Whole Wheat Bread

The smell of baking bread is so enticing. It drifts through your home, inviting you to breathe deeply of its earthy scent. It beckons you to wander into the kitchen and tempts you to open the oven door to peek at its golden domes. After it's done baking, the bread sits smugly on your counter, nearly driving you crazy with its heady scent. You wait impatiently for it to cool, so you can slather a piece with creamy butter and enjoy its savory chew. Sometimes a bread is delicious enough for you to forsake the modern convenience of store-bought bread and decide to go back to the days of your pioneering forefathers where bread was baked fresh every Monday.

This recipe combines all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour, for a bread that is pleasantly dense with great wheat flavor that doesn't overpower. It is sensible enough for everyday sandwich bread, but yummy enough to make lunchtime a treat.

I got this recipe from a wonderful blog that I have been following recently. The blogger, Kristen, makes her own bread for her family every week and this is the recipe she uses. I think she converted me. I realized that baking bread really isn't that hard (especially if you use an electric mixer to knead it) and its so rewarding.

I followed her recipe pretty closely, except that I kneaded my bread with my KitchenAid mixer instead of by hand. In step 4, instead of kneading by hand, I switched to my dough hook and kneaded on medium for 5-7 minutes, until the dough cleared the sides of the bowl and sprang back at the touch of my finger. I then kneaded by hand for a minute before placing in the bowl to rise.