I've made this bread before, but I never got around to writing the recipe up. We were all out of bread, so I decided to try it again today. I am quite pleased with how it came out! It rose very well and even got a decent little spring in the oven. Historically my 100% whole wheat breads have had good flavour but have been a bit denser than I would've liked. I haven't sliced this one yet, but based on how it looks and the feel of the loaf, I definitely think this is one of my best ones yet.

This is the very first recipe in the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. It has an entire chapter to itself. All the tools, ingredients, and techniques are covered in detail. This is a single-loaf recipe meant to be practiced to get used to the techniques involved and the textures and timings required. I'm not going to try to duplicate that level of detail here as I don't want to plagiarize (and, honestly, I'm not really interested in doing that much typing for this anyway).

I wanted two loaves today, so I doubled all the quantities from the Laurel's Kitchen recipe. Obviously, if you only want one loaf, just halve the amounts listed here to get back to the original. (You can also probably cut the kneading time down by about half as well.)

A Loaf for Learning

Slightly adapted from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

• 3/4 c. warm water
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast
• 850g whole wheat flour
• 50g gluten flour (optional)¹
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 1/3 c. hot tap water
• 2/3 c. plain yogurt
• 3 Tbsp. honey
• 1/4 c. canola (or other neutral) oil

Directions

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Combine the flour(s) and salt and make a well in the centre.
3. Combine the yogurt and warm water to make a lukewarm mixture.
4. Stir the honey into the yogurt mixture.
5. Pour the honey mixture and the yeast mixture into the well in the centre of the flour.
6. Gradually stir the flour into the wet ingredients, working from the centre outward.
7. The Laurel's Kitchen folks recommend evaluating the dough at this point to see if it needs more flour or water. I prefer to knead it for 5-10 minutes first and then make adjustments as needed. Don't worry if all the flour hasn't been incorporated into the dough when you first turn it out. It will get worked in as you knead. Avoid adding any more flour if at all possible. It's much better if the dough is a bit too slack than a too tight. The dough may seem very wet, sticky, and/or fragile at first, but it will become smoother, stronger, and less sticky as it's worked. If the dough is too stiff, work in more water a couple teaspoons at a time.
8. After kneading for a while and making any adjustments, start working in the oil². (Pour a couple tablespoons of oil over the dough and/or work surface and knead until fully incorporated. Then add the next portion of oil and repeat.)
9. Once the dough is well-kneaded and has taken on a smooth, silky texture (20-40 minutes depending on your technique), place it in a clean (ungreased) bowl covered with plastic wrap and/or a damp cloth to rise. This should take 1-2 hours depending on the temperature of the room.
10. The rise is done when the dough holds the impression of a finger poked ~1cm in. If it fills in, it's under-proved and needs to rise a bit longer. If it sighs and sinks back a bit around the fingerprint, it's over-proved and should've been knocked back a little earlier.
11. Turn the dough out (I prefer an unfloured surface for this as I try to avoid adding any extra flour after kneading). Press out the accumulated bubbles and deflate the dough.
12. Shape into a ball and return to the bowl, cover, and leave to rise again. (The second rise is supposed to go a bit faster, but I actually found all my rises needed about an hour today.)
13. Turn the dough out and press the gas out again.
14. Divide into two equal portions and shape into balls, smoothing the tops to create a smooth sheet of gluten.
15. Leave to rest for 10 minutes to allow gluten to relax.
16. Shape your loaves by pressing each ball into a round, folding it in thirds, and rolling it up.
17. Place into greased loaf tins and cover with a damp cloth to rise.
18. If the bread has risen particularly well, slash the tops to give it room to spring in the oven.
19. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for ~1 hour.

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¹ If you have good hard bread flour, you probably won't need the extra gluten -- just use a full 900g of whole wheat bread flour. I was using all-purpose flour, so I replaced a little of the whole wheat flour with gluten flour. If your flour is very soft, you'll probably want to use even more gluten flour. ^Back
2 The original recipe actually has you add the oil with the rest of the wet ingredients, but for the rest of the book it says to make sure you develop the gluten a bit and then work any oil or butter in about halfway through the kneading, so that's what I did for this one. ^Back