don’t quite understand what, “sounding hollow” sounds like, so I just cut into to see if it’s done. But it’s usually always done by 40 minutes. Yummy yummy! Eat it all up like a good American!

Instructions 2. Put all the ingredients into a bread mixer, adding the flour last. Don’t add all 9 cups of flour at once, because that will probably mess up your bread mixer. Let it spin on the highest speed for 13 minutes. Plop the dough blob onto a table or countertop. Roll the dough out and divide the dough into three equal parts. Put the 3 parts into 3 greased-up loaf pans. Cover with a rag and let it rise in the loaf pans for about 40 or 50 minutes, and then put it in the oven. 350 degrees for 40 minutes. It’ll be good.

Instructions 3. Put all the ingredients into a bread maker, push a button and come back in a few hours and your bread will be done. WARNING! This type of bread is ala-quiffert! And loopert. And you-pin quoo-pin, so you might as well not even do it. Oh, and you might need to change the size of the ingredients, I don’t know. All I know is that bread made in a breadmaker is usually swiffer you-pin ala-whutiest woo. It’s edible, but it’s not nearly as good in flavor and texture and beauty as the bread that is produced from following Instructions 1 or 2.

Here’s some other tips and wisdom I’ve accrued from my few years of making this bread on a pretty regular basis:

1. Get your yeast from Sam’s Club or some other quasi-wholesale place. It’s way cheaper there than at a regular grocery store. 1 tablespoon of yeast usually equals one packet of yeast.

2. Use warm water like the instructions say, not boiling water. Really hot water could kill your yeast. (Remember, yeast is a living creature! Isn’t that creepy? It’s like an organism with chemicals in it or something.) If your yeast is dead, then your bread won’t rise, and then you’ll be eating unleavened bread, like Jews sometimes do. Which isn’t a bad thing, mind you. I love Jews and I love unleavened bread. I’m pro-Israel! Israel’s in the Bible! A friend of a Jew is a friend of mine! But if you’re going to set out to make unleavened bread, then you’ll probably want to use a different recipe.

3. When you add the 1/3 cup of oil and 1/3 cup of honey, put the oil in first. That way, your 1/3 cup measuring container will be all oiled up, and the honey will run out of it smoother than it would if you put the honey in first.

4. Don’t be a sucker for expensive organic wheat flour or anything hippie like that. I always use wheat flour that I’ve ground myself from whole wheat grains from LDS food storage. Your best bet to make this bread reach its fullest potential is to convert to Mormonism (if you haven’t already done so) and then you’ll have insider’s access to all sorts of secret Mormon food storage products!

5. You can put jam on it, or butter on it, or peanut butter on it, or honey on it, or whatever! This whole wheat bread is like, regular bread that can be used just like regular bread can. And it’s soooooo yummy!

6. Making this bread involves a certain fortitude of mental focus, a Zen, a spiritual concentration and the patience of a traveling pilgrim. Making this bread will never be as easy as buying bread from the store.

7. Being the personally fiscally conservative that I am, (“personally fiscally conservative” is my nice way of saying “tightwad”) I’ve wondered whether it’s cheaper to buy all these ingredients and make the bread yourself or to just buy bread at the store. I haven’t done the math, but I bet it would be cheaper (not to mention less time-consuming) if you just went to the store and bought some cheap bread. But for some reason the bread I buy at the store is never the same as the bread as the bread I make at home. Maybe if I went to a fancy bakery and spent a lot of money on a loaf of wheat bread, maybe then it would taste the same as the bread that I make at home, but then it might be more expensive that way.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa