Home Made - Whole Wheat Sweet Bread

It has been my long term wish to bake a bread at home... After much surfing and checking recipes, videos I finally succeeded in making one. After the experience I think, if we plan to bake ordinary breads, like the ones we get in stores then efforts will pay off only if we bake in large quantities. If the plan is to bake just one loaf, then I would suggest buying it. But then the advantage of baking at home is that we are sure about the ingredients that went in.

So I decided to bake a whole wheat sweet bread, since this is not easily available at stores. I took a mix of various recipes. And the dough preparation techniques from Vah re Vah.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour - 3 cups
Water - 1 cup
Butter - 50 grams
Yeast - 20 grams
Sugar - 50 grams
Raisins - 25 grams
Salt - to taste

Method:

• Heat the water to about 50-60 degree Centigrade. The water should be luke warm and not hot otherwise the yeast will die of. 
• Add the sugar and dissolve well. Add yeast and keep it aside for about 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile mix the wheat flour, salt and raisins evenly and keep aside.

• After 15 minutes the yeast should have bubbled up. Heat the butter and add it to the yeast water and mix well.
• Add the flour mix little by little and knead it into a dough. 
• The texture of the bread depends upon how well you knead the dough. I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes until it became soft. There is a technique called "folding the dough" which is explained very well in the vah re vah site which I have linked earlier. Folding the dough will make the dough soft and gives a smooth and shiny look to the dough.
• Now grease the dough with little butter. Cover it with a wet cloth and keep it in a warm place for about 2 hours.
• After 2 hours the dough would have risen to double its size.
• Now grease the bread container with butter. Take the dough and punch it gently so as to release the air.
• Knead it for another 2 mins. Make it in the shape of the container and place it in the container which we have already greased with butter. 
• Close it with a wet cloth and leave it aside for about 45 minutes.
• The dough should have again risen in the container.
• Now pre-heat the oven at 185 degree centigrade.
• Bake the bread for about 30 minutes.

After baking, remove the bread from the container and place it in a wired rack and allow it to cool.
Slice the bread and make interesting sandwiches.

People at my place didn't have the patience to allow the bread to cool completely. Even before I cut the bread into slices people started munching it. To my delight they loved it. The bread came out wonderful and it was interesting to eat it with butter and jam.

Linking this post to the Cooking with whole foods event guest hosted by Nivedhanam

Linking this post to Lets party every month event guest hosted by Nivedhanam