They Have Risen!

This week for our TWD recipe we baked whole wheat loaves. My experience with yeast breads is limited. Our first recipe was a  companion recipe of this one, white loaves. Although they tasted fine, they never rose. I wasn’t sure if I really knew what the recipe meant when it said to let the yeast mixture rest until creamy.

Is this creamy?

I had bought new yeast after the white loaves, thinking maybe my yeast was too old. When I went to make the wheat loaves, of course I couldn’t find the new yeast. Serena was trying to avoid her homework and offered to go buy it for me. So I couldn’t blame any failure to rise on my yeast this time. I started to mix and worried about my stand mixer as it heated up and jumped around the counter during the 10 minutes of kneading. The mixer survived and the dough looked great and wasn’t sticky at all. I was not able to find malt extract so I opted to just skip it rather than try to find an adequate replacement.

Before the rise.

You can see by the size of the bowl I chose that I had “high” hopes. I let it sit for 1 1/2 hours to rise. I was working on my Sunday school lesson and checked on it at every breaking point in my lesson plan. It was working, there was pressure and moisture building up under the plastic wrap. The end result was amazing to me, it really did double its size!

It has risen, indeed!

I punched it down, which broke my heart because I was sure it would never rise again, and put it into two loaf pans. They looked so pathetic and small in the pans that I didn’t even take a picture. I busied myself with a garden project outside to avoid checking on it every 15 minutes. An hour later …

They have risen, again!

I put them in to bake and soon the house smelt heavenly. They seemed to be cooking faster than the recipes stated 35 minutes so I took them out of the pan to let the sides turn golden when I had 15 minutes left rather than 10 as the recipe stated. Unfortunately the house soon began to smell like burnt bread. The bottoms were burning but I stuck them back in the pans and all was well.  They turned out beautifully

The final product.

The bread was perfect sandwich bread, moist and tender but a little lacking on the flavor front which is typical of sandwich bread . I wonder if the malt extract would have made a big difference? We are fans of a crusty flavorful bread you want to tear off a chunk of. This was great sandwich bread but I don’t think I like sandwich bread all that much. I found myself think that the Irish Soda bread was a lot easier, quicker and tastier. Oh well if I ever have a need for a whole wheat sandwich bread recipe I’ll have it!

If you would like the full recipe visit the blogs of this week’s hosts at  Veggie Num Nums and Teresa of The Family That Bakes Together.

I’m looking forward to the next recipe, Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Loaf.

Happy Baking!

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