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About 6 months ago or so, we bought a not so fancy bread machine with the idea of baking our own bread, pizza dough and such after I got this idea of baking our own bread at home from another health blog. So I was really thrilled when we started baking on the bread machine – basically you put in all the ingredients, select the type of bread, and after 4 hours or so the bread is ready. I think we might have went through about 7 or 8 loaves of bread and the bread wasn’t so perfect. Here are a few things I don’t like the bread from a bread machine

• The bread comes out in an odd shape.
• My not so fancy machine won’t bake a 1lb loaf – I tried a couple of time and it came out a bit burnt.
• The bread has a hole at the bottom – basically the dough sits on top of the paddle and when you pull out the paddle when the bread is done, it leaves a hole in the bottom.

So kind of disappointed with the bread machine – though I really like the taste of healthy bread loaves.

Then about 3 weeks or so, I came across this very good book on bread titled The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. The author suggests using a bread machine for mixing, kneading, and rising the dough and later shaping and baking in the oven. Yeah definitely takes some extra work but turns out it is definitely worth it.

So far I have tried about 3 loaves with the above method and works real perfect.

Now back on the recipe for Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients: For 1lb loaf
1/4 cup water + 1 tbsp water
3/8 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat – I used King Arthur’s traditional whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
1 tea spoon salt
1 table spoon olive oil
1 table spoon honey
2 tea spoon wheat gluten
2 table spoon flax meal
2 tea spoon active dry yeast

Put all the ingredients in the bread pan (follow the instructions on the manual) and select the dough cycle.

Preheat the oven to 350 C. When the dough cycle ends, empty the dough into a floured surface and shape it into a loaf and let it rise in a greased/floured loaf pan for about 30 minutes. Bake the raised dough in the oven for 30 minutes. Let the bread cool for about an hour before slicing.

You can view other recipes from my blog by clicking here.