A Bit of a Healthier Loaf

I’ve been making James my easy-peasy white bread for the past few weeks, but he likes it so much, I fear I’m turning him diabetic, so I’ve been trying whole wheat versions as well. The loaves haven’t been nearly as tasty or light, so I finally tried including vital wheat gluten and using this recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I weighed the ingredients as outlined in the book, because I’m using Canadian flour, which is heavier. Thus, there is half a cup less flour in this recipe than in the video that follows.

Easy-Peasy Healthy Bread

Ingredients:

5 cups whole wheat flour (if you are using Canadian flour; otherwise it’s 5 1/2 cups)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

1.5 TBS yeast

1 TBS salt

4 cups warm water

Directions: Just watch this short video!

I have to say, the vital wheat gluten REALLY makes the loaf rise well!

I followed the directions and let it rise on the counter until it flattened out and refrigerated the dough overnight. I snipped off a “boule” and weighed it, so that I had a loaf that weighed exactly one pound:

Then left it for two hours (covered in plastic) to rise again. I thought it would rise much more than it did:

The next step is to brush the loaf with water and sprinkle on the seed mixture. I used a combo of pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, and poppy seed:

Then I scored the top, which looks a great deal easier in the video. It does take two or three passes with a bread knife. In the past, when I made baguettes on the regular, I had a special Xacto knife for scoring the top, but the thin blade doesn’t work very well on this dough:

Meanwhile the baking stone has been heating up in the oven at 450. I slid the loaf onto the stone. Again, it looks a great deal easier in the video–you definitely have to nudge it off a bit. I then poured a cup of water into the broiling pan beneath the baking stone. The steam will apparently create a perfect crust.

Aaaaaand….indeed it does!