How to make your own bread: A time-consuming yet healthy alternative

Here's a great recipe for honey wheat bread. Although I can't see myself doing this often, making your own bread is a great experience. For one, it's interesting to realize how much work it takes to make something as seemingly simple as a loaf of bread. Secondly, fresh bread is great; so much better than your normal store bought bread. Eating a slice of bread fresh and hot out of the oven is just too good!

This is my friend's family recipe. My friend's mom, Betsy, taught us how to bake bread, and this recipe has been passed down through generations from mother to daughter. Now I'm passing it on to you, so use it well!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups hot water

4 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oil

1/3 cup honey

1 envelope yeast

1 tablespoon salt

1 cup white flour

1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

We made this bread in the most traditional way possible. The first thing we did was to grind the wheat. Yes, we ground our own wheat.  Betsy has a grinder that we filled with grains that she buys. It is an electric grinder, though, so all we had to do was fill up the grinder and then let the grains pass through and come out as wheat! However, this grinder can also be used manually if you really want to prepare the bread in an extremely old-fashioned.  Fresh wheat makes the bread taste better, and it is probably more nutritious and hearty.  However, I can't imagine many students would follow this step, even if they were ambitious enough to make bread. So, here's the rest of the recipe once you have either ground or bought wheat.

Mix the yeast, flour and white flour (Make sure the yeast is fresh because it can die and your bread won't rise).

Add the honey, hot water, salt and oil into the bread maker, then add the flour mixture.

 Mix the dough in the bread maker on high for five minutes.

A bread maker is essentially a mixer specialized for bread. A normal electric mixer works well too, but this one is stronger and can mix the bread even faster.

Once the bread is mixed, knead the dough for around 10 minutes

Kneading is an important step because it stretches the dough, develops the gluten and helps even out the consistency of the bread. The trick to kneading is to fold and push the dough over and over in a consistent pattern. Knead the dough for a few minutes until the bread has loosened up and has an even and light consistency. It is hard to judge how long to knead the dough for and, although this is an imprecise measurement, you normally should just rely on feel and stop kneading when the dough feels ready to you. If you stick your finger in the dough and the indent remains, then the bread is ready to rise. Surprisingly, the act of kneading gets tiring pretty quickly, but make sure you continue until the dough is ready.

Divide the dough into four even loaf in greased pans.

Let the loaves rise from 45 to 90 minutes

The amount of time really varies depending on the size of your loaf and the weather. The hotter it is, the less time is needed.  Betsy taught us to wait until they "look a good size," so it's up to you to judge whatever that means to you. Also, covering the loaves with a thin cloth and setting them by the window reduces rising time as well.

Cook in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes

Enjoy!