Bread Mixes

I love good homemade bread. Wonderbread just doesn't cut it. I really enjoy the wheat bread from Great Harvest, but I have a bad tendency to also purchase a loaf of their pumpkin chocolate chip bread when I go there. A few months ago I pulled out my bread machine and started using it faithfully again. Making bread in the bread machine certainly isn't hard, but I was looking for a way to make it even easier after the twins arrived. It can take some time, especially if I need to grind the wheat. In order to streamline this process, I decided to put together my own bread mixes for my machine. It took me about an hour to put together a dozen mixes for our favorite wheat bread. I ground a couple cans of wheat and lined up 12 Ziploc bags, measured the ingredients for each, sealed the bag, and put them in the freezer.

This morning I decided to make bread. All I had to do is pull out my mix and add water and yeast. It took me two minutes compared to the 15 it usually takes to pull everything out and measure it all. Around here 13 minutes is a big deal.

50% Whole Wheat Bread
(from the cookbook for my Panasonic bread machine)

1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 cups bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp wheat gluten (opt)
1 1/2 tsp dough enhancer (opt)
2 TB dry milk
2 tsp salt
2 TB butter
2 TB molasses
1 7/16 cups water

The original recipe doesn't call for the gluten or dough enhancer, but I think they really help.

She really does like the bread. Claire just woke up from a nap and wouldn't smile for me.