King Arthur says that this bread is basically the one that appeared on the back of flour packages as “The Easiest Bread You’ll Ever Bake.” They’re probably right; although it’s not as easy as, say, a no-knead recipe, it’s certainly one of the nicest and easiest to work with doughs I’ve ever made. I substituted the final bits of my 12-grain flour blend and some semolina to give it some more heft, and divided into individual rolls for sandwiches throughout the week; the recipe divided well into twelve sandwich sized rolls.

The recipe is written originally for active dry yeast, so it has built in activation time at the beginning of the recipe. I use instant yeast, so I didn’t really need that step, but I kept it in anyway.

Instead of waiting for things to dissolve, I just whisked everything together and the sugar dissolved well enough. The yeast really broke up as well from their clumps and the whole liquid became kind of milky.

In goes the flour; the original recipe called for 5 1/2 to 6 cups, depending on how humid your environment is, I suppose. 5 1/2 cups was plenty for me and turned the dough into a very workable, only slightly sticky dough.

I mixed it up a bit with my hand mixer, but then I just kneaded it by hand for the most part. Like I said, this has got to be the easiest dough I’ve worked with, very pleasant to knead.

After rising you can see just how pretty this dough ball is. At least, it’s pretty to me. Nice and smooth and easy to work with, you don’t have to worry about this one welding itself to your hand as you try to shape it.

Shaping these little guys was really easy too: just tuck in the bottom all the way around until you have a smooth surface on one side, then put the bottom down on a baking sheet covered in cornmeal.

After the buns rise another time, brush or spray them with cold water and slash them. They go into the oven with a pan of water that has been preheating; this is meant to create steam and result in a crustier loaf, but I even though I did this and let them cool in the oven with the door slightly propped (also supposed to create a crustier loaf), the crust softened like it does in all my breads. Oh well, it’s probably better for sandwiches that way. To be fair, the crust was more robust than in my previous loaves. The crumb was light and the semolina and the whole grain flour added a nice tooth to the bread. While not strictly the absolute easiest bread I’ve ever made, it was certainly one of the nicest in the making process.

Easy Whole Wheat Hearth Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon (1 packet) instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups warm water (not over 110°F)
• 1/2 cup 12-grain flour blend
• 1 cup semolina
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• cornmeal

Directions

1. Mix together the first four ingredients. Let this stand until the yeastt, sugar and salt are dissolved. Gradually add the flour to the liquid and mix thoroughly until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface to knead. Knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling only enough flour on your kneading surface to prevent sticking. Let the dough rest while you scrape out and grease the mixing bowl. Knead the dough again for 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Return the dough to the bowl and turn it over once to grease the top. Cover with greased plastic wrap and keep warm until the dough doubles in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours.
4. Punch down the dough with your fist and briefly knead out any air bubbles. Divide the dough into as many pieces as you want rolls (I chose 12). Place the rolls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover the rolls and let rise for 45 minutes.
5. Lightly slash the tops of the loaves 3 or more times diagonally and brush them with cold water.
6. Preheat the oven and roasting pan with water to 500°F for 15 minutes. Brush the loaves with cold water, place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 400°F and bake for 15 to 20 more minutes, until the rolls are golden brown.

When the weekend rolls around, I want relatively quick, tasty and filling meal in the morning. We usually get up late enough that we don’t eat both breakfast and lunch, instead relying on our brunch to fill us up until dinner. But we’re also more inclined to go for a traditional breakfast food instead of something more lunchy. Thus, we fall back on pancakes a lot. The batter goes together in a flash, and the whole batch cooks up in less than 20 minutes usually. Normally we go for Alton Brown’s standard buttermilk pancakes, which is our favorite recipe, but last weekend I wanted to mix it up a bit to keep us from getting bored. Flipping through AB’s book I’m Just Here for More Food, I decided to go for the whole wheat pancakes, which are almost identical to the regular pancakes, they just use whole wheat flour instead.

Alton Brown mixes his pancakes in what he calls the “Muffin Method.” Like many of his methods, it starts by combining all the dry ingredients together and all the wet ingredients together first, making sure they are well combined. One thing I should mention is that I never have buttermilk around the house, so I always substitute a little less than 2 cups of milk plus two tablespoons of lemon juice. I actually prefer this combination to the buttermilk because it makes the batter more liquid and the pancakes spread better on the griddle.

