Honey Wheat Bread

One of Lee's complaints about the US is that the bread is too small! His English side of the family is made of big eaters. His little 9 year old brother can well out-eat me! All of my friends are shocked when they see how much he eat, and the most surprising thing is that he isn't very big! Well, he's tall, but not round in the slightest.

Anyway, back to the bread. The bread I buy in the US, (Home Pride Wheat) is about 4" x 4" but the bread he likes in England is about 6" x 6". That's quite a difference! Since I bought my Kitchen Aid® I wanted to give it a shot and after searching for larger bread pans, found one by Wilton that is huge!

I was wondering how much dough I should make, and was thinking I'd have to double recipes, but I was excited to see that it comes with a recipe for Honey Wheat Bread! I just had to give it a go.

I looked at my instructions for my Kitchen Aid® to see how much I could make, I remembered seeing a note in it that told how much flour you could use at a time. Since this is a big recipe, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to overload my brand new mixer! The directions said not to use more than 10 cups all-purpose flour or 6 cups whole wheat flour when making dough in a mixer the size of mine, since this recipe called for 8 cups flour total, I thought that maybe it might compromise and work out ok.

Since I have never made a bread in one of these things before, I did have some problems, but I don't know if it's because of me or because I had too much dough in my mixer. The dough actually crept up and was higher than the top of the hook. I found out I accidentally had it at too high a speed as well (it says not to put it to a higher speed than 2 with the dough hook and I put it to 4). I'll have to try it one more time and then see if it works. I ended up divining the dough into two parts for the kneading and it worked a little better after that.

I was wondering how difficult it would be to roll out to the size needed, but it wasn't difficult at all and I didn't even need to flour the surface first.

It turned out fantastic! Neither Lee nor I could stop eating it. The bread wasn't as wide as what he likes in England, but he felt the height was so much better, a good compromise for now. I could not stop myself from eating slice after slice, and it tasted AMAZING with just a little butter on it.

The only other thing now is for me to figure out the best way to slice it up! I did ok, but it was tricky.

Be sure to half the recipe unless you have the same pan I do, or plan to make two loaves.

Honey Wheat Bread

4½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons salt
2 packages (2¼ teaspoons) instant yeast
1½ cups milk
1½ cups water
¼ cup honey
¼ cup oil
4 cups whole wheat flour

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups all-purpose flour, salt and yeast.
2. In a separate bowl, or pan, heat milk, water, honey, and oil until hot to the touch or about 125°F.
   
3. Gradually add liquids to the dry ingredients and beat for about two minutes at medium speek.
   
4. Add 1 cup-all purpose flour, beat at high for 2 more minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
   
5. Switch to dough hook, and gradually add the whole wheat flour, and enough remaining all-purpose flour to form a stiff dough. Knead until smooth and elastic.
6. Place in a greased bowl and coat. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
   
7. Turn out dough and roll to 18" x 10" rectangle. Roll up from the long end to make a loaf.
   
8. Pinch the seam ends and seal. Place, seam side down in greased pan, cover, and let rise until doubled in size (about 30 minutes).
   
9. Bake at 375°F f or 35 minutes or until done.
   
10. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.
    
11. When cooled, slice and enjoy!