Over the past six months or so, I have taken various “baby steps” toward living a healthier lifestyle and preparing more nutritious, wholesome food for my family. One of the latter steps was to start making bread from scratch; homemade bread has many, many benefits including the cost (much cheaper than store-bought!), the taste (few things are more comforting than a warm slice of bread fresh from the oven) and nutrition. I can control what goes in our bread and what doesn’t–no preservatives, refined sugars, food dyes or artificial flavors. 

However, it can be rather time consuming to make our own bread; I often tried to make large batches for the freezer at a time, but even that often took more time than I had. So I decided to try to adapt the recipe for my bread machine (a birthday gift from my sweet husband!). And I am so happy to report that it worked! At first, I just tried it with enough for one loaf of bread (a quarter of the original recipe by Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking); I also only made the dough in the bread machine because I like to bake it in the oven, but that is simply personal preference. Next time I’ll try to make a double batch of dough to save even more time! 

This recipe also has the added benefit of incorporating soaking the flour; as I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, soaking whole wheat (or any whole grain, really) flour helps breakdown phytates that prevent your body from absorping nutrients. In addition, the acid medium essentially starts digesting the grain before you even eat it, so it is much easier for your body to digest. As a person suffering from digestive issues (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), I can tell a huge difference when I eat non-soaked grains vs. soaked grains. So soaking not only helps you receive more of the nutritional benefits of whole grains, but it also makes digesting them easier! In the coming weeks, I am hoping to write a series of posts on simple steps to take toward a healthier diet, so stay tuned! And now to the recipe!

freshly baked bread

Soaked Whole Wheat Bread in the Bread Machine (produces 1 loaf)

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar (or whey, kefir, buttermilk or yogurt) plus enough water to make 1 cup

2 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats 

1/4 cup honey

3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil (or olive oil or melted butter)

2 Tbsp. coarsely ground flax seed

2 Tbsp. hot water

1/4 tsp. honey

1 3/4 tsp. yeast

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten

Put water/vinegar mixture, flour, oats, honey, oil and flax seed in the pan of your bread machine in the manufacturer’s recommended order (mine says to do liquids first then solid ingredients). Turn the bread machine on the dough cycle and let run for about five minutes, until all the ingredients are well mixed. Turn off the machine and let this sit for 12-24 hours.

After the soaking period, combine the 2 Tbsp. water, honey and yeast and let sit for 5-10 minutes to activate the yeast (mixture should rise and become foamy). Add the yeast/water/honey, salt and gluten to the flour in the bread machine. Select the dough cycle and watch it for the first few minutes to make sure it doesn’t need more flour. I only needed to add about 1 tsp. 

When the dough cycle is finished (mine takes 120 minutes), dump the dough onto a flour surface. Roll into a rectangle, then roll up to fit in your loaf pan. Place in greased loaf pan and allow it to rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for half an hour, until crust is brown and it sounds hollow if you tap on the bottom of the loaf. You can brush the crust with melted butter to keep it extra soft.