The dry and wet ingredients are then combined; more precisely, the wet ingredients are always added to the dry, which makes it easier to mix without overmixing.

See the lumps peeking out? It is important to not try to get the batter smooth, which will result in flat pancakes. Just make sure it’s all combined, and that all the flour has been mixed in from the sides and bottom of the bowl. At this point, the batter rests for 5 minutes.

You can cook the pancakes in a frying pan or sauté pan, but a non-stick griddle pan is the best. No oil or butter needed!

They were definitely tasty, with more body than the regular pancakes. The 100% whole wheat did give the pancakes somewhat of a coarser texture, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I think in the future I might go for the best of both worlds and do 1/2 all-purpose flour and 1/2 whole wheat. Regardless, I know they’ll be on our plates again.

Whole Wheat Pancakes (adapted from Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for More Food)

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 large eggs
• slightly less than 2 cups milk, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Directions

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk well. In a medium-sized bowl whisk the wet ingredients until thoroughly combined
2. Stir wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients and mix until the batter just comes together. Do not overmix; there should be lumps left in the batter. Allow the batter to rest for 5 minutes.
3. While the batter is resting, preheat a griddle pan over medium-low heat. If the pan isn’t nonstick, rub it down with a little butter. The griddle is ready when water dances across the surface.
4. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form in the batter and the bottom is golden, approximately 3 minutes. Flip and cook until the second side is golden, about 2 minutes.
5. Serve right away or keep the pancakes warm in an oven set to “warm”, or the lowest heat setting.

Hey everyone, I’m back, and I have a ton of posts to write up. First, the weekly bread! I try to mix it up when I’m making sandwich bread for the week, and last week I decided to go for a straight up classic sandwich loaf bread. I am constantly on the crusade for the perfect sandwich loaf, and one of the stipulations is that I be able to slice it fairly thinly without it falling apart. This usually requires a good tight crumb, so whole wheat breads actually help in this respect. I’ve made King Arthur’s Oatmeal Toasting and Sandwich Bread (which happens to be the recipe on the back of the bread flour bag) before, and it was definitely tasty. I thought I had made it with a substitution of whole wheat flour for part of the recipe, but while I was making it this time I decided that I had not. I was a little concerned about the heaviness of the dough, but it turned out great.

First, all the dry goods get mixed together. I substituted one cup of the bread flour for 100% whole wheat flour. Some oatmeal bread recipes have you give the oats a whirl in a food processor to break them up into smaller pieces, but this one doesn’t and they’ve never stuck out in the finished bread.

This dough was so heavy. Seriously, it weighed a ton, and my dough hooks wanted to slice right through it, it was so dense. I was so afraid this bread would be a brick. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The kneaded dough wasn’t super smooth, but it wasn’t that sticky either.

The yeast produced a lot of air, and it was considerably less dense after the first rise.

The dough is formed into a loaf and placed into a greased loaf pan for the second rise. I think in the past I’ve just dumped it into the pan without shaping and it came out fine, but shaping it probably results in a more even top.

It didn’t take too long for the loaf to crown the pan… I let it go a bit longer than an inch above the rim, as you see, but that worked out for the best because the bread settled a bit upon baking and it turned out to be a good sized loaf.

Perfect. It wasn’t that heavy at all in the end, and it made good sandwiches. I think the crumb was tighter than when I made it previously using all bread flour, which worked in its favor for slicing. Even when I got a little thin with my slices, the bread didn’t break apart completely apart, though I definitely was better off with thicker slices. Not perfect, but pretty good!

Oatmeal Wheat Sandwich Bread (adapted from King Arthur’s Oatmeal Toasting and Sandwich Bread)

Ingredients

• 2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon whole-grain bread improver
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the dry ingredients ingredients.
2. Whisk together the wet ingredients in another bowl until they are combined. Add to dry ingredients and mix to form a shaggy dough.
3. Knead dough, by hand (10 minutes) or by machine (5 minutes) until it comes together and is fairly smooth.
4. Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and allow it to rise for 1 hour.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface, and shape it into a log.
6. Place the log in a lightly greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, cover the pan and allow the dough to rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour, till it’s crested at least 2 inches over the rim of the pan.
7. Toward the end of this rise preheat the oven to 350ºF.
8. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 190°F.