Test Kitchen Thursday-White Wheat Bread

Fall is here! and with it comes more time inside, more warm delicious food, and more homemade bread. This week I decided to once and for all find the best white wheat bread recipe and this one is my pick.

Notice this recipe calls for Bread flour—the difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour is basically this: bread flour is a high-gluten flour made with hard wheat flour that has really small amounts of additives (malted barley flour, vitamin C (also known as Ascorbic Acid) or potassium bromate (although you should try to avoid flours that have potassium bromate)) that helps the yeast work and helps increase the elasticity of the gluten. High gluten forms air pockets that make bread rise high and light so, in essence, the extra gluten provides more loftiness and chewiness. Maybe more than you wanted to know.

I have not tried substituting with all purpose flour in this recipe and I don’t plan to. The results were fantastic.

White Wheat Bread— from Toastmaster (bread machine)

1 ½ c. warm water
2 Tbs. oil
2 tsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. salt
4 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs. dry milk
3 c. bread flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
2 tsp. active dry yeast
Mix all together. Let raise 1 hr. Divide into loaf pans, cover, and let raise another 45 min. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Tips--

**This is a bread machine recipe, however, I do not like how the bread turns out baked in the bread machine. So if I were to make it using my bread machine I would put it on the dough setting, and once that is complete divide the loaves and put in loaf pans, cover and let raise for the 45 minutes and then bake it in the oven. After removing from the oven brush some butter on the top and cool on a rack so bread gets a crispy crust.
**If you have a mixer like a KitchenAid or other brand, I mix all together except for the flours in the bowl. Let the yeast activate for 10 minutes or so and then mix in the flours. I have a bread setting on my mixer that "kneads" it for about 3 minutes before I let it raise the first time.
**I usually grease my bowl with shortening or pam before adding the bread dough. Then I put it in a warmed oven (start to preheat your oven, but turn it off after 1 minute or less of preheating) covered with a towel to let it raise.**If you double the recipe it makes 3 LARGE loaves.
**If you have stoneware loaf pans, use them. I like how it cooks better than other loaf pans